Sign of Journey

Leah next to the sign.

I had to call in some money that people owed me to pay off some bills. It wasn't a lot to pay off when working with steady income. In lock down savings mode it was the difference between not having a phone and having a phone.

If people can't get in touch with you finding work will be that much harder. Still have 20 something days left in the month to make rent. Plenty of time.

Leah, the delivery person for the person that owed me money met up with me to give me cash. As we were walking down the street talking about work, finances, and all that, we stopped at a bar that she recognized. It looked like it was closed for good. I looked up and saw this sign. "Don't stop believin'". A sign from God? Probably just a Journey fan. Still, it was a weird coincidence.

When bored, go for a walk

Some doggie in the window.

Originally I left the house to go get groceries. It's been the thing to do the last few days. On lock down mode for spending money and still looking for work. Photography work, at least on Craig's list and Kijiji is pretty dismal. Most of the people looking for photographers are looking for photographers to work for free, photographers to maybe work in the future, or photographers that will pay to do the work.

"Eh? What's that? I have to pay you to photograph something I have no interest in? Uh, no."

Monster.ca, a well known web site for job placement had a posting looking for a photographer to work for three months on a trial basis. If at the end of the three months the photographer worked out they might hire that person into a full time position at $10.00 an hour. Oh, did I say that the first three months, the trial period, were non-paying. What kind of small piss ant company was this? Working as a teenager way back when we were hired onto a job maybe at a lower rate but not for free and not for three months. Three weeks maybe.

Turns out the employer wasn't some small company, just a company that was looking for cheap labour. It was Bell. Yes, Bell that phone company bell. The same company that told me I couldn't drop my phone service because I had a 3 year contract. A 3 year contract that I never signed because I bought the phone out right.

As someone that's worked for the most part in middle to upper management and freelance for as long as I can remember this working for free thing (internship) would have escaped me. It's only recently while shifting work priorities that I have found this exploitation. For some school courses some programs require that the student put in 40 hours or so to get their degree, program certificate, what have you. This is where companies have jumped on the band wagon to get free employment. Slimy money grubbing opportunists getting free labour, promising jobs but releasing people after their internship to replace them with new people willing to work for free.

This made me furious. I actually wanted to start a company just to train kids while paying them then getting them jobs so they can by pass these bastards. I was brought back down to earth by one of my friends saying maybe I should find a job first for me. He had a good point.


It's Ian!

I decided to go out and get some air, and groceries. My random wanderings ended up with me walking down to Queen street taking photos of the odd store and bumping into Ian at Squirrelys. It was a random occurrence. While photographing store fronts I noticed him and his friend in the front window of the restaurant. They had just gotten out of some rock climbing gym and were finishing dinner.

I walked in and joined them for a drink. We talked about how we both had horseshoes up our butt when it came to work. Usually things would get pretty dire. Not being able to pay rent, maxed out credit cards, and then just as things looked financially bleak... we'd get a job, pay off our bills, rent, be able to eat out and spend some money. Someone up there likes for sure.

I told Ian how angry I was at these companies hiring people for nothing. It bugged me that much. Then the issue of me not working came up. "I'm not too worried. I still have a whole month before rent is due. A lot can happen in a month." I told him. Being in the same situation before he agreed. It wasn't like rent was due the next day.

Superstitious Baking

Canada wins gold

Not having sex, wearing the same underwear (unwashed), not shaving, owning a lucky penny, having a loonie embedded under the ice, sitting in a specific position on a couch, these might all be things one does in order to win an upcoming game. They're nutty superstitions that may not do anything but to some may affect the outcome of play. To a player it might just be that small detail to give them the edge (in their mind anyway). The result, they play better.

I don't really believe in that kind of thing. Granted, wearing old underwear might make the other team back off a little because you really stink. It's one thing if you're on a team playing the game, but as a spectator? Cheering for your team might help if you're right there at the game. What if you're watching it on TV? Players can't hear you in another province. (I'm sorry to break this to my friends out there, yes Zee, your shouting at the TV won't make your team win)

A few days ago, while watching the Canada versus Solvakia game on TV, my friends noticed that all three goals scored by Canada occurred while I was downstairs baking a pizza. Solvakia scored their two goals while I was sitting in front of the TV.

Today, with nothing really better to do I watched the big hockey game. Canada versus the USA. I'm not a sports fan, unless you include roller derby. Correction, I'm not a sports nut. If Canada or the US won I'd be okay with that. I have friends in both countries. Why should some friends be "losers" while the others are "winners", it's beyond me. Watch the sport to see good hockey.

