I Lost My Camera in Colombia – A Blessing in Disguise?

I just got home yesterday from a 10 day trip to Bogota and a couple surrounding towns. It was an amazing vacation, and before leaving Toronto, nearly every person sent me on my way with a ‘Have fun! Be safe! Take lots of pictures!’ type of message. Another equator-bound lady and I scoffed at such cliches, thinking ‘Ppff! Like we’re not going to come home with hundreds pictures of this new place we’re going to!!?’

And I took them! I took classic shots of my feet in cute little shoes on top of sewer grates or ground-maps that said ‘Bogota.’ I took simple, wide, landscape shots of the churches and the mountains and the crazy masses of yellow diesel-fueled taxis and insanely packed buses everywhere. I also captured unique, artistic close ups of graffiti,  colorfully painted villas, exotic flowers, and road-side cows, chickens, donkeys, sheep, horses, and dogs. I assured there were photos with me framed perfectly in front of the dark salmon terra cotta walls of the house of Simon Bolivar, and sitting on the ledge of a beautiful rock wall backed by huge palm trees in Parque Nationale, and on top of little bridges over an adorable creek in Parque de Los Novios.  But none of these will make it to their destined profile-perfect internet home; instead, I came home with 45 shots, and they’re all from my camera-phone.

Centaur in the City

Ok, huge props to Torontoist.  Everytime I go on the site, I am reminded about how many amazing things there are to learn about on a daily basis that have nothing to do with my facebook news feed.

Today’s home page was no exception, with a stunning shot of OCAD, from Grange park, in one of the pieces from Harley Valentine’s Centaur in the City , which he tells Torontoist is a “project based around activating Toronto’s landscape.”  I especially love the ones that feature the centaur near statues.  The dark, matte nature of the Valentine’s  3D man-horse seem especially two dimensional and void-ey against some of Toronto’s most impressive sculptures:

See more of his work here.

Alley Brat

Thank you to everyone who didn’t contact me on Tuesday.

You gave me the opportunity to take myself on a lovely ramble through the back alleys of my neighbourhood.

The next two are exactly the same photo, except the first one I used the sepia filter in Picasa. It completely wiped out the image. It’s almost like they used disappearing paint. I don’t get it but I find it fascinating.

I’m genuinely sorry to whoever this painting belongs to. I probably invaded your privacy by photographing it from your back alley, but it’s beautiful and engaging and it filled me with peace. I’m glad the magical dusk hour allowed for this moment.

Back to the Future

I’ve become significantly more interested in a recent societal fascination with nostalgia and really appreciate it when artists work with and comment on this trend.  I was so happy to see that Amyofau linked to this incredible project that highlights the allure and mystique of retro photography.

I love old photos… Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A few months ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future. ~ Irina Werning – Photographer

Her attention to detail in re-creating and re-capturing these moments from the past is phenomenal. She calls herself ‘obsessive’ but I think it’s admirable.

My favourites, in the order they appear on her website:

documentarian art

Came across a really cool project that really sparked my interest.  It reminds me of a project I read about recently where a young man decided to take a picture of himself every day? week? for the rest of his life.  I think it’s called one day at a time or something.  Too lazy to look it up. . . yet.

Anyway. Also too lazy to describe this project called Exactitudes, so I am plunking the description from the website. Check it out!

Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 14 years. Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, although since 1998 they have also worked in cities abroad.

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.

Wim van Sinderen, Senior Curator Museum of Photography, The Hague

 

Some of my favourites:

I also particularly enjoy the game boys, think it’s hilarious that so many of the skaters wear Tommy, am slightly embarassed that how I used to dress in grade five is labelled as preppy, don’t particularly understand the title for these adorable children, and adore the title for these adorable young men.

OH, and I should probably mention that I most definitely have a crush on the majority of these handsome fellas, and these cuties too! AND these early birds!

Little Bites Two

I started this thing last tuesday to start keeping track of the websites I’m randomly stumbling across.

