Heart-Shaped Glasses

Ottawa - 2009.

Bywords Warms the Night

cover photo for the Bywords Quarterly Journal, Vol 6, No 4 by John W. MacDonald
A fund raiser in support of the Cornerstone Shelter and Housing Program
Sunday, February 1, 2009, 2pm
Dusty Owl Reading Series
Swizzles Bar & Grill, 246-b Queen Street

More info on Amanda's blog:
http://amandaearl.blogspot.com/2009/01/bywords-warms-night-sunday-feb-1-2pm.html

Steven Zytveld

Steven Zytveld of the Dusty Owl Reading Series, Ottawa - 2008.
www.dustyowl.com/

Dr. Kevin Lee Patterson

Dr. Kevin Patterson appears on stage at an event to launch the book, "Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants" co-written with Jane Warren. The event was hosted at the Library & Archives Canada by the Ottawa International Writers Festival - 16 January 2008.

While Patterson's "goal was to raise Canadians' collective knowledge of the (Afghanistan) war zone", he ended up being punished for an error in judgement.

"This week, the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons ruled that Dr. Patterson should pay $5,000 for the cost of a disciplinary hearing and make a donation of $7,000 to a registered charity acceptable to the college.

The latter figure is the amount the physician and author received from Mother Jones magazine for the story that contained details on the last moments of Corporal Kevin Megeney in March of 2007.

The college said that Dr. Lee admitted he was guilty of unethical and unprofessional conduct by breaching patient confidentiality through the article published in the July-August, 2007, edition of the magazine."( source )

Carleton Ford- OC Transpo Strike Solution

nue allongée au coussin blanc

hommage to Modigliani

We All Shine On

Instant Karma, John Lennon

Hearts

A reporter questions a young lady about her take on the OC Transpo strike.
But I bet what he really wanted to know was the story behind those glasses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX1fqMGQWtI

Clive Doucet

A written news update from City of Ottawa councillor Clive Doucet's website www.clivedoucet.com dated Jan. 23, 2009:

"I remain fully committed to finding a way to end the current transit strike as quickly as possible. No one should regard a prolonged transit strike as a feasible option. One does not have a viable city without public transit.

My original position remains unchanged. I believe that transit, like the services provided by 12,000 other city employees, should be subjected to at least mandatory interest arbitration if negotiations fail. To those of you wishing to take action, it would be best to contact all members of City Council to express you views."

Mr. Doucet braved the -20 degree windchill to join the 50 or so protesters on Parliament Hill to end the OCTranspo transit strike, now into its 48th day.

Mirror with a Memory

Error Morris in conversation with several photographers during the Bush presidency with their thoughts on some of the more controversial shots of the former US President. via http://theclick.us/?p=3274

______________________
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., writing in 1859 (about 20 years after the first daguerreotypes appeared), called photography “a mirror with a memory.” [1] He writes,

“The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man he was…”

For Holmes, the photograph serves as a reminder to ourselves of who we are and how we are perceived. He might have been commenting on photographic portraits in particular, photography, in general, but his meaning is clear.

“It has fixed the most fleeting of our illusions, that which the apostle and the philosopher and the poet have alike used as the type of instability and unreality. The photograph has completed the triumph, by making a sheet of paper reflect images like a mirror and hold them as a picture…”

It is interesting to note that Holmes does not say that photography has dispelled our most fleeting illusions, or revealed the reality behind them. Only that it preserves them as if in aspic or a piece of taxidermy. In Holmes’s era, photography was thought to capture reality. We know that photographs do not capture reality, but they can capture our evasions and self-deceptions. Now, more than 150 years after Holmes wrote this essay, we have an opportunity to reflect on the past and to ask that same fleeting question that intrigued Holmes: “what manner of man he was…”

[1] Holmes, “The Stereoscope and The Stereograph,” from The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1859.

Temple

Ottawa - 2009

Jeanne Mance

Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa - 2009.

Brooke Claxton

Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa - 2009.

Messagio Galore - Take VI

Rol, Carm, jw

David Gladstone

David Gladstone, a candid portrait.
www.centretown.net/

Bret Hart - The Wrestler, Bruce Springsteen

Joshua Trotter

Joshua Trotter, on stage at the Ottawa International Writers Fest - October 2008.

