Georgetown (March 10 to 13, 2011)

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Washington, D.C., for an academic conference (the Georgetown University Roundtable, or GURT). Naturally I was keen to take photos--Georgetown is a pretty picturesque place.



Above: First evening in Georgetown, out for a nice walk to find dinner.



Above: A lovely refurbished house near the university. I remember first seeing large older brick houses when on a trip from New Zealand to Canada, and I've always loved them, particularly those with funky windows and trim like this one.



Above: Something I learned about Americans is that they are obsessed with cupcakes. This line-up is for a very popular cupcake shop. There were also some girls trying to take a photo in front of it, one of those staged pictures where everyone jumps into the air at once. But they were having a really hard time getting the shot due to passing cars, lack of coordination, etc. Eventually they managed to pull it off.



Above: A nice Gothic night-time shot of Georgetown University.



Above: Plenty of original or original-looking detailing on houses in the area, including many old-style wooden front doors.



Above: Lots of lovely townhouses with wrought iron stairs and windows. I think this is part of why Georgetown reminded me of Montreal.



Above: Martin's Tavern. This is a great little pub with excellent food, where John F. Kennedy had a single booth right by the front door; in fact there's a strong history of presidential patronage there. I had the Shepherd's Pie and it was delicious.



Above: Bridge at 26th and M Streets. I had to cross this bridge to get from the hotel to the section of M Street where all the restaurants could be found.



Above: This place (at the corner of 30th and M Streets) made me laugh with its subtitle, "King of Falafel and Cheese Steaks". I didn't really know what a cheese steak was until I looked it up. Turns out I'd actually tried it before, though under a different name. Amusing, since I'd previously had this image of something more like a ham steak but made of cheese.



Above: Beautiful wrought-iron on a window near the university.

Hamilton Health Sciences (February 28, 2011)

It was definitely a good night for photos last Monday. While I was walking to the bus stop by McMaster Health Sciences, I decided to take some pictures of the hospital. As I've mentioned before in this blog, I love the extremes created by night-time lighting and the unfamiliarity they imbue.



This green was a really eerie colour. "The X-Files" is one of my favourite TV shows, and this picture reminds me of something from one of those government test sites where alien foetuses are suspended in rows of dimly-lit glass tanks.



Something ghostly about this. It's probably an elevator shaft and/or a stairwell, but the effect is again altered by the pale fuzzed glow from what looks like bright florescent light, pushing up against the glass. It reminds me of driving though Hamilton's east end late at night, seeing the industrial areas lit up bright and somehow completely different, mysterious and enthralling, nothing like the grey jumble revealed in daylight.



I thought this one (above) looked like a spine--a very cybernetic, exoskeletal spine.



The hospital towering like some industrial monstrosity from a Terry Gilliam movie--slabs of concrete that have that weathered staining around the edges, dim yellow light in the windows and the brightness above. I think it's the visibility of what appear to be structural bits of metal, that makes those elevator shafts seem so nakedly mechanical.



I really wanted to show the way that hanging stringy stuff, whatever it was, was lit up like a cobweb by the blue-green light next to it; and I wanted the tree shadow in there as well. The darkness with this combination of different kinds of artificial light, inside and outside, and the glass walls--those things are all adding to the effect. The orange glow in the foreground is partly cast by the lamp near the road where I'm standing.



I liked how it was hard to see anything on the wall around those windows. And you can't see anything inside, either; just this suggestion of activity signalled by the different kinds of light in each room and by the positions of the window shades.



Again with the eerie green light. Strange for that to be coming from a hospital--I suppose that's what I find a bit creepy about it. The fact that the place looks like a big industrial compound, and that I have a bad impression of hospitals being factories where doctors treat patients like objects to be processed.

McMaster Ice Pond (February 28, 2011)

Some images of the campus I took last night on the way home from McMaster University. The buildings you can see are mostly Engineering-related.



We had a bit of a thaw over a couple of days, so a lot of snow and ice melted, forming some very waterlogged ground in the green space at the centre of the campus. I became interested in the way the light was shining off the water (which was rapidly turning to ice) in the gathering darkness.

Christchurch (2001, 2010)

A week ago Christchurch, New Zealand, was hit by the second massive earthquake in under six months. By now most people have had a look at the news coverage, which at this point it mostly about the rising count of the dead and the tireless efforts, both by locals and from international contributors, to sort out the mess and help people start getting on with their lives.

