iced tea socials

So I haven't posted for a while, I know. I have broken my foot skateboarding and have been couch/crutch bound for the past two weeks = sucks! Anyways, I should of totally taking a pic of my foot but couldn't be bothered. Maybe I still will just to be crazy, right now it's all blue and looks like I have put a sock of high blood pressure on one foot.

I have added a new link to the side bar entitled iced tea socials. Scott introduced me to the site as he went art school with drew, the creator, for a short period of time. I have never met Drew other than a brief wave over skype one afternoon, but Sonia got to meet him today when Scott & Drew visited her at So Hip and I'm jealous! Anyways, point is Drew is an ilustration student at sheridan. When he is not working away with all his side projects and things he has going on for school he makes little comic strips and I think they are the best thing to happen since nutrient enriched sliced white bread. To see more visit his blog by clicking here or at the side under links.

Atmosphere

As promised Atmosphere photos. This show was great, best in a long time. Good long set giving the dedicated fans what they paid for. The dude rolled on through songs with ease and witty segways between tracks. Keeping the energy strong and not letting his darker songs slow his momentum. A tight band backing up his stylish flows. Had an awesome time and will definitely check him out next he's in town. In the mean time you should peep his myspace and give it a listen if you haven't already. I took some shots with Sonia's P&S but we were up in the loft so had to zoom pretty far so the quality isn't the greatest, but you get the idea.

Also picked up two new vinyls. When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold! & God Loves Ugly.

Centre Island

Went to Centre Island last Sunday with Sonia and Andrew. $6.50 is all it is for the ferry ride over. Bring some snacks and some beers, lovely. You can rent a quadracycle for $16! Anyways, took lots of photos and had an awesome time. Tons on my Flickr.

Going to see Atmosphere tonight, I'll try and take some photos and make a post later.

Flight of the Conchords

So for our anniversary Sonia and I had dinner planned and then had tickets to see Appleseed Cast. Last minute, like hours before the show, a friend of Sonia's called to tell her that he found someone selling tickets to see Flight of the Conchords at Massey Hall that night! We had tried to get tickets earlier and were unable. We jumped at the chance, canceled our dinner plans and a sold the tickets to Scott so that an epic evening of Appleseed wasn't wasted. So amazing! Front row! I don't know how Sonia and I keep hooking up front row seats to everything lately but I like it. The best one year anniversary ever.
Plenty more photos on Flickr.

A cast member of the show, Eugene, did a stand up set before the Conchords went on and it was hilarious. He told a story of atrocious service when traveling on Delta Airlines. They lost his bags and then there was a 10 week fiasco that went on for him to eventually get his bags back, which he ended up doing himself by driving to some strangers house where Delta delivered the bags by mistake. At the end he handed out post cards for everyone to send to Delta to assist in venting his angry to the airline. I have attached a copy below for you to see. All in all great memories.

One Year

It is Sonia and my one year anniversary today.
i love you darling

Creative Expression

Sonia and I utilized our Sunday off to thoroughly clean our apartment. We rearranged our plants and made a sweet little turn-table garden set up. On Friday we went and saw Woodhands at the Phoenix, we took a couple photos before going out as our little form of creative expression.

Unknown Pleasures

I have finished exams for my first year of uni and while most people are celebrating by getting wasted, I chose to buy myself a new record. Picked up Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures from Rotate, a needed addition to the collection. This is by far a top 10 record of all time in my mind and it sounds great on vinyl.

.....more film

I finally finished and developed and old film that has been in my camera since last summer! You can really see a change in my photography since I shot this stuff, at least I think so. Anyways, I got the pictures burnt to a CD when I got them developed and the CD didn't work. So, I unpacked my new scanner-printer-beast my dad hooked up when picking up my camera and scanned a selection of the film. Just like the good old days when I first start posting and I had to Photoshop out the particles of dust that were on the underside of the glass because it was such an old scanner. Fortunately, I don't have to do that any more, just some level adjustments. As always, more on Flickr.

Old Stuff

calgary - originally posted september 2006
we have this framed over our fireplace and no, i don't know what it says

toronto - originally posted august 2006

I've made mention to this and linked it before, but I have added my old/original blog to the links at the side. I started it in May 2006 and used it for about year until it went offline temporarily because of some copyright infringement with the host's site name. And when it came back on line the layout of the site was all wack and disorderly. So I ditched it in April 2007, went blogless for a month and then started this one in June of 2007. At one time I used to update the old one everyday, almost. If you have time, take a look through (please excuse the awful format). It's kinda cool, there are photos from when I first started to really get into photography. Due to the pressure of posting everyday there is some junk on there and some boring stuff, but I also kept it going while I lived out west at Big White as a snowboard photographer, so it's kind of a little photo journal of that too. Not to mention, other than the stuff from BC it's all film. You can view it HERE or just click on the link to the right.

