Chantel Vachon

Chantel Vachon

Another Bunny night at the Swimming Pool, tonight featuring the playmate Chantel Vachon. For those that aren't in the know every month, for the past few months, my friend Simon Mah has a free autograph session with some of the past playboy playmates he's photographed. It's a good chance to meet them one on one should that be your cup of tea in a drinking and eating environment.

As one of event photographers it's a good chance for me to get out and break the monotony of everyday life while keeping my photo taking skills sharp. I get to see a bunch of friends on a regular basis. The pretty girls? Well that's just a bonus.


Posing with a photo from a previous Simon Mah photo shoot


Busy signing autographs

Transit is for the birds

Because some pigeons are tired of flight...

This was weird. A few levels underground while waiting for a subway to get me home from doing a bit of grocery shopping this pigeon appeared in front of me. It seemed like it just jumped into my view. It walked toward me, paused, and walked back toward where it had landed. Then it turned almost like it was looking down the tracks for the incoming train. The bird froze in position like it was waiting.

Even after the subway car pulled up the bird stayed on the ground, even with all the people leaving the subway. It casually walked around people. It wasn't until some girl started screaming and running after it that it took flight.

Do the Nikon Shuffle

Looking at the GPS in Mark Hindle's car as we drive up to Nikon

I got a lift from a friend and fellow playback operator, Mark Hindle, to travel out to Nikon (yet again). The reason? To get my repaired 70-200mm f2.8 lens. The cost? $387.00. While not as cheap as getting the damaged 28-70mm f2.8 lens fixed it was still nice to put it on the camera body and try it out.

It was like new. The circuit board had been replaced. I'm thinking it probably took some damage while going through customs back in February last year. Over the course of the year it seemed to be less responsive when focusing in automatic mode. Today the lens operated amazingly. I felt like it was Christmas. Hurray you Nikon repair folk you!!!

Actually it's getting pretty bad as the guy behind the counter knows me by name. I think I mentioned this before. The only bummer about going to Nikon today was about 30 minutes after I got home I got a call from the Nikon parts department saying that my HB-19 (lens hood for the 28-70mm) had arrived. D'oh! Looks like another trip in the very near future.

All roads lead to London

Alan Joson meets me for a late lunch

At times there are a string of events that occur that seem too strange to just be a random coincidence. It's like a light turning red at the intersection you were crossing. You stop, glance down at your shoes, to find you're standing on a five dollar bill. Had the light been green you would have just walked over it.

The first model shoot I did was kind of like that. The model had just flew in from L.A. and called to see if I wanted to do a shoot. The weird thing was that the day before I had met a make up artist and a person who offered me a location to shoot at. Within three days all the logistics of photographing a model shoot came to fruition.

My friend Emmanuel goes into more detail with these so called synchronicities in his blog (tip #23). However, as a person who is a bit weary of luck good and coincidental flukes leading to good fortune, I have to take a step back to analyze my surroundings.

I had gotten a phone call from Alan about a week ago. He wanted to pick my brain but didn't want to do it at that particular moment but rather over lunch. As it turns out he wanted to pick my brain about going to shoot London Fashion week, an event a week ago I hadn't given much thought. There were a lot of hurdles. A) getting my lenses fixed in time, B) Getting my passport, C) Getting a sponsor or money, D) a reason to go (I've shot fashion week twice before. What reason would there be to go back? Something I hadn't already shot.)

Since last week my lenses have been returned to me repaired and ready to go. I've applied for my passport which should be ready for pick up on the 29th. Andrew Majtenyi is going to be showing on his first catwalk in London in the Canadian consulate (which would be a nice venue to photograph), Angie is visiting London, Alan is talking about going to London Fashion week, and
I found my jar of British Sterling from my last trip. Reasons A, B, and D are checked now all I require is C to be checked off the list. Well, there's still just over three weeks...

Yes, I do Head Shots

Leanna Spina, make up artist

It's just one of those things that I do that I don't advertise. Head shots. For business cards, model cards, web sites. Yep, I shoot head shots. I'll have to update the web site one of these days.


The Ikea chicken puppet and Leanna

Oh, I also photograph goofball images.

Passport to boredom

It snowed last night

With just over three weeks until London Fashion week I figured it was finally time to apply for a new passport. It would be one less hurdle should I decide that I'd want to go to London last minute. This season during fashion week Andrew Majtenyi, the fashion designer, is having his line shown at the Canadian consulate right next to Trafalgar square. It would be great to shoot that venue as well as a world of fun just to see London again.