If the Leafs win or lose, no matter, as I type this I can hear Zee yelling at me for why they haven't won the Stanley Cup since he was born. I'm one of those people that will watch the odd game here and there socially.

When Team Canada went into defencive mode and started to let goals in and then go into overtime I realized that I wasn't baking anything. There was nothing in the oven. So during the start of the forth period I threw in some croissant rolls. The Pillsbury kind where you don't have to prep anything.

I kind of forgot that they were in the oven until Canada scored the winning goal. Which is why they're so brown to the point they're almost burnt. Oh yeah, that's why Canada won, it's because I made half burnt croissants. Zee, you can thank me later.

Meet the Betties

Some new, some not as new.

The Smoke City Betties, one of ToRDs four awesome teams, had a fund raiser tonight. I looked over at the auction table and didn't recognize a bunch of the people there. While normally a first reaction might be "Who are these people?" as a photographer of derby one has to take into account that a derby skater does not always look like the same person in a real life environment compared to the big exciting sport life on the track.

There are a few factors that play into this.

• helmet - usually when photographing a skater their hair is covered by a helmet. When I first saw Slaughter Lauder off the track doing some NSO work I did a second take because she had a long mane of hair. She looked "weird".


• skates - skates add height. So if you're used to shooting someone who's 5 foot something and then meeting them without skates on you wonder why you're not looking at the same height you're used to. Also while on skates, the subject moves around differently. Gliding from point A to point B. Off skates, the subject moves differently. Maybe seems more clumsy, off balance (usually if holding beer), or just moves up and down more.
  


• outfit - the brain adjusts to the skater wearing an outfit. Should the outfit change into street wear the effect is like seeing a familiar comic book character wearing something else. Imagine Charlie Brown in a tux drawn into a Bloom County background. You might recognize him but you'd have to take a second look if he's not standing next to someone else you know.

Slaughter Lauder (11) "Some thing's a foot"

As it turns out the people behind the table at the auction were actually new skaters that I had not met yet. That was good, verifying that my brain and memory (at least for derby) was still intact. wheew.


"Don't stop believin'..."

At some point in the night the old derby standard of Journey started to play. I think that's also about the time the party picked up a bit. Some of the girls got up on the beer counter and started dancing to the song while singing along.

One of these days I'll have to make a book just on photos taken at roller derby after parties with this song playing in the background. It's magical. Gold! Photographic gold!!!


It's a magnet for foot notes.

CN Power VS the Vixens

Land Shark (#1/3) of CN Power breaks through the pack.

Final Score:
CN Power 199
Vixens 49

The downsview hanger. By day a photographer's dream, by night a photographer's nightmare. This is where the ToRD roller derby bouts take place. It's a warehouse/hanger turned derby venue. While the lights that exist are good enough to see what's happening they are no where near the ideal brightness for broadcast quality photos.

I've photographed at this venue before to know any photos taken after the sun goes down would look like mud without a fast lens or some additional light or both.

Tonight I showed up with two studio flashes. Unfortunately not enough cable for power. This limited my light source on one side of the room. D'oh! Well any light is better than no light.


The CN Power and the Rideau Valley Vixens

One of the challenges of using flashes is that you have to wait between photos for the flash to recharge and some flashes will melt with continuous use. I've seen a few SB-800s melted in order to get a shot. It's not pretty but at least the photographer got the photo in the end.

There are ways to get around waiting for a flash to juice up. Of course like almost any photography solution it's not cheap. You can buy a multimax 32 for up to four flashes (A, B, C, D) and have the multimax on your camera cycle through them. You wouldn't have to wait for a refresh until getting past the forth flash and by that time the first flash might be ready to go anyway. Four flashes at $1000 each and five multimax 32s at $300 each (total $5500) and that's just for one corner of the track and not including stands, yeah it can add up. But just think of the photos you can take.

This is where I subtlety advertise the donate button on the right.

Programming at Timmys

C# at Timmy's.

While waiting at a Tim Horton's for the musician from the James Clarke institute (the band) to pick up a CD of photos I made him, I attempted to cram in more C# learning over an Ice Cappuccino.

It should be noted that while they seem like an ideal place to fiddle with a laptop, more so than a library, coffee shops and laptops aren't such a great solution if one accidentally whacks the cup of drink onto keyboard.

This did not happen to me, what did happen to the laptop was getting sticky donut fingers on the keyboard. Coffee shops and laptops do not mix.

Noobs bring snacks

Lizzie and Georgette fiddling with cameras

There was a FlickR meet up at the Rivoli tonight. A bunch of camera geeks... er... enthusiasts met up to exchange camera stories, notes, and apparently eat. It was determined on the internet group that new comers bring baked goods.

