Sick Day

Not much to report today. I've been catching up on my sleep and trying to get rid of this cold/flu thing. (Insert cough or wheeze here.)

Second City

Jennifer Gillespie plays a woman with psychic powers.

With more sleep under my belt and feeling pretty groggy I still managed to join Michelle at the Second City theatre her friend Jennifer perform with her improv troop. The nice thing about it was that it was free, you could take non-flash photography, and they were actually pretty funny.

Did I mention that it was free?


The comedy troop does a funeral scene

Fashion Week - Day 5

All I could shoot without getting my camera taken away.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! That said I'd also like to point out that it's day five of fashion week. There are no runway shows today at the Liberty Grand so it's a great day to sleep. The last four days have taken a lot of energy, shooting and sifting through pictures, then uploading them (with a freaking modem!). It's not that bad. During the uploads I've been able to cook a meal, usually a pork chop cause it's fast. Pork chops the official food for Derek's fashion week.

Tonight there was a big party featuring Ru Paul to go to in the evening. To prepare I slept through most of the day with cat naps, maybe getting up to answer the phone every now and then, print some DVD labels, and eat. I don't think the segmented sleeping works very well as I was still tired by the time I met Juliet, the producer, near the ultra resturant/club.

To answer dragonfly's question about Ru Paul.... She didn't show up on stage until about 1am, or maybe it was around 1:30am, I kind of lost track. The show was fun although it felt pretty short like 20 minutes. The security, a bunch of large, wide, men with pocket flashlights beamed light into the audience to see if anyone was taking pictures. If someone was caught with a camera they were ejected from the club.

I did see a bunch of cellphones being used to take pictures. I guess security couldn't be bothered with the low tech imaging gear. It was about 3:30am or so when I found myself in front of the second hot dog stand going home. The first one, located pretty close to the resturant cooked me up an italian sausage. The second vender located closer to university sold me a polish sausage. I got home and fell asleep immediately

Fashion Week - Day 4

Ashley MacIsaac opens for Pink Tartan

Thursday, the last day of the runway shows at the Liberty Grand. Today's favorite designers were Rudsak and Pat McDonagh. The last show to be seen at the main runway was for the designers of Pink Tartan.
They managed to get a huge turnout to view their fall winter collection.


Hounds tooth coat from the Pink Tartan collection

Weather it was to see Ashley MacIsaac do an opening number, the fact that it was the last runway show, or to see the actually clothing line, why people showed up in such large numbers is anyone's guess.

The big event that happened to me today was while shooting the Pat McDonagh collection my foot fell asleep. That's what happens when you stand in a confined space for five hours. Some point during the middle of the presentation I had to bend over to my camera bag to get more memory for my camera. I fell over almost taking out one of the photographers behind me. Luckily this happened between models. Both of us, me and the other photographer, didn't miss any shots. I shot the rest of the show with my weight on the good leg and the rest of my weight on the monopod.

By the end of the show I fell to the floor to rub my tingly foot. And to answer Kyoko out there who is probably going to ask... "No, I was not wearing my super socks at the time.". For those of you that don't know for christmas I got a pair of super socks (I can't remember the actually name but they're high tech socks). They're thick, and fit your feet like nothing else. Your feet actually feel great when wearing them. I wore them on wednesday. What a big difference they make.

Fashion Week - Day 3

Andy The-Ahn followed by the models of his show.

One of today's favorite designers was Andy. He had designed the interior of a FORD car (the official car of fashion week I might add) and as such had a large Ford presence throughout the show.

Who says music doesn't play a role in fashion? One of the memorable things about Andy's show, other than the clothing, was the use of Prince music. It's good to have high energy music that people know. Let's Go Crazy, Cream and Sheila E's Glamourous Life added life to the runway. Some of the photographers started moving the the music making it a bit difficult to use slow shutter speeds. The platform we were standing on flexed a little too much for my taste.

Fashion Week - Day 2

The Izzy Camilleri collection

After the first day of staking out ones photo territory day two would seem a lot easier. When I say stake out it's just that. In front of the runway there's a large stair like platfrom with enough room on each "stair" to hold a few photographers and videographers, maybe 6 to 8 across. Since there were 4 stairs that gives you room for about 24 to 32 people with their gear in total.

Part of the stair case had already been claimed by the major networks and publications supporting the show. Fashion File, CBC newsworld, National Post, Loreal, The Fashion Design Council of Canada, the Toronto Star, to name a few. Other spaces on the stairs were designated by marked off rectangular areas using white tape. Kind of like Les Nesman and his imaginary office on WKRP. These "areas" are reserved for a photographer, videographer on a first come first serve basis.