I'm fortunate not to have had any family or friends in Christchurch at the time of the quake. Still I'm sending out my best wishes and hopes for those who were affected by this (including friends of friends).



Above: One of Christchurch's little throwbacks to the "Old Country"--an Avon River with little boats ready for punting, close to the downtown centre.

I couldn't watch the videos, because it was like seeing my worst childhood nightmare come true. I still remember the Civil Defense pamphlets and the earthquake drills in school (get under the desk, get under the doorway). Kiwis know they walk on unstable ground--we know what we live with, but it's still a terrible shock when this happens (not for 80 years has New Zealand seen this kind of damage). I remember as a child waking in the middle of the night to the steady vibration of tremors and waiting to see if it would stop; I was lucky and it always did.



Above: Inside at the Botanical Gardens. Aside for the obvious and awful loss of human lives, I shudder to think what irreparable damage may have been done to structures like these and to the overall cultural infrastructure of the city, which will probably be the last thing to regenerate. So many historic buildings, which in New Zealand is actually a pretty rare thing in an urban area.



City centre, Cathedral Square. I expect the building you see here is no longer standing.



Above: Christchurch's iconic Cathedral in the centre of downtown. The spire at left crumbled and collapsed during the earthquake. Rescuers have been unable to enter the Cathedral so far, given the instability of the walls, but they believe about 20 people to have been inside when the spire came down. This is the most recognisable building in the city, so its collapse has a symbolic weight beyond the physical damage.



Above: A bit of a classic sight--the Wizard of New Zealand in Cathedral Square (I took this in January, 2001). He survived the earthquake and is now leaving Christchurch, since his public stage has been destroyed.



Above: Dandelion fountains near City Hall. For some reason these always remind me of my childhood in the 1980s, though I don't recall whether we had any the same in the area where I grew up. I had seen many pictures of them though, and I was pleased to take photos of my own (this was February, 2010).



Arts centre, across from the Canterbury Museum (February, 2010). Not much hope that these old buildings have survived.

I remember going into this quad to look around while waiting to meet up with a friend by the Botanical Gardens across the street. A man was letting his little son run around the place. His son, who was still quite young (under five I think), had developmental problems--possibly Down's Syndrome, I can't quite recall. We got into a discussion about politics, class, education and funding of the school system; I remember asking him about the decile rankings of schools. It was surprisingly easy conversation between two people who'd only met five minutes before. I remember thinking how much I liked the frankness and friendliness of the people and the place--not just Christchurch but the whole country--it was one small memorable moment among many in that action-packed trip, but it stood out.

I hope he and his family are OK.

Terry Fallis @ Ron Joyce Centre (February 24, 2011)

Today I was lucky enough to catch a talk by author and PR practitioner Terry Fallis at McMaster's Ron Joyce Centre in Burlington. Introduced by Master's of Communication Management program director Dr. Terry Flynn, Mr. Fallis discussed his experiences using social media (primarily podcasting) to find a market for his self-published first novel, "The Best Laid Plans". He also touched on the implications of social media for public relations practitioners.

Below: Preparing to speak to students of Communication Management.



Mr. Fallis won the Stephen Leacock Medal for "The Best Laid Plans" in 2008, and just last month for the same novel he also won the national "Canada Reads" contest run by the CBC. He's since had a sequel published, "The High Road".



I always enjoy taking pictures of people "performing" (to me, public speaking is always performing, just as much as acting or singing would be). Below: This particular speaker used a lot of hand gestures (as I know I do too), so I tried to capture that in the pictures. I'm not sure exactly what's being referenced in the one below, but it looks significant!



Below: a rapt audience (the rest of the class is out of view).



Below: This was one of my two favourite pictures from the talk. I love how the camera just focussed on his hand (also the microphone), I think that happened because I moved the camera and it didn't have time to re-focus on his face. A great effect though.



Below: This was my other favourite picture. I'm not quite sure why, it just has a nice feeling to it.



More hand gestures--I had quite a few more shots like that, they turned out surprisingly well. I decided not to go overboard and post a whole slew of them here. Taking photos like these reminds me of the 30-second gesture drawings we used to do as warm-ups in figure-drawing class at NSCAD. The photos turn out like those drawings did: many of them slightly "off", some that look pretty good, and maybe a few that "catch" something really interesting.

