The working title for the project is More Pictures About Buildings and Music. This is a direct reference to the Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings and Food, because the spark for this idea came from a TED talk that David Bryne gave in 2010 called How architecture helped music evolve. Further inspiration came from a book I later discovered called Buildings for Music:The Architect, the Musician, and the Listener from the 17th Century to the Present Day.

The ideas in Bryne’s lecture and in the book really inspired me and I thought this would be a great way to explore the relationships between three of my favourite things: architecture, music and photography.

Back in 2001 I created a website for Canadian photographers called CanPhoto.Net: The Canadian Photographers Network. The site included discussion forums and lots of other resources for working photographers in Canada. Unfortunately, a few years ago I had to shut the site down. For a variety of personal reasons I just didn’t have the time, the money, or the energy to continue operating the site on a voluntary basis. I thought the hiatus might last a few months, but it ended up lasting a few years.

Well, I’m happy to say the hiatus is over and the site is back online.

Some of the objectives of CanPhoto.Net include:

1. To create an online community for the professional Canadian photography industry that brings all members of the professional community together to support and encourage one another by openly sharing information and resources in free discussion forums.

2. To foster better business practices and professional development among members of the industry.

3. To provide current information about news and events within the Canadian photo industry, keeping our members informed and up-to-date.

This is a free resource for members of the Canadian photo industry so please check it out, sign up and support our community.

The Canadian Photographers Network

It’s been awhile since I’ve gone out to take pictures just for the fun of it. I think it can be a common problem with working photographers, and when you do something for a living it’s often the last thing you want to do on your day off. The problem can be compounded if you’re going through a difficult period in your life and you’re generally lacking in joy, enthusiasm and curiosity about the world around you. I’ve been in one of these ruts for awhile now, but things are starting to look up and I’m trying to get out there again and take pictures just for fun.

I was walking by this small park off Bloor Street last week and was immediately drawn to the shadows and the colours. I was using a 45mm tilt-shift lens and used the tilt to throw the top and bottom out of focus. It would have been an okay image by itself, but then a woman came to the park with her dog and started running and playing, too caught up in the fun to take any notice of me and my camera. I think their presence and playfulness makes the image much more interesting. I had fun taking the picture as well, but unfortunately it was dampened a bit when I returned to my car and found a $30 parking ticket under the wiper. Oh well… it was still nice to be distracted by the joy of photography for a little while.

Sorry, no blue water in this image. It was shot in colour with my Canon G10, but I really like it in black and white. I’m a big fan of Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, and some of my favourite images are from a series of his called Seascapes. The image above was inspired by the work of Sugimoto, who gained notoriety recently when one of his photos was used on the cover of U2′s latest album No Line on the Horizon. I discovered his work in a book store a few years ago, and ever since then I’ve been wanting to produce a similar image of Lake Huron. I tried a few times in the past, but the weather and light never cooperated. So I felt lucky to get this shot on a hazy morning during my last visit to Sarnia.

At first glance, I will admit that the image may seem a bit plain, even dull. In all honesty, this was also my first reaction to some of Sugimoto’s images. However, the longer I looked at his photos the more I started to like them. The minimalist compositions with vast empty skies and boundless water have a real Zen quality to them. I could imagine myself staring into them and getting lost in the space between the water and the sky. Great for meditating or doing yoga (note to self: start meditating and doing more yoga) and I think I captured some of that feeling in the photo above. I’m hoping to make a large print of it soon, but I’m not too sure how the G10 files will hold up.

The images below were shot a couple of days later. They are more dramatic then the one above, but they still contain some of that simplicity and serenity that I was looking for. I’m kind of torn between the colour and black and white, and I like them both. What do you think? Please feel free to share your comments.

It’s Canada Day today, so I thought I’d share a photo I made a couple years ago. I tried to reproduce our beautiful Canadian flag, au naturel, on a sunny, fall day using maple leaves and rock.

Here’s a recent shot of some homemade chicken soup. It’s based on the recipe for Home-style Chicken Soup in Barbara Kafka’s excellent book Roasting: A Simple Art. This is my second attempt making chicken soup from scratch, and this time I think I made a mistake by making the stock in a slow cooker. The first time I did it I boiled the cut-up carcass on the stove as the book recommends, but this time I didn’t want to watch the stove all day and put it in a slow cooker on high for a few hours, then on low for about 12 hours. The stove-top method seemed to extract a lot more flavour from the bones, probably due to the higher temperatures.

The first time I also deglazed the pan and added the drippings to the stock, but the second time I used the drippings for gravy. So that probably made a big difference as well.

This photo was also an opportunity for me to try some new lighting techniques. It is lit entirely by studio strobes, but the goal was to make the light look as natural as possible. I think I succeeded and it looks very similar to broad window light, yet still has some directional qualities as evidenced by the soft shadows.