This whole trip came about while photographing Toronto Fashion week. While in the media pit uploading photos, Andrew Majtenyi, fashion designer, asked if I was going to Ottawa and wanted to know if I wanted to get a lift up there with him. Max overheard this, and while I was unsure of what I was going to do, Max took the opportunity to register me as media to cover the catwalks using one of the LG laptops available to the media.
I was going to Ottawa.
While I was wondering if I was going to give up other work as the week got closer to the friday, I started to look forward to visiting. My aunt and uncle live in Ottawa and there's a few derby friends that live there as well. As Jett Girl has put it candidly before, there are derby people all over the world that would provide places to crash should I need a place to stay. While the thought of this is pretty appealing and makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, it still feels a bit far fetched. The last thing I want to do is become a world wide leech. Not only that I feel bad that I can't really return the favour, unless there's some derby person out there that wants to visit Toronto by sleeping on a bunch of boxed laserdiscs in a small area.
Stubby says "Hello".
The trip began at 8:30am, leaving the house to get to Andrew's, to share a ride up to the nation's capital. Along the way I passed Stubby, the cat, who was on the other side of the street getting petted by two kids going to school. When he heard my keys he came running across the street. I thought he was going to get hit by a bicycle.
Kicks looks at Stubby (the cat).
It turns out that Getcha Kicks (from the Derby Débutantes) was the one riding the bike. I thought that weird as I usually run into her on the way to the dentist. This is the third time running into her on the street. As my dentist appointments ended up in success maybe this was a good omen for the Ottawa trip.
Josie does some last minute emailing.
I love cheesy signs like this and the ones up on the Honest Ed's building
On the way out of Toronto we stopped by a bargain store to buy a bunch of coat hangers. Across the street there was a mattress store. The really cheap signage was right up there with signage I saw for a place called "Coffee Tim", a sign that had an "e" on the end but was painted over. For some reason I found the name "Mattress OK" humorous. It doesn't seem as funny now.
There's a mattress tied up on the street. What's up with that?
Flying J no more
Near Napanee, Ontario, there's a Flying J. It's a restaurant that was introduced to me a few years ago known for their cheap gas and all you can eat buffet. That must have been a while ago. Last October when going to the Flying J with Darryl the food wasn't that great. This year, today the food wasn't that great either. In fact it seemed worse than I remembered. I ordered a smoked meat sandwich. The mayonnaise that was put on it had the consistency of sitting unrefrigerated for a day or two.
When Andrew asked for ketchup we received a couple of ketchup packs. There were no bottles. The annoyed waitress explained that the Flying J's last few days of operation were today and tomorrow. It's being taken over by Denny's and Denny's had a hiring period and they didn't rehire our waitress. I can understand how one would be annoyed by this. She apologized for being in a bad mood and offered us to take anything we wanted. "Woo woo ketchup packs for all my friends in Ottawa", I thought. In the end I really didn't want to lug any of that stuff around. Sorry people in Ottawa.
A last Flying J meal.
Chocolate pudding with Apple crumble and chocolate ice cream. Eww.
A phone in our booth.
One last look at the eating area.
One last look at the variety store.
We made a pit stop along the 1000 islands parkway. The bathroom break gave us a chance to walk around a bit. Took some photos of the dock and saw a sign with the black legged tick warning. That didn't make me feel any better and the mud sticking to my dress shoes convinced me to go back to the car to wait for the others.
A photo I took to become a desktop background.
Blacklegged ticks?
A bird house... condo.
Me, with my GPS. (N44 27.190 W75 51.593)
Drive by shooting... photography (N45 13.409 W75 43.089)
The World of Fashion
The national gallery and the venue for this season's Ottawa fashion week.
After picking up Patrick, Andrew's design developer, from the Ottawa airport they dropped me off at the National Gallery. I wanted to arrive early to check out the place, figure out where the photo pit was, etc, etc. The usual photographer drill.
While the lighting had some dark spots along the catwalk I wasn't as annoyed as with the catwalk lighting in Toronto. This mainly had something to do with not having to to pay to get in. Technically I didn't have to pay to shoot LG Fashion week in Toronto, FAB paid for me, but the thought of any payment and the hoops we had to jump through angered me. Quite a bit. This was better. A lot better.
Yes, We're in Canada.
While the catwalks were only on from 6pm to 10pm, Ottawa has squished two catwalks an hour. I suppose it was nice not have to stand around as long to see different designers (In Toronto it was one an hour) but for backing up photos it was nightmarish. Never mind tagging them and uploading them anywhere. All the photos had to be sorted after the day was over. By that point I was too tired to upload them to a wire service. The Trive catwalk photos would be prepped for FAB and that was about it.
EmiliaTorabi
Keera Sama
Trive by ModaSuite
Girls love well dressed guys.
Nixxi
Karen McClintock
This collection was a bit of a odd one. At first we, the photographers, were wondering why the whole collection was black. At some point in, maybe the forth or fifth model, we clued into the fact that this catwalk was featuring jewelry.
Micalla
Elroy Apparel
GoldenFish Swimwear
Why do these people look unhappy?
Jess and her coat check ticket.
The cat seems underwhelmed at our arrival
Jett Girl of the Hammer City Roller Girls once said to me that I could crash anywhere in the world thanks to my photographing roller derby. While it seemed like a nice thought I never thought it had any credible shred of something actually happening.
Sure enough, Ottawa, place to stay (Thanks Katie and James). Montreal, place to stay (Thanks Marc and Alyssa). Even Chicago I was offered a place to stay. That's awesome (keeping in mind I don't want to become a world class sponge).
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