Call for interesting people

I know there are lots of interesting people living in Niagara. I'm putting out a call to see if anyone can recommend an individual or individuals who may be interested in having their portrait taken and telling me a bit about themselves and whatever it is they do - gardening, wood working, instrument playing, dog walking, bike riding, contraption inventing, tasty food baking, animal raising, anything! Lots of peoples' hobbies may seem regular and run of the mill to themselves - but chances are, to many others, it's just plain interesting.

So again, if there is anyone out there who is interesting in having a portrait taken and sitting down with me a for a bit to tell me a story or otherwise ramble on, or you know someone who may be interested, please drop me a line, either by leaving a comment here, sending an email though the contact page at my website, dropping a tweet @cimagery, or commenting on the cimagery facebook page. My only condition is that this is a collaboration, so you'll need to want to have your portrait taken, and that you are aware your story and images will appear here on the blog!

A photo of what an interesting person may look like :)

Niagara People: Tony and his Garden

I had the pleasure once again of shooting some images of another interesting individual. Tony has the grandest backyard garden I have ever seen, and likely will ever see. Essentially it takes up the whole back yard. Corn, 15 foot (jack and the) bean stalks, peppers, lettuce, figs, 3 varieties of tomatoes, apples, pears and more I am quite sure all grow like mad under his care.

Photographers like JoeyL go to far off places like Ethiopia to document ways of living that are very likely soon to disappear off the face of the earth (I certainly don't have any beef with this, huge fan of Joey's work). Often no one considers that even at home, in our backyards, certain ways of life will also likely succumb to the same societal changes. As the older generations get older they can’t handle the work of such a backyard farm, and often their kids don’t carry on the practice. Tony’s wife is slowing down and can no longer help out – freezing and canning what the garden produces, to last almost a year, as she has done in the past.

Tony is proud of his garden and the fact that it costs no money to run. I don’t blame him, it’s very impressive. Rain is collected in multiple containers to water the plants, seeds are kept from the current year to start next years plants, and what is preserved can essentially last until the next year, when the process starts over again.

As far as lighting here, just simple again – octabox with studio light as main light in both images. The first image has a speedlight camera left in the garden to illuminate the beanstalks along the left of the frame. No extremely awesome sketch to post this time, as I didn't know what the back yard looked like before I got there.

Niagara People: The Cellist

Ah, the wonders of the Internet. I posted an ad on the classifieds site Kijiji that went something along the lines of “Looking for a musician who plays an instrument from the violin family for a photography collaboration, preferably cello”, and, if I remember correctly, three days later I was contacted by Gordon, a local cellist. 

Hit the jump for more photos

Real People: A Man and his Harmonica

This is another instalment of the ‘real people’ series, if you can call it a series. Basically what I’m trying to do here is share some images and stories of interesting people, most often people who would never have a portrait taken in this regard, as they aren’t famous or public figures in any manner, etc. Just looking for everyday folks.(As always, click an image to see it larger)

With the above criteria in mind I asked Everett if I could take make some portraits of him and his harmonica. Everett is my next door neighbor – he moved into his house just shortly before we moved into ours. He also happens to be a rockin’ harmonica player, busting out the classics like no ones business (though the chances you'll hear him use the term ‘busting out’ are likely slim).

Hit the jump to keep reading about Everett and for some more photos.

Clerical - New blog address

Just a note that I've changed the address for the blog to cimagery.blogspot.com. If you have a bookmark or something, please update it :)

Shooting Beauty - Everyone Deserves a Shot

If you follow me on twitter, you’ll realize that the majority of my tweets are linking to things that I find interesting, mostly photography related, and that I think are worth sharing. Very rarely (in fact, only once before this) do I feel something is so worth sharing that I create a blog post about it. There won't be any photos in this post, but if you're interested, please hit the jump to keep reading and watch a quick video.

Family photojournalism...

…And the importance of taking photos of your family in general.

While not the type of stuff I’d normally like to show and discuss here, because of my real job eating up a lot of my time at this point of the year, I haven’t had much time to focus on new photography projects. What I have had time for, however, is carrying around the camera when visiting family. 
 
I used to feel awkward and weird carrying a camera around at family gatherings. I mostly still do. I realized, however, that what is going on only happens but once, exactly as it just happened – that and no one is around forever.

Hit the jump to keep reading.

Motion and Light, and the Weather

I can’t remember who said it, or the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of “If you want more interesting photos, put yourself in front of more interest subjects”. Might have been Jay Maisel.

This is certainly very true. An aspect that goes along with this is the environment as a whole – put yourself in the situation to make a picture when you know the environment is going to be more interesting. Where I’m going with this is ‘watch the weather’.

Hit the jump to keep reading.
 

Real People: Aunt Margaret

This is the first post in what I hope will be a running theme for some posts down the road. You can click the images for a larger view.