Colin Carberry

Colin Carberry on stage at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, 2008.
www.colincarberry.com

Bret Hart

The wrestler, Bret 'The Hitman' Hart in Ottawa 9 December 2007.
On his website it is written that "in the fall of 2004 Bret was voted one of the top 50 Canadians of all time on CBC’s Greatest Canadian. Bret says he doesn’t yet know how he’s going to live up to such an honor, but that it’ll be great fun to try!"
Photo © John W.MacDonald. Please do not copy or distribute without permission of photographer. Click the paypal button below to purchase an 8"x10" print of this photo. Other sizes availabale. Contact me for details.

$40 CDN

Rawi Hage

I posted a photo of Hage back in October 2008. But I think I like this better in black and white. So here it is.

Rawi Hage, winner of the Prix des libraires du Québec and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, graciously took a minute to pose for me after his Ottawa appearance along with fellow writers Bill Gaston and David Bergen. www.writersfestival.org/

Joseph Boyden

Joseph Boyden is the 2008 Scotiabank -Giller Prize winner.

Photo © John W. MacDonald. Do not copy or distribute without permission.

Geoffrey Cook

Geoffrey Cook on stage at the Fall 2008 Edtion of the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/cook_geoffrey.htm

OIWF Spring 2009

The Wilsons of the Ottawa International Writers Festival are hard at it again (as usual). Confirmed guests of the upcoming spring edtion of events include Adrienne Clarkson, Patrick Lane, Margaret MacMillan, A.S. Byatt, Thomas Homer Dixon, Giles Blunt and Ursula K. LeGuin, recipient of the inaugural Global Imagination Award.

Festival Passes on sale now.
Please note that individual tickets and day passes will also be available.
Tickets for Festival Members and students with valid Carleton University ID are free.

Information and tickets available on-line and by phone:
613.562.1243
www.writersfestival.org

Thank-You Zach!

Poet and critic, Zach Wells licensed the rights to my photo that I took of him last fall. Thank you, sir. Even on his blog post today, he's also feeling generous towards certain teachers as he wrote,

"if you're a BC English teacher and you want to teach a book I've written or edited, I'll donate half the copies you need and sell the other half at cost (40% discount from cover price). "

It is his response to an article in Quill & Quire magazine which recently reported "mandatory Cancon for English classes in BC is making little to no difference in what gets taught." Good on you, ZW!

On Being Interesting

I read this great quote on photography this morning. Thought it might apply to other artistic endeavours, too.

"A few years back, one student was having his portfolio reviewed by the legendary Jay Maisel. The review was fine, yet after it was over the student pleaded with Jay, “Tell me, how can I take more interesting photos?” With missing a beat, Jay volleyed back, “Become a more interesting person.” Or said in another way, as Chris Rainier told me last week, “…at some point photography becomes autobiographical. In order to create better photos, sometimes we need to put down the photography books and magazines. Then we need to go out and to develop who we are.”
Who we are, shapes what we see."

Speaking of Obama...

CAUT releases open letter protesting Canada's refusal to allow Dr. William Ayers entry into Canada

OTTAWA, Jan. 21 /CNW Telbec/ - The Canadian Association of University
Teachers (CAUT) has written an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper
protesting the refusal by Canada to allow Dr. William Ayers, Distinguished
Professor of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, entry into
Canada.
Professor Ayers had been invited by the Centre for Urban Schooling at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto to
give a public lecture at the University. He was also scheduled to meet with
Toronto District School Board principals and senior staff, with youth
community workers at a school in Regent Park, and to be interviewed on CBC. He
was refused entry to Canada on Sunday, January 18.
"It is wrong for the Government of Canada to decide which scholars
universities can invite to their campuses," the letter says. "Too often, in
recent years, this has been practice of the Bush Administration in the United
States - a practice we and our American counterpart - the American Association
of University Professors - have denounced... It is with shame that we now find
our government is behaving in the same manner."
CAUT is calling for a public investigation into Professor Ayers' denial
of entry into Canada, and wants the Prime Minister to advise the University of
Toronto that should it invite Professor Ayers again, the government will allow
him to enter Canada.

U.S. Embassy - Ottawa

The Embassy of the United States of America
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
ottawa.usembassy.gov/

Read the first White House blog entry...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse-gov

National Gallery of Canada

Ottawa - 2009.
www.gallery.ca/english/index.html

Another email tonight

This time it's a nice email. The deal started by a phone call at (10pm EST) requesting permission for a photo of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean. A nice photo.

Here's an excerpt of the email:

"Dear John,
Thank you so much for sharing your work with us. Your beautiful portrait of Michaelle Jean is sure to add an important touch to our library proposal. On behalf of our Library Committee, I can't thank you enough for your generosity."

