TCTCA

I was very privileged this weekend to shoot some training pictures for a gentleman called Scott Barker, who is training hard to raise $10,000 for The Canadian Testicular Cancer Association

You can read his story and follow his progress on his web page

No witticisms, no puns, no obvious wordplays to make this seem funny. It's not. It is something very serious that many guys would rather not think about.   Please support him if you can.  Or at the very least get yourself tested or encourage the people close to you to do so.

Ok - one obvious wordplay - Guys - please have the balls to check them

Proudly Canadian

I was due to post this on Friday, but didn't in the end because of an interesting debate with my significant other over what it represents. As a photographic artist I enjoy finding things that push buttons or cause reaction, finding something that makes an image memorable, or gets people talking. The occasional dead meat image from a Chinese market among the pictures of models on the intro page for my website, as an example, contains layers and subtle meaning perhaps? Who knows. But if it gets a reaction and makes the viewer stop and stare and think for a minute, then isn't that a good thing?

1st July was Canada Day and it also sat midway(ish) through Pride week in Toronto. Two very important times for many of my friends and the combination of both culminating in the Pride parade was one huge party for all. I happen to have a picture in my portfolio that I shot a couple of years ago at the Church Street Fetish fair which seemed to cover both subjects in what I feel is a great way and the picture really deserves the title of 'Proudly Canadian' for many reasons.

So

Enjoy the pic, or don't. Appreciate what it represents beyond the first glance, or not. Be shocked by it, or appreciate the humour of it. Either way, if you look at it, and form a reaction to it, then perhaps I just maybe achieved what I wanted to achieve when I was going to post it on Friday.

And a little late but Happy Canada Day and Happy Pride to all my friends in this corner of the world which we call home.

Shooting Wherever wherever......

I love working with the Wildcraft Wherever crew.  They are such incredible professionals, who can bring high class service and fantastic food to literally any setting you can imagine while catering an event.

I have recently had the unique honour of providing some corporate photoshoot services to their team, working behind the scenes to capture them working their magic in places ranging in diversity from Victoria Park pavilion, to Waterloo Town Square, and even an abandoned factory pending development.   Each and every time I am truly amazed at what amazing foods their chefs are able to create, and their flair for presentation by the catering crew and waiting staff.

When I decided that I wanted to get the shot below during the Breithaupt Block Party media launch I had one major challenge - how do I find my way through the abandoned darkened Breithaupt buildings and up a couple of floors to find a hole in the wall which looked like it would be safe enough to take my weight for a while, without plunging down a deep hole never to be heard from again?

A few wet and scary stairwells later I found myself overlooking the street through broken windows on one side and a solid wall on the other with one dark and very ominous corridor reaching out in front of me.  "I can do this!" I thought to myself, without waiting to ponder the dangers of my overactive imagination beating my sensible head to a pulp with the mallet of childhood nightmares, so off I wandered to find the hole and get the shot.

I faced a phobia to do something that I truly wanted to do.  I am quite proud of myself for doing it as well.  It's funny how your emotions can have this internal tug of war and struggle for dominance over you in certain situations.  My love and passion for what I do had the upper hand.  In many ways I wish I had carried a camera with me my entire life - perhaps many dark and lonely corridors along the journey could have been tackled very differently if that extra nudge of courage had been there to help me.

I'm pleased with how it turned out, and I look forward to the next gig, but I am just hoping that my phone is busy the day that Wildcraft is catering an event at the insect house in Toronto Zoo.

The rest of the shots can be viewed on the Wildcraft Grill & bar Facebook page

Today is the only one that matters

Yesterday is irrelevant - it's already gone.  Learn what you can from it, enjoy the memories of the good bits, and glaze over the dull bits, and move on.  Tomorrow is irrelevant - it isn't here.  You can't worry about it, you don't know what it will do anyway, so what's the point?

Today, now today is a much different animal.  It is here, right now.  Are you truly doing what you want?  If you died tonight would you be happy (in a dead kind of way) that you ran well on your last lap of the human race?  Or would you be full of regret for never having taken that chance, never risked it all, stood on the edge, made something special happen, broken the rules, captured a moment, or just plain and simply lived a little?