Issue two, coming right up:

When I was informed that someone clicked on thepicture in one of my former posts, I decided to look through their site again.  I found the first of this week’s little bites:

Noah Kalina - Apparently some sort of youtube cult star.  I have no idea. But I like his work.  I especially fell in love with this shot. And I’ve always wanted someone to take a picture of me like this.  There is just something incredibly alluring about the anonymity, despite the fact that it is an incredibly respectable nude shot.  I love the lighting and the framing and the general sense of ethereal-ness. (word?)

Uke Hunt – Oh my. What a find. My righteous dude stumbled across this video, of Will Smith singing Men In Black with Stefan Raab playing the Ukelele. I loved it. It made me smile on the inside. It made me feel nostalgic of Fresh Prince Days… and it was all-in-all, a great find.  So I looked up on the google, and came across this website.  Cute. 

Other Words for Said - Ever been caught in a conversation that goes something like this? :

Other person: ‘omigod you won’t believe what happend with me and my EX-best friend yesterday’

You: ‘oh yeah? tell me about it!’

Other Person: ‘Well she told me that ____ and I was like ‘_______,’ ‘and then she said ___, and then I said

_____, and then she said _______, and then I was like __________, then she was like _______’?

It sucks.  This website may help.

Little Bites worth looking at

I’ve started to explore the internet a bit more since my main squeeze introduced me to stumbleupon.

I figure that if anyone is reading me, they should know the sites that I have fallen in love with.

I guess this will be a sort of weekly blogroll that I will update throughout the week.

Red Nose Studio – UNBELIEVABLE talent in carving and puppetry and photography.  Truly stunning work.

One Word - What a great idea to get your mind in the mood for more writing. I visit it at least once a week. Sometimes I get anxious and check it too early and end up submitting two entries for one day.

Wesley Burt’s Drawing Samples - These came up randomly in my clicking in the morning and I’m SO happy. It’s refreshing to see real sketching done with pencils or charcoal or other mediums that actually show the brush strokes of the artist. It’s as though you get to experience and understand their proccess a little more.  Really great work.

Jerusalem by Matisyahu – I can’t get a link to work to any youtube videos, but this song is worth looking up. It made me very happy.

< baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahah. ok. i put in some links to beautiful art. this is just plain internet stupidity. i like it and i’m not afraid to admit it.

my clicks are subliminally telling me to get a haircut

When I come across this photo more than one time in one morning, I know that it’s time to stop using hairpins, and about time for me to get a haircut. The last one I got was 8 dollars and was from a little alley shop in Toronto’s Chinatown.  I HATED it the first day I got it, but after a week of getting used to it, it became the best haircut I had ever gotten. For months (and I should say at least 8 months) after that haircut, I would get comments like ‘whoa! did you just cut your hair?’ 

THAT is value in an 8 dollar haircut. 

BUT my manfriend has told me that he’s giving me an early christmas present and that will be a fancy-pants haircut. 

I’m excited. So excited that I dedicated an entire blog entry to it.

La fin.

front lawns

i was going to title this ‘front lawns are the faces to our homes’

or ‘lawns are the first impression’ or something equally cliche and corny.

 

bah.

i haven’t written in a while because i’ve been actually pretty involved in DOING… i’ve been landscaping, and this has provided me with a lot of examples of excessive frivolity on lawns, gardens, and related items.

without spewing my bad feelings about the unashamed wealth of a good portion of rich torontonians, i will say that i’ve fallen in love with the idea of lawns saying something about the people that live within the home that falls behind that lawn.

i was walking home from a friend’s house and saw this:

 

i really couldn’t decide what i thought of it, but i knew it needed to be documented.  i felt strongly about it, but didn’t know how i felt.  more than a month after i’ve taken the photos, i still don’t know how i feel.

this entry reminds me of some old journal entries; sort of rambling and unrelated, but i’m done school and i need to continue to write, so i will publish this entry knowing that i will continue to write BETTER pieces in the near future.

disgusting puddle water = spring

literally! look:

my favourite part about taking these pictures was that my pants were super low, and people were staring at me/my crack, but i didn’t care, because this spring kind of called to me, and I had to get some shots.

i like these ones better: