The Small Brutalities

Canon EOS 20D

Believe it, or not, this is what grade school dances look like today. A far cry from turning off the gym lights and putting a microphone in front of a ghetto blaster and broadcasting The Smiths over a 1965 institutional PA system.

Wide Open Light Show

Canon EOS 20D

View from Commerce

Pentax K1000

Kodak PJ400

Taken from the old Sears Warehosue lofts at Commerce and Dundas, early in the morning on Nov. 12, 2001. My wife and I were in town to see the Rheostatics play at the Horseshoe the previous night.

Off Rue des Tresors

Pentax K1000

Kodak Portra 400

Taken in Quebec City on March 18, 1999--one of my favourite days ever.

Confused Language

Canon EOS 20D

River Fog 2

Canon EOS 20D

River Fog 1

Canon EOS 20D

Looking north into Detroit from the Queen's Dock Parkette, about 1 km west of the Ambassador Bridge, Monday, March 13, 2006, 10 a.m.

With the exception of the two years I lived in Montreal, I've lived within walking distance of the Detroit River all my life. I have never seen a low-lying fog like the one in this photo. Nothing even close. In fact, I'd never been in this part of Windsor (at the foot of Mill Street in the abandoned lands along Russell Street) before I turned in to get shots of this exceedingly rare river fog.

This was only minutes before a heavy thunderstorm hit. The fog rolled up the river from the west, like a tongue of smoke. It made the lanscape completely foreign, and stripped the colour out of everything. There's something disconcerting about not being able to see the far shore, yet the buuildings appear closer, and bookmatched.

Rollie Fingers

This is a guest photo, taken by my good friend, the golf course architect, Jeff Mingay. It was taken in New York City last year with a Nikon Coolpix 4300. Jeff says it's the best photograph he's ever taken. I've seen some of his other stuff, and as much as I like it, I'd have to agree. Would either of us still think that if this guy in the shot wasn't wearing a vintage Rollie Fingers San Diego Padres jersey? For some reason, I doubt it.

A few weeks into the portrait feature, I'm already starting to regret limiting myself to portraits. I enjoy the more free-flow feel of a photoblog that contains shots that I like, put up as the spirit moves me. Besides, isn't every photo a portrait of something?

To that end, I've taken some wicked shots of a low-lying river fog on the Detroit River. It occurred jsut before an early morning thunderstorm on Monday, and it's exceedingly rare. Look for those shots in the next few days.

Family Portrait

Canon EOS 20D

My Mom and Dad, with their three grandsons, from left, my son Nathanael (three), my son Jonah (nine months), and my nephew Tayden (five).

This was taken on March 5 at my sister's house during Tayden's fifth birthday party. The shot looked good in colour, but when I greyscaled it, it reduced the amount of distraction caused by the over exposure from sunlight coming through the window to the left and the door behind my Dad's head.

Media Chick

Pentax K1000

Kodak PJ400

Second in the series of portraits. My wife Jen in the spring of 2001--the second year we lived in our home.

I have taken hundreds of these knock-on-the-window-style shots. She claims to despise it.

PJ400 is the most versatile film I've ever used. You need a special license (as far as I know) to get your hands on it, and I know longer have access to it. That being said, I cannot account for the graininess in this shot, other than to guess that the ISO setting was off.

This shot was buried in my boxes of back-logged print material.The windows in our house are original, which means they are about 97 years old. There is some warping at work here. I like this shot more now than I did then.

Backyard Summer

Pentax K1000

Fuji NPH400

It's 6 p.m. and there's still daylight. That means spring is here. And in Windsor, we get about three weeks of spring, and then it's 80 degrees or higher from April to October. I used to like the winters a lot more, but today when I got in from work I took by Del Sol Lowboy--the Poet Bike--out for a spin, that's how happy I am that it's spring.

This is Nathanael in the pool just after Labour Day. I went through a whole roll of 36 in about 5 minutes that day. Every one of them turned out exactly the way I saw them turning out through the viewfinder. This is the first shot in my March portrait feature.

Before the Visitation

Canon EOS 20D

This photo was taken just before I attended the funerary visitation for my great-aunt, Ellen Salina, who, after a long and determined battle with muscular dystrophy, passed on suddenly, March 1. She was 84.

This shot was taken March 3 from a CN rail embankment at the southern city limits of Windsor, near the Walker/Provincial/401 interchange. My last, self-imposed assignment for the day was to get a shot looking west down the CN corridor for a story about the Detroit River Tunnel Partnership and the binational committee on the Detroit River International Crossing.

As I stood on the embankment, waiting for the 6:24 p.m. sunset, I was thinking about my aunt Ellen, her sister Cathy Cameron (my late grandmother), and all seven Kelly sisters of Clelland, Scotland (in descending order Roseanne, Catherine, Mary, Ellen, Jane, Annie and Grace).

From those seven women, an enormous extended family has grown across Canada, the UK and the US. The family is tight in its own peculiar and emotional way--all these Salinas, Camerons, Horokys, Collinses, LeClairs, Cannons, Wilsons, Shewchuks, McDonalds, Wilkeses, Larkins, Stewarts... it's difficult to keep track.

I was thinking of how lucky I am, with a young and growing family of my own, to be a part of something so vast, and while I stood there, in the cold, on the train tracks, I noticed this single frond of prairie grass growing out of the kudzu and bracken on the side of the embankment.

This shot was my last one of the day, and I dedicate it to my great-aunt Ellen, and my entire extended family.

Bait Store

Canon EX Auto

Fuji Superia 400

Wally's Bait & Tackle on Sandwich Street in West Windsor. Wally has been pushing bloodsuckers and his hardcore message through these classic fundamentalist signs since my parents were kids. He's taking the "fisher of men" thing really seriously. This was taken on Super Bowl XL Sunday, far removed from the action.

I can dig the passage from Psalms (as a photographer, how could I not?). The John 3:7 is Wally's deal. And that's cool. I'm sure he's a decent man.

Very grainy effect obtained by shooting with 400 ISO film and the camea set for 800 ISO. I like how the snowflakes show up like big, coarse grains.

Hour of the Organ

Canon EX Auto
Fuji Superia 400 (expired)

At last, some of the shots taken with my Dad's old EX. These were taken with the 50mm lens, before I located the 95mm under some of my wife's sweaters in the closet.

Based on the results, I really struggled with this camera. It's an SLR with a ground glass range finder, just like my K1000... and some of the results were so oddly focused that I can't even begin to understand what was going on with the focal length (that crazy screw-mount lens system). The shot of the watch above is a good example of this. Fortunately with a somewhat cool result.

Smoke Heist

Canon EOS 20D