I woke up at 8:00am to leave the house at 9am, just missing the moring rush hour downtown. I was supposed to meet up with Leanna at the McDonalds at the Eaton Centre. It was the only place I could think of where we could sit down and wait in a warm environment until the other showed up.

Just after getting my order of combo two, the sausage and egg McMuffin with orange juice and a hash brown, my phone rang. It was a text message from Leanna saying that she had changed her mind and was going to meet me later on. I slowly ate my meal taking in the surroundings. It comprised mostly of people reading the morning paper while eating.


The long wait

The passport office was filled with people waiting around. The first mini line up was to do a precursory look over your documents to make sure everything was in order. Once approved you were given a ticket with a number on it and allowed to wait with all the others applying for their passport.

The mini line was about 20 minutes and the sitting around waiting took an hour and 15 minutes. It was a long time to sit around without a book. I had noticed that the numbers being called were a bit mixed up. Some tickets started with a B or C. I wondered if this was so you couldn't estimate the wait time, leave to go get a cup of coffee or food, and come back. Food wasn't allowed in the waiting room or cell phones.


What kind of number is this?

To help pass the time I decided to just sit and listen to all the different sounds. I would close my eyes to help concentrate and every now and then would open my eyes to write down the sounds I heard on a piece of paper. There was a point where the lady sitting next to me asked what I was doing. I told her and she joined in. We sat there for an hour pointing out the different sounds to each other.

Here's the list...

• Babies crying and being shushed by their mothers.
• jazz music coming from a radio within the passport office
• a person complaining how long the line was
• tapping of toes, not to the music, but as a form of impatience
• the faint sound of the machine sucking the recycled air through the office
• rustling of newspapers, documents and forms
• yawning (that was me)
• pacing (some of the people that couldn't sit were walking around in small circles)
• various murmuring
• ring of the elevator doors just before they opened up to let in more people
• the beeping of a photocopier in the distance
  

All in all it was an interesting way to pass the time with nothing better to do. When my number finally showed up on the LED board I was almost sad to go. I waved good bye to the lady and went to the booth to get my passport application looked at.

The guy at the booth was very pleasant. I found the passport office much like all the other government offices I've visited to be drab and life sucking. Maybe it was the lights. I then thought that it would be one thing to do what I just did waiting for almost two hours but it's another thing entirely to have to work in this environment the whole day and then have to come back to work the next day and the next.

Being the guy looking over the application of various people all day would probably be draining as well. Especially if you had to deal with all the people complaining that the wait was so long... blah, blah, blah. I let the government worker know that I appreciated the effort of them being there and putting up with the post 911 swell of crap. That seemed to put a bit of energy into him as he zipped through my application. Before I knew it I was given a piece of paper telling me when I could come back to pick up my passport.

The cost of the passport is $87 in which they courier it to you. Should you want to pick it up it costs $10 more. I would have figured it would be cheaper because you wouldn't have to pay for postage but apparently not.

Test subject

A test frame using a 105mm lens

Being monday today, I had to return the 105mm lens I rented by 9am. To squeeze the most out of my rental fee I woke up early to shoot some more test shots. I've been toying (no pun intended) with the idea of making another animated short using the established Lego characters from my last movie, "Macho Baby!". All the lego people have been conveniently kept in a fishing tackle box along with their accessories (ie. the "Derek" lego with a lego camera, the "Derryl" lego with the fez).

Despite the fact that it only took two and a half days to do all the photography and compositing and that I made it up as I went along, it was still two and a half days of no sleep and a lot of work. It makes me tired just thinking about it. However a lot of time has passed and it has now been just over three years since MachoBaby! first played at the HLAP film festival.

I've had an idea for the sequel months after finishing the first movie but pushed it to the back burner of my brain since then. There's always the expectation that if the first film is good the following film has to be just as good or better. It's very rare that that happens as the audience has higher expectations for the next film. Some examples of good or better second films are Wallace and Gromit's Wrong Trousers, The Wrath of Khan, Empire Strikes back, Toy Story 2, Terminator 2, Aliens. Examples of bad sequels are Temple of Doom, Grease 2, Son of the Mask. I suppose there's a tinge of fear that the second film I make will bomb. Plus I don't like doing things half assed.


Hair and dust on the lens and "Darryl" lego

The rented lens had some hair on it. You can see it in the Darryl photo. And if I were to do another film I would have to invest in a air can to get rid of all the dust particles that cling to the lego figures. Overall I was pretty impressed with the sharpness of the photos. Now all I need to do is to start building the sets.