The photo will be used in a video proposal to secure funds to revitalize their library for a small K-8 school in Alberta. I have no problem with this use and will gladly let them have the photo for this use. Gladly. A nice email to end the day, too. Karma.

Michelle Butler Hallett

Michelle Butler Hallett read at the Dusty Owl Reading Series, Ottawa - 18 January 2008.

Matthew

Greely, spring 2008.

Steve Sauvé

Steve Sauvé on stage at the 2006 CBC Radio Poetry Face-Off in Ottawa.
See another fine photo by Charles Earl on his web site:
www.brokenviewfinder.com/index.php?id=993

R.I.P. Donald (Donnie) MacDonald

My uncle Donnie passed away this morning. He was the long-time proprietor and pharmacist of MacDonald Drug's on Main Street in Antigonish, Nova Scotia where he worked alongside with his brother, Ian, and sister, Rita, for so many years until his retirement in 1997. He always had a joke to tell or perform some magic trick. I'll miss that. He raised a great family and he will be missed greatly.

Library & Archives Canada

Ottawa - 2009.
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html

Man in the Hat

For S.R.
Ottawa - 2005.

Look

Ottawa - 2005.

Intellectual

Sexual Intellectual.
Ottawa - 2005.

Masterpieces of the Prado Museum in Google Earth

Autoportrait

After Tamara de Lempicka. Ottawa - 2005.

No Money

No Honey. Major's Hill Park, Ottawa - 2005.

Matthew & Train

At the Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa with Matthew.
www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca

Like the smell of crayons in your childhood, for me this spot in the museum has a similar scent of nostalgia. Old locomotive trains. Ahhhh. I even told Matthew to breathe deeply. He must have thought I was crazy.

Joel Plaskett

Joel Plaskett - Ottawa, Winterlude, 2008.

via www.joelplaskett.com:
Joel has been nominated ECMA 2009 Single of the Year : Joel Plaskett Emergency - Face of the Earth and ECMA 2009 Entertainer of the Year. The Awards show for the ECMA’s will be held in Corner Brook, Newfoundland on March 1, 2009. For more information about the ECMA’s, you can go to their official website at www.ecma.ca

Graff Can

At the graffiti wall (old Technical High School, aka, The Tech Wall) on Slater & Bronson, Ottawa - 2005.

DOF Street

Elgin Street - Ottawa, 2005.

Nothing special about this photo, except that it was shot wide open at f/1.4 on a sunny day. I needed to shoot at 1/8000 sec to properly expose for it, too. And it's still a little over-exposed in my opinion. I came across this photo in my archives after all the hullaballoo about the tilt-shift website tiltshiftmaker.com (which is pretty cool in my opinion) that recently started making the rounds on the internet. This was not shot with a tilt-shift lens, however.

Canadian War Museum

Canadian War Museum - Ottawa, 2005.

Ultimate

Ultimate Frisbee - Ottawa, 2005

Guinness on William St.

Byward Market - Ottawa, 2005

Poor-Man's Tilt-Shift

Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.

Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift miniatures using http://tiltshiftmaker.com.

Cool.

Waiting

Quebec City, 2005.

Cashier

Quebec City, 2005

In Sync

Quebec City, 2005

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye

The Impassioned Eye - 1 of 10

Spoon - The Underdog

Spoon - The Underdog

Papa McCarron & Boys

(Also, feel free to read my 2005 post about my hockey player cousin, Sidney Crosby whose great-grandfather, Gregory, is in this photo.) William E. McCarron would be my great-grandfather, and Gregory would be my great-grand uncle.

William E. McCarron, is the "Papa" in the above photo.

_________
Jack McCarron
Gregory McCarron
Brian McCarron
Hugh McCarron
Owen McCarron
Edward (Eddie) McCarron
William (Billy) McCarron
Leo McCarron
Katherine (Kit) McCarron
Mary Bridget Brigitte McCarron b. 9 Apr 1893 in New Glasgow, Pictou County, Nova Scotia

Photo dated 1914

Gaza Protest Rally in Ottawa

Rally on Parliament Hill Saturday, January 3rd, 2008.

Decisions

If photos could speak, it might say, "Which one? Which one?" I would rather you make up your own story, however.

Thought of the Year

read this on The Online Photographer today:

"Someday, everything that is ordinary and unremarkable to you will be distinctive of this time period, and many of your pictures of things we take for granted today will be of things or people that have changed or gone. No one will ever take a photograph in 2008 again, for instance—think of that."

Matthew

Matthew

Greely, early summer, 2008

Cliché At the Fair

High Hopes

Pink Floyd - Time

Pink Floyd - Time