Thomas Forsyth

So I bumped into this guy Thomas Forsyth cruising around I forget where now, but it was for another piece of his work with spinning tops but I'm a huge chess fan and when I found this I thought it was just way too neat!

UPDATE: I forgot about this, but the GZA from Wu-Tang is also obsessed with chess, he believes teaching kids to play at a young age will assist in taking on the world and taking over it. Read more here. He wrote a ultimatum about it for Frank 151 but I couldn't find it. If you can it's awesome.

Goodbye Christmas

We finally took down the Christmas tree. But instead of just taking it outside and leaving it on the side of the road. We decided to utilize this and heat our home, so I cut off all the branches and sawed it into sections and we had a roaring fire all night. All with my Swiss Army knife too! Here is all that's left.

we sure do!

Allan Gardens Conservatory

Had a weekend off for a change which was nice. It's not often Sonia and I have corresponding days off so we took the opportunity to visit the Allan Garden's Conservatory just a block away from our place. It is part of the Toronto Botanical Gardens and is almost 100 years old with over 16 000 square ft of greenhouses all interlinked with different sections and different temperatures and moisture levels it's really awesome. Areas for tropical plants, palms, seasonal cooler trees, a cacti desert section, ponds, water falls, bridges and a water wheel. If you get a chance I suggest you make a visit, it's open 7 days a week 10-5 and it is 100% FREE. I have more photos posted on my flickr, go here to see!

Flickr Update

I posted some new stuff on flickr, nothing special, but if you're bored. click here.

Emily came over tonight, was so good to see her. Welcome home!

Moist Beaver

Moist Beaver... you may be thinking I'm on a new porn craze lately, Last post with the pixel porn and now Moist Beaver? But let me put you at ease I am not going through puberty again.

Here is a little blurb on what Moist Beaver really is.
Taken from their website

Moist Beaver magazine is a production featuring new aspiring artists and art culture in Toronto and surrounding areas: functioning as a method of publicity, and giving these artists a place to be projected into the public eye and be discussed. The world of art feeds off itself and there is a need for a place to publicly view and analyze art and the contemporary issues that artists and young up and coming adults are addressing today. This magazines goal is exactly that; we have a fun youthful flare and we approach the issues concerning the young adult population.

There are very few platforms for visual artists in Canada to connect, and to gain exposure. In our overly structured society, which revolves around money and connections, artist tend to find it hard to make a name for themselves, despite whether they are talented or not. This magazines function is 3 fold:

1. A platform for artists to view other work of their contemporaries, gain insight and advice from others, and get ideas for their own practice, as well as broaden their horizons about mediums techniques and opportunities that exist in the artistic world for young artists.

2. A place for artists to gain exposure, exhibit talent and make connections. As well as a place for artists (and commercial photographers, writers, etc) to showcase their talent, add to their resume and expand their knowledge.

3. A way for people to address and read about current issues, connect with the culture in the emerging youth of Canada, and a place for people to voice opinions, and ideas about society, change, and our physical world.

Or just check it out for yourself here.

Emily is the girl smoking the cigar on the main page in gray, she recently had some photos featured in the latest issue which is available online you can download here. You should totally do it!

UPDATE: I thought this needed a picture so I added one.
photos by: Emily Marie Collins, Jen Mann and Erika Brodzky

Jean-Yves Lemoigne

Pixxxel Porn. So I bumped into this photographer Jean-Yves Lemoigne while cruising around on It's Nice That only to later realize that i'd already been to his site for something else I saw on a post on Main Vein by resident blogger sp, then to again fall upon it on Fabrik so I figgered although he has been featured on a few blogs already I wanted to highlight a different series of his. I think the style is awesome, reminds me of playing Duke Nukem 3D back in the day. Check out his stuff it's pretty great and some stuff is rather funny. Here are some other cool ones of his.

Dan Grzeca

I was very lucky this Christmas, Sonia spoiled me to the extreme. One of the highlights was a collection of hand screened Explosions In The Sky posters which are featured on the walls of our home. Two of which were done by Dan Grzeca who has a very distinct style and has done work for all sorts of band from Explosions to the Black Keys, Iron and Wine, The Melvins, Built To Spill and even Saves The Day and Atmosphere. I like it, check his blog with the link above or check out or even buy some posters here.

I've also started back at school and it is mad, in many senses of the word, the classes are rad but as comes with school, I've got a lot on.....and no money

Grotesk

I was up early today to do some work for extra cash so I've been sitting here since 8:3oam waiting to go to my normal job at 10 so i've just been surfing checking out some stuff. I'm not a huge hypebeast viewer but I was on the site this morning and found this.