UPDATE: Sonia and I just went on wiki and figured out what the building said..... DREAM

Heads Will Rendevous

self portrait. originally posted Aug 17 2007

So as most of you may know, I have a set of turn tables that I play with on occasion and love collecting new vinyl. Well, I got the Virtual DJ software and have being doing some 'disc jockeying' on my comp which is very difficult seeing as I don't have monitors/headphones and have to do everything with the track pad and keyboard, no hardware. Anyways I recently got the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It's Blitz, Sonia and I were listening to Heads Will Roll last night and both thought that it could likely be a very remixed song. So today after school I came home did some cleaning up and popped down in front of the computer and remixed it myself with Cut Copy - Rendevous. I'm new at it, and it's still no where near perfect I am fully aware but for an amateur who's had the program just over a week I think its... o k, I'm just wasting time at home by myself. Give it a listen for yourself and don't tell me what you think, ok well you can if you want but I'm just having some fun with this so I don't care that much about constructive criticism on this one. Don't let me stop you though. It's just so much fun. You can listen to and/or download it HERE>

Kensington

Had to take some pictures for a school assignment in Kensington. Great... the most cliche and played out place to shoot. Once I got over the original negative stigma of walking around with a huge expensive camera taking photos, looking like the biggest tourist in a city I live in! It wasn't so bad and I had a lot of fun and got a few cool shots. More on my Flickr

FILM!

So I have developed the film from the 4x5 cameras Scott and I shot with 2 weeks ago, scanned film and they turned out so sick. We used ISO 50 transparencies which are really specific and you have to get your settings spot on or your screwed. Seems we succeeded, I love using these cameras.

Burton US Open

ben, me, shaun white

Peetu Pilroinenben, Jake & Donna, me, zac, davedave, ben, peter line, me, (im so bad with names)

So I've been in Vermont since Wednesday arriving home late Sunday night. I got invited by the Burton crew here in Ontario along with a bunch of other rad dudes and dudettes to venture in a convoy of big black ominous SUVs and trucks to the Burton US Open. We went to Burlington at first, to tour the Burton Headquarters with its incorporated skate and jib park with big bowl and half pipe in the back where the local kids come to skate. Inside everything is open and bright, everybody is in shorts and sandals with their dogs roaming freely around the office and the Burton store. After taking a walk around and meeting all the people behind the scenes we continued on to the BMC or Burton Manufacturing Center. I have watched a Burton Vapor get constructed from nothing to a finished product. Remarkable and totally amazing. To much to really get into all the details, this isn't "How it's Made", if you want to know ask me and ill go into it, i'm a huge tech nerd, but not on here.

Anyways, highlights, well I met the ginger phenom Shaun White, chatted for a bit and snapped a shot in which you can't see where his hair stops and mine begins. Then the big man himself Jake Burton and his wife Donna, nicest people every, lifechanging event. And last but definatly not least, chilled with Peter Line 2 nights, such a solid dude. All in all I will never forget the past 5 days ever!

There are more photos of the Halfpipe event on my Flickr.

thanks to dave pearson for the party shots.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

So they're filming a movie at the intersection Sonia and I live at called Scott Pilgrim vs The World based on the series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The crew is placing cotton fake snow and then blowing ice and snow everywhere else as well to create a snow scene then driving a old TTC bus through the intersection. Michael Cera is staring as Scott Pilgrim who must defeat his beautiful new girlfriends 7 evil ex-boyfriends in order to win her heart. It's funny seeing I have a very good friend named Scott Pilgrim who is also peers with O'Malley, small world huh? Sonia thought it was a prank that Scott was playing on us when we first received a notification about the filming in our mailbox until I told her about the comics.
I got in trouble for taking photos, had to be covert.

UPDATE: Flickr has been updated with some photos of the Burton US Open at Stratton Mtn in Vermont that I just got back from. Such a great time full post to come once I collect some more photos from friends.