Get there early and the spot is yours. Get there late and you have to ask permission to shoot behind or next to the photographer that was there first. Overall the camera people are very helpful and friendly. It's like an unwritten rule of photography etiquette. Be nice to other people because at the next shoot you may find yourself needing help.

The big favorite collection of the day came from Izzy Camilleri. Sporting a lot of leather in a blade runner sort of style. I have to say that the girls wearing the outfits were pretty stunning. I may not know fashion but I know what I like. The pale make up was a good contrast to the dark black clothing. It presented a challenge shooting as you wanted to see details in the clothing without the skin being overblown.

The only thing that seemed odd was the model's hair style. What's up with that? It looked like a goose needed a place to dump on and found the model's head. I liked the slicked back part of the hair style but the hair forming a "J" on the forehead looked weird.

That's the thing about fashion and art, you can always find something that you can pick at. I'm sure somewhere there's some hair stylist that loved that look.

Fashion Week

The Mackage show at the Liberty Grand

It's the first day of Fashion week here in Toronto. What the heck is fashion week? Good question. I'm going to find out over the course of the next week as I take pictures of various events and parties for Juicy Stuff.

Follow the link to read the latest in Toronto fashion by Max MacDonald. As this will be an on going thing all week be sure to check back daily as my blog will be updated as well.

Prep time

Marc sits in front of some salmon congee at the Congee Queen

Sunday. The day of rest. At least that's what they say. For me it was a day to get a lot of things done. Mainly to get prepared for the upcoming week. Known here in Toronto as Fashion Week, it's a week of runways and other glamorous events that take place primarily at night. All night and all week. It's a smorgasbord of photographic opportunities.

Cleaning the lenses, camera, charging batteries, going over schedules, meeting times, and other notes are just some of the things I'm doing. That and I was toying around with a business card design for my friend Marc, who specializes in computer programming and phone solutions (see picture above).

We went for lunch at the Congee Queen (just west of Lawrence and Don Mills). It's too bad the resturant is so far. I could have congee everyday. Seems like that's my new favorite food.

Party with Bill

Bill Wrigley, artist, party host.

"How do you know Bill Wrigley anyway?" That's the question that people kept asking me all night. My answer was that I had just met him a few nights ago at another networking party hosted by G.A.T. (Girl about Town). Very personable, Bill invited myself and Emmanuel to his party because the day ends in a "Y". Actually I think the motivation was that he didn't want the party to be filled with just women.

No, we can't have that. So Emmanuel and I decided to go the the party to meet those poor lonely women lurking about all by themselves. We're nice that way.

The party took place at Bill's studio. I can't really remember the actual location in Toronto as we were driven up there by van. Not that we were hog tied and blindfolded. I suppose I just never really paid attention to where the van was going. It was near some train tracks if that helps with the visualization.

The ceiling had a bunch of wagons that resembled the great lakes. It was Bill's current art project. On the walls he had some drawings of the same wagons and a painting he did of a orange haired, elf-like, girl with big eyes. What impressed me with his work was that the lines in his drawings were all crisp and clean. There was a nice weight to the lines that varied depending on where it was in the image. It was almost like looking at comicbook art drawn by John Buscema (as opposed to the spidery thin lines, but ultra detailed work of Todd MacFarlane or Jim Lee).


Emmanuel reacting to all the bottles of booze

For those of you who don't know these artists. They're comic book artists (and one of them is a guy that makes toy figurines). Not that I'm trying to comic book geek out all the readers or anything. I just used to read a lot of comics and the artists that seem to come up quite a bit back then were these guys.

The party had a very diverse group of people. Some were artists, some were public relations, some hair stylists, some dancers (if they weren't they should have been). Overall I met a lot of interesting people. No I didn't pick up any women. Sorry to get your hopes up.

See me and Wendy in Stereo by clicking here.

Darryl and Rob's Birthday Party

Rob Pincomb and Darryl Gold

After the car show I made my way downtown to Rob and Darryl's official birthday party, otherwise known as Zamboni day. Darryl's birthday is on the 9th. Rob's birthday is on the 11th. The Zamboni's birthday is on the 10th. Why do I know that?

Way back when, I think it was around 1993, I met Rob working on a CDrom with Darryl called the "Interactive Hockey Rulebook". That's when we found out that the anniversary of the zamboni is that day and now you know.... and knowing is half the battle...