Collection of artwork from Brooklyn's Kimou Meyer, aka Grotesk. In case you didn't know Grotesk also did the art for the Cool Kids album Bake Sale. A lot of his work is pretty funny and quite sarcastic. Check out his flickr to see some more of his art as well as some amazing New York street art and graffiti.

While your surfing around you can check this too. My friend Jude reps this mag called Frank151 which I think is visual stunning and very entertaining to read, they have a new hat colab with New Era 59Fifty. While on the frank site I found these videos by Jack McBrayer called Livin' Neath the Law, this one is How To Rip Off a Drug Dealer, so good!

Christmas Party

It was moguls Christmas party on Saturday at one99. more to come but this gives you and idea of what it was like

photo by jim waddington

Shoot To Thrill

ok so, Red Bull Shoot to Thrill like I said earlier is a 72 hour film project with 10 teams from 10 cities across the country. What I didn't mention before is that there is a digital entry as well. Teams doing digital movies only had 72 hours to film, edit and submit the project. Where as the 16mm entries were giving a limit of 10 rolls of film and 72 hours to film and a week to edit and submit the final project. I love digital but I want to focus on the film portion of this spectacular project, it's more raw, and since I recently got a sweet 16mm cam im stocked on it. That and the edition of Colour I'm reading is specialy devoted to the whole event and is my main source of info, it also focuses on the film submissions.

What was your concept?

Reflections, for every single shot, in glass, water, chromed objects, mirrors...so that made everything complicated of course.

interview with Director Fred Mortagne by Jay Revell, Color Magazine

This is my favorite,

Team Vancouver

Filmer/Director —	French Fred Mortagne
Photographer —	Dylan Doubt
Skaters —	Rick McCrank Sponsored by: Girl, Thunder, Momentum, eS, Matix, Antisocial, Bones
—	Bradley Sheppard Sponsored by: Emerica
—	Torey Goodall Sponsored by: Livestock, Emerica

I think it's awesome! Get Stoked!

Mirrored

Here is a teaser for the winner of the contest, the Grizzles from Surrey, BC.

COLOR

I got the new Color Magazine yesterday, it's filled with content from the Red Bull Shoot to Thrill 72 hour film project and it is amazing. One of the best issues by far.

I'm going to make a full post about is later because I love it so much but just to give you a little background till then Shoot to Thrill is a 16mm film project of 10 groups of skaters, photographers and filmers from 10 different cities across the country. They are givin just 72 hours to shoot a film and then only a week to edit prepare and submit the finished product. The end results are amazing and the latest Color reflects that. It's also jam packed with all the suculent goodness found in every issues.

Freeze....

uh, I mean.... STOP, in the name of the law!



Pat and I got stopped by the Cops one night for having the same colour jacket on, Dave Jo was with us and had the same colour hoody on. Went kinda like this.

COP: "Hey, whats with the jackets?"
ME: "Uh, nothing we like the same colour."
COP: "That's pretty gay, you guys go to the bathroom together too?"
ME: "No, we actually work at the same shop and run events for youth and these are our unofficial shop coats."
COP: "Huh, carry on"

Translation..."Hey you cute kids that I might of tried to take advantage of had I not already been caught for touching drunk teenagers at a party I was breaking up. I'm a redneck perve that has nothing better to do than bust your balls for having a better fashion sense than me."

Moral of story: Get a real job. Or rather, do your real job, not the one you saw on tv when you signed up.

le chat doré

My best babe Emily Marie is chillin in the South of France living the life, exploring and spending some time on a traditional farm getting to know the finer details life. Recently I added her new blog to my links on the side, some of you may have noticed it already. There she has a little collection of photos and thoughts as we follow her journey. It's called Le Chat Doré and you should tottally look at it!

Here are a couple of friends she has met.

tele phone

I uploaded the pictures from Sonia's phone for her today. This is a collection of my favorites.
Sorry they are not the best quality.


first day of school


Liam Neeson, Laure Linney and Antonio Banderas and the World Premier of The Other Man. Front row center at the Toronto International Film Festivil. A very special thanks to Sonia's mom for the priority seating tickets.


haha, and this guy. Sonia knabbed a couple of shop lifters at the shop and grabbed their pictures. This guy rocks my world.

NEW CONTEST: If you could name this guy what would it be?