I'm not sure where that came from but being that this was my first meeting in a long time I stopped by the Chinese bakery and brought a bunch of custard and pork buns (custard bun, pork bun, separate, not a custard pork bun).

They went over pretty well. Squeaky Rat brought in some homemade pickles that were flavoured with cherry and grape kool aid.

kool-aid pickles
cucumber in jar of vinegar with flavoured kool aid for one month = weird pickle

I tried the cherry flavoured one. It wasn't bad. I tasted like a pickle.

Free Hugs

A sign of things to come...

In the weird world known as Kensington market Paula and I were wandering around on a photo excursion when we saw a brightly painted car with the above license plate. It was the precursor to the street going all nutty. A sign so to speak of what was to follow. A bunch of people with signs that read "Free Hugs" seemed to pop out all around us, coming out of no where.

It was like a bad TV episode where the writers just gave up and decided to use material from other shows forgetting any show bible ever existed, throwing any story line consistency out the window. A lost circus troupe? an accordion guy? The surreal feeling of the Twilight Zone. Throw it all in!!



People with cameras started popping out of the wood work taking photos of what was going on. Traffic was being backed up. It was all so strange and weird but had a fun vibe.

At first you're thinking "Who are these strangers?", "What's the catch?", "What's with all this hug stuff anyway?". You could see various people walking by make crunched up, squinty eyed, faces and hurrying along their way, trying not to make any further eye contact.


Paula gets a hug!

Then Paula got a hug. That seemed to let the hug flood gates open. Like hug bomb, people all around me were getting hugged, girls started dancing to music, hula hooping. There was the accordion guy but also a sax player who start playing in sync to the hub bomb being dropped.



We met a hobbyist photographer from London (UK) who calmly stated that these hug occurrences happen in other cities all over the world. I kept waiting for him to take out a notebook or clip board, then pull out a walkie talkie to report in ala X-files. Another sighting recorded prepare to drop bomb to cleanse the area.

No bomb, no knock out gas with that weird sense of amnesia. The crowd was still in hug mode. If I didn't have photos as proof I'd think it was something I'd made up while under the influence. Maybe I drank some shots or something? Jello shooter? nope.


Accordion guy


Hugs all around





Eventually we left the group of huggy people to return to our photo taking, normal lives.


Dog in park likes Paula's sleeve

Sucks to be a drummer

The James Clark Institute

Tonight I was at Mitzi's sister photographing The Bon (and as it turns out the James Clark Institute). It's been a while since photographing a band in such a small space. The stage was tiny. Mic stands, band gear, speakers, and the musicians all crammed into one small spot.


The Bon

How many times have you looked at cool rock photos and realized there's no photo of the drummer? Maybe you've never noticed at all and if you did maybe it was a photo of Phil Collins or Sheila E. since they're not only drummers but singers as well. Had my cousin Dave not beaten into my brain that there's a drummer on stage somewhere I probably would have been content just taking photos of the guitarists and any other musicians in front.


The wall of guitarists

Not only does the drummer have the most stuff to lug around, they usually get the worst spot on stage to be photographed. The drummer is located usually behind all the other band members, especially if the stage is small, and they generally can't move around much as that's the nature of the instrument they're playing.

If the venue is kind they might be lit, but in a lot of cases they're not. So not only do you have to find them behind a wall of other performers, you also have to deal with the fact that they're in the dark.


no open spaces, the drummer is blocked


Movement, a luxury most drummers do not have


Stage positioning, drummers generally in the back


Great photo but no drummer

So the next time you're at a concert or at a live performance in a bar or some other such venue, photograph the drummer. It'll make my cousin Dave happy.

Fort Fun

Carla Coma doing a head stand

Fort Wayne aka Fort Fun. After the double header of bouts the after party was at the Thirsty Camel, strategically located three blocks away from our hotel. When we arrived the two top floor rooms were already packed with derby girls. One room had food and drink, the other larger room had the dance floor.

It didn't take long for the HCRG girls to join the party, once beered up, Carla Coma started doing head stands on the dance floor. This pretty much kicked off the rest of the HCRG joining in. Human pyramids, arm wrestling, dancing and crazy hijinks were to follow.


The three league pyramid


The leg spreader

The "leg spreader" was a drink that was being served at the bar. Judge Jody came up with this pose getting the new HCRG bench manager Spencer to spread his legs. I laugh every time I see this photo and I'll always remember the drink name.


Hand cuffed Darc-vader and Gina Simmons

At one point the girls from the HCRG and Fort Wayne managed to get the local police officer to stand in and pose in some photos. He even hand cuffed some of the derby girls for photo taken. As he was such a good sport, he is not shown here as we would like him to keep his job.