This is my Great Aunt Margaret. She’s turning 87 this year; she’s fond of telling people “That’s old!”  Even though Aunt Margaret is getting up there in years, she continues to have more energy than a good portion of young people that I know.  A while back I thought I would have a good visit with Aunt Margaret and make some portraits of her.

Hit the jump to keep reading about Aunt Margaret, and see some more portraits.

Welcome to the new Cimagery!

It's taken a while, but hey, I'm back! As you can see, there are some big changes are far as visuals go, around the blog and also around the site. If you haven't checked out the new site yet, have a look at the new Cimagery! You can also click the create/collaborate banner above, it will bring you to the main site as well. Hit the jump below for more.

Blog going dark

Firstly, I apologize to those who actually visit here regularly for the lack of a new photo/any sort of post recently. I'm working on some big changes for the site, with some new stuff to come; so... I'm going dark and won't be posting any new blog posts for a while.

Thanks for checking in though, I really appreciate it. I hope to have all the new stuff rockin' by the end of February - but I'm trying for sooner! Stop by every once in a while to see if I'm back!

Until then, as Joe McNally says...
More tk.

Niagara Photography - Window obsession

Yes, I know I am obsessed with windows and brick walls. Can't explain it really. No point anyway :)

Hope that you keep checking in to see the changes going on around here in the first part of the year :)

Niagara Photography - Three Trees

Not much to say about this image really. Was just walking around downtown Welland and saw it. Really photogenic wall. Funny thing is, I was walking with a friend of mine and his first response to the wall was "I can't believe they haven't done anything to fix that up yet". Meanwhile, I quite liked it how it was.

I hope that you keep checking in over the next little while. Going to be a whole bunch of changes. If you are a fan of Cimagery on facebook you probably noticed the first small change, sort of giving an inkling of what's to come.

Niagara Photography - Downtown Welland

Went wandering around downtown Welland a couple days after Christmas. While a sort of historic place, it's sort of run down now. The city is in the process of making a bunch of improvements to try to get people to visit. Processed these ones sort of old-timey, but the cars give away the time period. I'll likely be doing some more wandering around the area for a project I have in mind.

Niagara Photography - Happy New Year!

Here's to wishing everyone an awesome twenty-ten (that's how we're all going to say it right? Not two-thousand ten?).

Thanks to those who stop in here occasionally to look at all my silly photos and read my even sillier text, even though there isn't much of that.

(Hopefully) going to be a bunch of changes around here in 2010. I hope that you stick around to see them!

Niagara Photography - Snow

The long-term forecast shows the white stuff every day for the next six days. I'll give it that it looks nice; the sand and salt that goes on the roads to combat it though, I can't stand that stuff. My poor car!

Niagara Photography - The Olympic Flame - Fonthill

So after the torch passed through the spot I had staked out in Welland, I attempted to beat it to Fonthill. I largely succeeded, except that by the time I got there the roads were already blocked off and I had to park in the docks and hike in. An area of the road had trees coming over it from both sides, so I figured that would be a cool place for the epic torch runner shot I was looking for.

While waiting a gentleman came up and started to talk to me - turns out he was there as he knew the individual doing that leg of the run. He asked me if I could send him the photos I got, in addition to what he took. While we were shooting for different reasons (me, for an overall 'epic' feeling shot, him, for (I presume at least) some closeups that he could provide the runner with for memories, I got some of each. Only posting this one to the blog though.

Dave, if you read this, send me an email to let me know if you got the images :)

Niagara Photography - Merry Christmas - Let it snow!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that an excellent Christmas day was had by all. I wasn't home much myself, driving around to different families for lunch and supper.

So much for the white Christmas though eh? Closest thing to snow so far was when I was at the Fonthill Olympic Torch Run and these massive snowflakes were falling slowly to the ground. Some of the little kids around were trying to catch them, oblivious to all the hubbub surrounding the torch run.

Niagara Photography - The Olympic Flame - Welland

The Olympic Flame came to town on Monday to both Welland and Fonthill, in the form of the cross Canada Olympic Torch Relay. I checked out both of these local to me runs. The images below are from the Welland run. Images from Fonthill are to come in a later post.

I was quite surprised as to the number of people who came out to each event. It was one of those proud to be Canadian moments.

The runner for the leg of the relay that I had staked out in Welland was Sabrina Parrotta. She had the distinction of carrying it into the main event area where the flame made a stop for approximately a half hour.

I encourage you to click on the first image (my favourite of them) to view it larger.

Niagara Photography - Man in the Moon

They just don't make them like they used to - outhouses, that is :)

Excitement in the community, the olympic flame will be passing through this weekend and early in the week. Maybe I will see you at one of the events, I'll be checking out a couple.