Cool Kids + Q-Tip

Yo what up man? Saw Cool Kids play with the legend Q-Tip last night at the Phoenix, just down the street from our place. Such a great show, it is Jenna's birthday today so Sonia, Jenna and I went and jammed out. Cool Kids consists of Chuck English & Mickey Rocks and hail from Illinois. Filled with fresh beats and quirky lyrics, they rock. Album's called Bake Sale and
all the BMX riders will love these guys, unless you already know then good on you. Peep the Black Mags Video.

Check them out here.



And then there was Q-Tip... the boys put on some weight but who cares, overflowing with energy. Spittin rhymes like he was born doing it. For those of you who don't know Q-Tip comes from the best hip-hop group every A Tribe Called Quest. Tip's new album is called Renaissance, it's fresh, I dig it, Check it!

100th Post

So I have reached 1oo posts since launching this blog after my first one was reformatted. I have noticed that I must be a pretty big loaner because lately I've been posting a lot of myself. Not to fear I finished a film roll recently so that will follow shortly. That and I'm trying to make friends...

In the mean time check this out. Lost Format Preservation Society


Oh and Happy Birthday to Paul over at So Hip It Hurts!

Flickstr

I have posted my full series of photos for my final photography assignment on my flickr as well as some other fun ones Sonia and I took one night at home.

Explosion

Explosions in the Sky have a few new t-shirt designs available in their online store. All drawn by there resident artist Esteban Rey.

On a side note I'm done school till January!

Butterface

This one is for Scott. Right now if you haven't already looked (shame on you), Scott is doing a famous people juxtaposition themed series of photos that are just awesome! Today I helped him by posing as Terry Richardson (know primarily for his work with American Apperal & Vice). Scott collected some more info on TR here. You can see the photo here. Check out the whole photo stream here


This was Sonia's idea and I just shot it. She was really excited for Scott to see it.

Hope you like it bro. Your series is killing it!

Stand Idly By

This still needs work but you get the idea.

Further Desensitization here.

Buy Nothing Day

November 28th is Buy Nothing Day.

Click here for more on this subject or visit Adbusters

Preliminary

Preliminary photo assignment

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourhandinmine_jaj/

its snowing!

it's snowing outside and it is wonderful! Sonia decided to prepare herself early.

...we keep them out because i use them to cut onions.

New Self Portraits

these are silly

Super Eight!

So it was my birthday on Tuesday, 22 years old. I'm gonna need a cane and a driver to get around soon. Anyways, was an awesome day, lots of love and lots of presents from my favorite people. Sonia got me a Telescope for observing things of planetary proportions something that will last me for years and years to come, and i got a sick new watch. So thankful, shes spoils me(I Love you)! As amazing as that was my friend Scott from school got me one of the coolest and surprising gifts from way out in left field. A old super eight video camera from 1968 the Zeiss Ikon Moviflex S8. Really excited to play with it, figure out how it works and begin to make my own documentaries and snowboard and travel videos. Thank you so much Scott! I owe you.

And thank you to everyone who came over last night, it was awsome and i had a blast.
Thankyou to eveyone for all the birthday wishes as well.

Double Vision

Sonia and Anita

ps ive really been getting into podcasts lately, if thats your sort of thing check out XLR8R Audio.

im out!

Nomis

So I was doing some digging around on the internet during a Mass Comm class when we were talking about corporations. I began searching snowboard corporations to see who was indy and who was a dreaded corporation. One of the most interesting was what i found about the ever so unique and popular Nomis named after team rider Simon Chamberlain. It seems Nomis was actually a soccer boot company in Australia and Europe first. Designed by the ex-designer of Adidas. And guess where he got the name for his own company from? Surprise, Surprise! His name is Simon Skirrow and the company name was his name backwards. Sound familiar? The zinger is that he has been designing shoes since the 80's. I love biters!

I also found out that Lib Tech, Gnu, Rossignol, Dynastar, Lange, Look, DC and Roxy are all owned by the dreaded Quiksilver.

Don't believe me? Do some digging.

http://www.nomisfootball.com/history.html

I still think it's crazy that big B Burton is still the largest snowboard company (now skate and surf due to some recent buy outs) and is still 100% privately owned. I guess you don't have to sell out to be the best after all. Damn I love this sport.

191 Express

i spend a lot of time here waiting for the bus. i thought id take a picture so you can all see as well.
kipling station waiting for the 191 express i know its not that exciting, its a documentation.

5 Grand

Blog hit over 5000 hits!
Ya so its not that many in the world of the internet and it took a year or two or three, but hey it's only my little photoblog.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hog

I saw a groundhog walking to the bank between classes last Wednesday. Didn't even care that I was there let me get this close to take a photo. I pet him, he was fuzzy.