Practice Makes Perfect

The HCRG train every sunday

After wobbling out of dim sum I spent some time at the Hamilton shopping centre watching the movie "The Bucket List". From there I caught a ride with Tracey and Jenna to the place where the Hamilton City Roller Girls (HCRG) practise. Not having my full camera gear proved to be a small annoyance but I took some photos anyway.

As it turned out I got a call the day before to shoot head shots of everyone but didn't check my voice mail. It's a good thing I bring my camera everywhere. I was just a bit upset at myself for not bringing extra light sources. In the end the photos were fine thanks to the SB-800 I keep along with my camera.


The Death Row Dames

Hamilton Dim Sum

The Jade Garden restaurant

A few months ago I was told buy Melanie that the Jade Garden was one of the best restaurants for dim sum in all of Hamilton. As I am a dim sum connoisseur I've been itching to try this place out for a few months. As it's located in Hamilton it really isn't located in the most convenient location for me to get to. However, after a bit of planning today would be the day to try it out.

Using facebook I created an event about two weeks in advance. It was only supposed to be a week in advance but it turns out that a bunch of us were sick so it got pushed a week later (or today). Originally I scheduled it for 11am but got a last minute email (today at 3am) that people couldn't wake up that early due to a busy night, last night. So I pushed it to 1pm.

Things got a little complicated. I wasn't sure I had contacted everyone so I made my way to Hamilton on the 9:30 GO bus to get there for 11am. The idea was that I would meet people at 11am. Eat. Then meet the other people at 1pm and eat again. I would have to pace myself but at least then this way everyone I invited could eat with someone. The whole reason of eating dim sum in numbers is that you get to try out more food.


11:00 no one is here.

Leah called just as I made it into the hamilton bus station saying they couldn't make it for 11:00am. I told her that was okay because the meal had been pushed to 1:00pm. I made my way north on James from the bus station to the restaurant. I tried to figure out what the address was to tell Leah and to see if they had vegetarian food.

By looking at the other buildings I was able to deduce that the address was around 115 (according to Google I would later find out it was 113), oh well close enough. It was abit cold to be standing outside so I decided to go in. I had to go in anyway to see if they had any vegetarian dim sum.

There were things on the menu that looked vegetarian but in a chinese restaurant sometimes there's only one way to find out and that is to order the stuff. I have found the Pork could be considered a vegetable as that or shrimp seem to be in everything. This is just a personal observation I have made.

The first few plates had arrived and during my recon my cell phone rang. It was Trevor. He asked if I was at the restaurant. I told him I was and before I could tell him that the time had been changed to 1pm he had hung up. I started flipping through the address book on my cell phone to call him back to tell him not to show up until 1pm when the door of the restaurant swung open with Trevor bounding in.

We ordered more food and not 10 minutes had passed before the rest of the gang showed up. What the..? They had changed their minds at the last minute and since I was at the restaurant any way they decided to join me.


The turn out.

We moved to a bigger table and ate until 1pm. Then like shift work Leah and Craig showed up just as the main group was leaving. Leah, Craig and I moved back to a smaller table and ordered more food. By around 3pm I felt pretty stuffed. I had been eating for four hours straight (although I was pacing myself).


Melanie, the person who gave Jade Garden the best dim sum rating in all of Hamilton

In the end I thought that the food was pretty good. Was it the best in Hamilton? I don't know since this is the only dim sum restaurant I've been to. Obviously more research is required. They do have exceptional congee (note to Hilary specifically).

Into the Unknown

Lisa's health centre located at 1166 St. Clair (on the north west corner of Dufferin)

My friend Lisa opened a studio for things like yoga, pilates, shiatsu, acupuncture, homeopath, and even has a counselling psycotherpist. I went to the open house to show support and to visit an old friend.

As with any busy open houses Lisa was busy organizing people, answering questions, so I ended up talking to the various instructors and other people who wandered in. It was good exercise in small talk and developing ones social skills. I figured worse case scenario I'd say "Hi" to Lisa and leave.


Katarzyna, one of the dance instructors.

I was once told that there's fear in the unknown which may result in feeling nervous, awkward, or even uncomfortable. The trick then is to throw yourself into as many unknown situations as possible. This results into the unknown becoming a known and in the end you feeling more comfortable. It's one of those "Wow that seems just crazy enough to work" ideas.

I ended up staying for about two and a half hours talking and meeting various people who in the end were quite interesting. I'll have to go out into the unknown more often.