Canadian Music Fest

bloc party photo: emma svensson

holy fuck photo: james mejia

Sonia and I went to show on Saturday as part of the Canadian Music Festival. We went and saw Bloc Party but were pleasantly surprised to find out that the opening band that night was none other than edgy Toronto natives Holy Fuck. Bloc Party played and entertaining show but as hard as I have tried to like the new album, hearing it live cemented that it does nothing for me. Maybe a few songs, but otherwise it has settled in uncomfortably as the the dreaded third album. I was talking to my friend Jason and he was saying that he read an interview that said each member has been taking their turn with the albums and creating them in their own direction which is kinda cool, but it was clear from the crowds reactions as the show went on that Silent Alarm still reigns. People weren't rocking out to the new album not because they didn't know the words, everyone was still singing along. They just aren't as good. Even clarity, the new stuff is all over the place and disorderly. Silent alarm was on point and tight almost math-rockish. I'll put it this way, if I didn't already know and like Bloc Party before that show, I wouldn't of cared about them after.

Which brings me to the highlight of the the night, Holy Fuck! No, that's the band. They stole the show in my mind, just amazing. Experimental, improvisational electronic rock. Started by Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt "a chaotic live celebration of lo-fi noise and weirdo casio-driven rock. With a rotating rhythm section consisting of some close friends and multi-talented players they were described as 'Toronto's evil super group'." Working with all sorts of artist from, Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think and even recording and working with Glenn Milchem drummer of Blue Rodeo (and side project the swallows) as part of the band for some time. They are so worth a listen and if you get a chance to see them, GO!

Distillery

UPDATE: a b/w version of the top photo was used by blogTO for their weekend radar, you can see it here.

Went to the Distillery Dist. yesterday with school. Was pretty fun, went on a mini tour guided by my prof Johan and then just cruised around and took photos. There are lots more on my flickr and while your at it check out sojourn-al to see a couple of really cool stitched shots that Scott took.

update: visited all the galleries that were open and saw some really amazing stuff. A full post to come on one of the exhibitions I saw. Also got a tour of the Pikto Studio, and although this is on Scott's blog also we just thought it was so awesome I feel I need to make mention of it as well. Has a huge 16"x22" cyclorama, I want one! Skate half and shoot with half!

Hands Up

I shot Sonia the other nite, haha get it?....sorry. Don't worry, she's ok.

update: she hates this photo.

My Brothers Keeper

David hasn't been featured in any of my photos for a while. It was great spending time with him this week. He is also a natural model.

Secret Garden Club

Seems like the conservatory is becoming a frequent walk spot for us lately, took some more photos in and of it. There are some 'art-fag' shots and I also tried to take some more broad documenting shots so you could see more detail and how its laid out. Today at school Scott and I used 4x5 cameras outside. I really enjoy using these cameras, there is a lot of control you can have, its just going to take some time to learn, that and they're huge! It's also fun to be using film again. Once I get the negatives developed, as long as they expose popular, whether they're good or bad, I'll scan them and post so you can see my first attempt. Until then check out the Garden photos on my flickr here.

Self Hype

So Ive been mentioning and posting school a bit lately, so to keep with that theme. Scott Pilgrim posted a collection of photos of his photos from a white balance exercise him and I had to do. Then added a dismantling sketch of me. Check Scott's blog sojourn-journal (or as I like to call it sojourn-al) and the full size image on his flickr here.

Fenced In

A tree at the beach trying to escape the confines of a fence.

School

Just a couple of silly photos from school, purely for posts sake. My legs looking downward and the spiral shell case, uh, stair case. There is a great one of Scott on my flickr we did for a panning shot as part of an assignment. Great fun, check it here!

Kropilak

Took this after the winterfest pictures. A very Branislav Kropilak inspired pic. His are way better and impossibly clean.

Office Space

My great friend Malcolm who lives in Scotland is studying construction design architecture stuff at Uni in Glasgow. While doing research for a project he found something and thought id like it. It's about old subway cars being turned into office space and working space for artists called Village Underground. Based in London England, it was created by furniture designer Auro Foxcroft. Some may remember a similar project using old shipping containers. You can see one here and the subway cars here.

Games Night!

So i'm completely out of chronological order here, this happened even before Wintercity Fest.

Anyways, on the 6th we had a games night at our apartment. You know, good old fashioned family games night. Catch phrase, Jenga the excitement was almost to much for some. All in all it was alot of fun. Good old firends and some new ones too. Music and drink, lots of food from the potluck dinner with the main couse graciously prepared by Jenna. Her first 'real' food dinner she'd ever prepared and it was awesome. Here is a little taste of the evening, and as my trend has been lately there are more available on my flickr here.

Nathan Phillips Square

So Sonia and I went to Nathan Phillips Square last week to watch the second night of the Wintercity Festival here in Toronto. There are some more pictures on the event on my flickr.

Alot going on lately very busy, to much to give a proper update so I hope you enjoy pictures.