Sailor Matt

Lake Huron Pano 1

Matthew & Beach Stick

So, there I was minding my own business, taking a picture of an old weather-beaten Adirondack chair on Lake Huron when a one-shoe-wearing-just-shy-of-a-three-year-old boy attacks me with a beach stick. Good thing I knew his weakness for campfire s'mores which abated this attack. I got lucky this time as he let me off with a stern warning.

Lake Huron Sunset

Wedding Picnic - Lee-Anne & Don

The couple had a great idea for a picnic in the park photo for their wedding album. In this photo they are in the gorgeous setting of the arboretum in the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa.

Ottawa writer Sean Miller. You can read some of his stories online: www.seanmillersstories.com/

see also: www.johnwmacdonald.com/blog/2007/05/sean-miller.html

Sean has his first book published by Baico. It's called "Regaling on College Street"
To order a copy or two, send a SASE and cheque for $18.95 CDN to:

sean miller
141 twyford st., unit 614
ottawa, on k1v 0w4

Our Twins

In their summer of 2009 attire...

MacEwen Gas

I met this great couple after my photoshoot with Kel last week. I was gassing up the car on my way home and spotted them in the gas station at Mitch Owens Road and Albion Road. As the two were on their way to a wedding that evening they looked awesome so I asked them to pose for a quick picture.

Submissions for mtls.ca!

Maple Tree Literary Supplement, MTLS Issue # 4: Call for Submissions – New Deadline August 15th (for Issue #4) and Ongoing.


Prospective contributors should browse our site at www.mtls.ca and target their submissions to specific sections of the journal – Poetry, Essays, Creative Non-Fiction, Reviews, Roundtable, Impressions, Festival of Life, and Drama. We hardly consider unsolicited Artworks. All contributions and enquiries should be sent to submissions@mtls.ca. While some materials will be solicited directly, unsolicited submissions are welcome.

Since MTLS is a triannual journal, response time will fall within the four months preceding an upcoming issue. Essays of a broad range of subjects should be in a relaxed non-academic, free-flowing style, without footnotes or superscripts. Reviews should be between 500-800 words in length. Fiction includes short stories and excerpts from longer prose work in progress; creative non-fiction comprises travelogues and other kinds of literary non-fiction. Poetry should be of high quality and not more than 60 lines of between 4 and 6 poems or one long poem of not more than 120 lines. Excerpts of drama – between 3 and 4 pages – are encouraged. The Roundtable section is in the interview or dialogue format between two or more Canadian writers. Contributors can propose a topic of discussion to us and find a respondent writer or writers to take part in that conversation. Publishers – especially small presses are welcome to take part in the Impressions section, discussing the history of the making of a particular book, its reception, fate and challenges, with pictures of the book cover; and the histories of their own presses. This is apart from a general discussion of the history of the Canadian book and printing industry up to such recent developments like online publishing technologies.

Beautiful Destruction – Alberta Tar Sands

Louis Helbig's photographic exhibition "Beautiful Destruction – Alberta Tar Sands Aerial Photos" opens at Arts & Architecture 1181 Bank Street (across from Bridgehead in Old Ottawa South) Thursday July 16th 7-10PM.

Gatineau - Pano

Karsh Day in Ottawa

Acting City of Ottawa Mayor Doug Thompson officially proclaims 14 July to be Yousuf Karsh Day at an event held in the Karsh-Masson Gallery.

Press release follows:
Ottawa - Estrellita Karsh, widow of the internationally renowned portrait photographer and longtime Ottawa resident Yousuf Karsh, will present nine of her late husband’s prints to the City of Ottawa. In commemoration, the City of Ottawa will officially proclaim July 14, 2009 Yousuf Karsh Day. The event is part of Ottawa’s Karsh Festival, one of the many celebrations being held worldwide to mark Yousuf Karsh’s 100th birthday.
The nine portraits will be on display at the Karsh-Masson Gallery, named in honour of Yousuf Karsh and painter Henri Masson.

Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Karsh-Masson Gallery, 136 St. Patrick Street
Reception to follow

The gift includes two of Karsh’s most famous portraits, Winston Churchill and Georgia O’Keeffe. The remaining portraits include such famous Canadians as Pierre Trudeau, writers Stephen Leacock and Robertson Davies, artists Jack Bush, Frederick Varley and Kenojuak Ashevak, and a self-portrait of Karsh himself.