Feet (Part 1) 2000-2010

By the river. Ottawa, Ontario. April 2000. I went to visit Ottawa for the first time, with my friend Lucas from Halifax, and took this picture as we were sitting by the bridge closest to Parliament Hill. It's the first picture I can find that involves my feet, and I think I took it because we were having short rest/observation stop and I was fiddling with my camera. Those sneakers were always incredibly bouncy, due to their thick soles.



Zines. Hamilton, Ontario. March 31st, 2003. My mother gave me those sheepskin slippers which were from New Zealand; I wore them until they couldn't really be worn any more. Spread out in front of me are zine-making materials. This was the last zine I made before going back to university (McMaster) in May 2003. The spray bottle of water in the left upper corner was a tool to keep the cat from rolling around on my project-in-progress ("cat discipline").



Highway to Guelph. Ontario. May, 2005. Just a spring airing, a country drive with D.D. though I'd never visited Guelph before so I was quite interested to see the place.



Cooling off. Lake Tekapo, Mackenzie Country. New Zealand. February 4th, 2010. We (our Stray bus) visited this lake on the way up to Christchurch, to take a look at the Church of the Good Shepherd which is perched iconically on the shore. I waded into the clear, cold water and watched some ducks gliding past a little way off, oblivious to my presence. It was completely peaceful in spite of the tourists milling around the church behind me.



Longitude zero (Greenwich Meridian). Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England. March 15, 2008. Here I am standing with, literally, one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western one. It's hard not to be struck by the arbitrariness of the line, which, though so solid looking, has actually been moved about quite a bit over time. History is a funny thing.

Full Moon, Bay & Front Streets (February 16, 2011)

Downtown Toronto, in the financial district across from Union Station.

Grass Shadow (May 25, 2010)

I like pictures that disorient.

This one is tricky to untangle, but as the one who took the picture, I get the pleasure of revealing the answer to a bit of a visual riddle. The photo was taken at Eglinton West subway station in Toronto, which has glass walls along the platform. I think it was later in the afternoon, and the sun was slanting at an angle that cast the plants' shadows against the glass. It's an unusual visual effect, probably because you can see both the shadows and the plants themselves behind them, and there is a thin layer of dust on the outside of the glass that is lit up by the sun, creating extra contrast.*

The ghosts of grasses.


*The "look" in this picture always reminds me of the video for "Go!" by Lemon Jelly.

Snowpocalypse (February 1, 2010)

For those who were bundled up inside last night, toasting their toes by a fire or a heating vent, you'll be pleased to note that I was in fact outside with a waterproof camera, taking pictures of the nasty snowstorm that hit sometime after 9pm.

We all knew it was coming of course, thanks to many media warnings; so most people were tucked away safely by the time the snow actually arrived. I, on the other hand, had been hanging out at a friend's place until about 10:45 PM; by the time I got outside the snow and wind had picked up, making things less than pleasant for my trip home by public transportation. The upside was the pictures, which turned out quite nicely given that I wasn't willing to go out of my way to capture any special effects or locations.



10:47 PM: Queen at George Street between King West & Main West, looking east towards Hess Street.



Queen Street north of Main West, looking towards King West: The castle-like structure seen through the trees is the Scottish Rite building.



Streetlamp on Queen Street, north of Main Street West.



Main Street West at the corner of Queen South: GO buses and city buses (Hamilton Street Railway) kept running, thankfully; it didn't take me too long to get home.



Queen Street South at Main, facing Southwest: A strong wind was whipping up the hill here. I was glad I'd bothered to bring a hat.



10:53 PM: Waiting for the bus on Main Street West at Hess; south side, looking West.



11:11 PM: Main East at Emerald, south side facing west. The wind was whipping eddies of powdery snow across the ground--like water across a river bed, or sand in a desert storm--which were illuminated in this picture by the car headlights.



Parking lot, Emerald Street at Main East: walking towards the alley, the sky's lit up by lights bouncing off the clouds and the flying snow. Cloudy, snowy nights in the city are always eerily bright in this way, as the electric glow of human activity is amplified umpteen thousand times in miniature by whirling airborne reflective flakes.