Go on - you might just enjoy it.  Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today, because if you do it today and you like it, then you can do it again tomorrow   :)

Blue pain

I find myself this morning in a state of physical discomfort.
My shoulders are screaming and tight, my back aches like buggery, and my feet are so sore I am no longer on speaking terms with them.  (What do you mean you don't talk to your body parts? - Everybody does it)

"Why Andy?" you might ask (or not if you are a pair of ignored feet), well let me tell you.
I have spent three long days and late nights being me. To be clear; being the person that I love to be, doing the work that I love to do,  and living the life that I love to live.

I have encountered no less than three very fascinating souls, all passionate, all very driven and determined  to be in control of their own destiny and make it what they want it to be.  Three people very much living their own lives and being true to themselves.  Two of whom certainly live off of the edges of the page of conformity, and really wouldn't give a monkeys nut if you like it or not, because it is their choice to do so.

Each of them carry what I am beginning to think of as the 'badge of honour' that seems associated with choosing such a path.  Each of them carry some kind of pain, a small mental box filled with the void of  solitude even when surrounded by people that love them in every sense of the word.  A reminder of why they have become the fascinating souls that they are and why they strive to enjoy each and every day.

Everyone carries the burden and the pain of their life with them every day.  For most it is tethered around them like a long heavy chain.   Some people try to hide it away and pretend it isn't there, but that just makes the chains heavier.  Some people want everyone to see that they have these chains and complain loudly, but that in the end just adds more links to the chain as a result of the effect that they have on the people around them.  Some people simply wrap themselves in the chains and sit in suffering silence as the world goes past them.  Not many people are able to face their pain, free themselves of the heavy chains that drag on their ankles, and place it in a little box and lock it away.  Some people try, and are able to convince themselves that it is in the box, but then they forget to close the lid and at any time it all comes spilling back out again as they lose their balance.

To quote from one of the most talented people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, in a lyric from one of the deepest songs I have ever heard, "The blue pain, fades to a point where it doesn't fade. It stayed blue." - (This Strange Engine - Marillion)

Not many reach the point of closing and securing the box, which is a shame, because the ones that do thrive on the energy and positivity of life itself and make every single day matter.   I'm thinking of getting jackets made - we should form a club  :)

A week is a long time

Well actually it really depends on your point of perspective.  if you are a mayfly for example then a week would have your great great great great grandkids running around before next weekend is here.  Whereas if you are a certain type of clam who lives for 400 years then its barely enough to disturb you from the shellfish equivalent of an afternoon nap.

Anyway - from my perspective of a week I have gone from being up for 24 hours, shooting a cancer relay event, to hanging out in a new restaurant grabbing pictures of the fun and funkiness, to watching a wedding couple debate and dance around which pictures they loved best (very entertaining), to shopping with my daughter in an effort to update my closet, writing a small piece for the magazine of a rock band - oh yes, to clearing up my office and making it look respectable, to drinking with friends in the trendy end of Toronto, landing 3 modeling gigs and finally getting a decision on something that has been dragging at my heels for months which has made me feel very light and liberated.

Deep breath...

Another week is due to begin.  Hopefully this one will have more excitement than last week, it all seemed a little too quiet for my liking.

Enjoy one and all, or in the terms of my blog audience, both of you  :)

Press the start button...

I stumbled upon my blog once more.  Covered in dust and under a sheet in the corner of my web space.  In fact this is probably the only web space to have real webs hanging from its edges.

Anyhoo



Hello.  How you been?

I shall endeavor to keep this thing updated with news of shoots that I am er, shooting and projects that I am involved with along the way.  A weekly entry shall occur even if I have to sit with a gun to my own head to force me to do it.

Been busy.  Have done some amazing work for truly the greatest band in the world, Marillion, during two of their recent conventions in Montreal and in Leamington in the UK.  And have also been having a blast shooting for the Wildcraft Wherever catering team in and around the Kitchener Waterloo area.

Throw into the mix the fact that wedding season is upon us and I have some very fun and funky people out there getting ready to hitch up and letting me catch the action then I am really getting rather busy, and loving it.

So there you have it - nothing fancy right now, but there will be images, and there will be 'ooohs' and 'ahhhs', and moments of ponder and chuckles and possibly a tear or two along the way.  I must come back next week and see what I write next.

Toodles for now  :)