Daylily

The Greek name is Hemerocallis and I say this only to sound smart 'cause I looked it up on wikipedia.

Yousuf Karsh Day

photo by Karsh, linked from http://www.flickr.com/photos/festivalkarsh/3040577563/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en_CA

Bride & Maid-of-Honour

The Bride and her Maid-of-Honour

I also received a super email recently from the bride:

"We both want to thank you so much for your gift and beautiful photos! You have a great eye, we are so pleased and happy with the pics. I had a few tears while viewing disc 1; then we had a few laughs during disc 2, seeing us all crack-up, and of couse, the action shots of Mike. All of the scenery is gorgeous; the bird shot is stunning. It was a pleasure having our memories in your hands."

Animal Voyage - Review

I recently wrote a book review on Prince Hussain Aga Khan's photo book, Animal Voyage, on simerg.com for those interested. The book is also for sale exclusively in Canada (and I think North America) by the website's owner. See the Simerg web site for details.

Ottawa Wedding - Lee-Anne & Don

Ottawa Wedding - Lee-Anne & Don, 16 June 2009.

I will post a few photos from a lovely wedding I photographed a couple of weeks ago. Lee-Anne and Don had a very intimate wedding ceremony with only a handful of guests and afterwards we went to the Central Experimental Farm for an outdoor photoshoot of casual and posed shots. The weather was perfect and so was the day!

Kel Morin-Parsons (colour)

This is an alternate crop and colour version of Kel that was posted the other day.

Strobist Photojournalism

Sometimes you just get lucky. The photo of Canada's PM Harper, though not a prize-winner, is an example how a photo can be enhanced from another photographer, in my opinion anyway. In this case a pool photographer lends a helping hand with his flash while I took my photo in a strobist off-camera-flash-style.

Strobist info:
VAL photog to camera left with strobe set at unknown power (probably TTL); triggered by coincidence.

Snowbirds - Peace Tower

I am pretty sure that this will be my last photo of The-Snowbirds-Demonstration-Team -buzzing-the-Peace-Tower...ever.

Big Sky Over Greely

Canada Day evening. Inspired by Pearl's recent blog post, Big Sky Day:
www.pagehalffull.com/humanyms/?p=2592

Megaphone

Kel Parsons

Photo shoot at Mooney's Bay Beach, July 4th 2009.

Kel

Kel Morin-Parsons

Kel is an actor and writer located in Ottawa, Canada. Kel and I were out on location at Mooney's Bay Beach on Saturday afternoon taking photos. It was so cool out the beach was practically deserted. It was very windy, too, as is evident by her wind-blown hair.

RCMP - After the Charge

RCMP Portrait

RCMP - Before the Charge

Photographically, I had a great view on the lawn and I was keenly interested on the distance they needed to slow down to come to a stop before they reached my position on the grass. I was hoping that it was not too slippery needless to say.

Salutes

Even the photographer salutes in his own way. Check out his amazingly patriotic website: http://celebratecanada.wordpress.com/ It's chock full of superb portraits and everything Canada (coast to coast). Way to go Tim Van Horn.

I finally got to shake hands with Uncle Walt. He was impressed by the size of my camera and gear that I was carrying. He said to me, "If you can carry that you can carry one of our packs." I entertained the thought of enlisting right then and there for a split second. However, Julie probably would not be pleased. I'd take cameras over guns any day. They're probably lighter anyway.

I am saddened to hear of another Canadian soldier who has lost his life in Afghanistan. Today, Cpl. Nicholas Bulger, a 30-year-old father of two and member of 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was killed by a roadside bomb.

Canada Day Pole Dancer

Although I have no clue what a topless male pole dancer has to do with celebrating Canada, people seemed to appreciate his talents. He was the second act following Sarah McLachlan at the noon show on Parliament Hill on Canada Day.

Sarah McLachlan - Save the Seals

Sarah McLachlan talking about her protest t-shirt, Save the Seals (PETA), on camera with CTV's Roger Smith, after the noon show on Parliament Hill, Canada Day.

Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan, Canadian musician.

Marie-Mai

Marie-Mai performing on stage on Canada Day 2009, Parliament Hill - Ottawa.