Toronto Complaints Choir

The Complaints Choir started in the UK (via Helsinki) and provided a musical platform for people to vent their complaints and have those complaints turned into a song.

Toronto is the latest city to solicit complaints from its citizens to turn into song. Some complaints included, "Crappy jazz music in Starbucks.", "Why can I never find the matching sock?" and "Uggs are hideous and 90% of women at my university wear them."

I photographed the Choir rehearsing at Harbourfront Centre. From what little I heard of their rehearsal, I can say that their performance is certainly going to be funny.













Concert Outtakes

I've shot quite a few concerts over the last few months but keep forgetting to post pics. So here's a handful for you to enjoy.

Leo Redbone





Sufjan Stevens



Aloe Blacc



Hey Rosetta!



Grinderman

The Dears

Often my photo subjects are busy, important people. As much as I'm sure they'd like to get to know me, they usually have a meeting they have to be to or another journalist to meet with, so I can't really blame them for rushing off.

Still, sometimes I wish they could sit and chat, even for a few seconds, just so I would know that they acknowledged me as a human and not just another thing to check off their "List of Things To Do" for the day.

The Dears were in a rush - no more than 15 minutes for a shoot after they finished an interview at CBC - but they were actually really nice and even managed to ask a few genuine questions about my life.

It's nice to feel like you're a person, not just a camera, so a big thank you to the Dears.

The Amazing Space

I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Globe and Mail reporter Katherine Scarrow on a new online series for the Globe called The Amazing Space. For this assignment I got to spend three days at innovative offices here in Toronto.

I love interior design so having the chance to see a range of different office spaces with different approaches to design was interesting. I've posted a handful of pictures from the Mongrel Media offices below.

To see the rest of the photos, along with an interview, please check out the Mongrel Media piece on the Globe's site.





Trinity Bellwoods

Today I woke up from a warm afternoon nap to a call asking if I could head out into -20 degree weather to take photos.

So I bundled up and trudged out to Trinity Bellwoods park to see what I could get. Most of Toronto's citizens were smart enough to stay inside on a freezing day like today, but fortunately there were a few people walking their dogs and I grabbed a few quick frames just as the sun was setting.

I just regained feeling in all of the extremities of my body.





Santa's Workshop

I know where Santa's secret workshop is in Toronto and got to shoot some behind-the-scenes before the upcoming Toronto Santa Claus Parade.



















48 Abell

The building at 48 Abell is big and old and grey. Right now it houses a number of artist studios but it's about to be torn down to make way for condos in the Queen West West area.

Activist Michelle Gay, as part of a group called Active 18, tried to get the development stopped, but unfortunately they lost and the building is scheduled for demolition.

So I guess the poor artists will have to move out to Mississauga.









Sufjan Stevens

Just a throwaway shot from the Sufjan Stevens concert. I just thought they looked so pretty all silhouetted before the show.

Airports

In the last week I've been coast to coast for work - from Toronto to Ottawa to Vancouver to Montreal and now Halifax (ok fine, Wolfville, but I flew into Halifax).

I'm sick of planes. I'm sick of airports. I'm sick of eating out.

I just want to settle down. Just for a bit.











TIFFmania

When people hear that I'm shooting anything TIFF-related (which I've actually shot very little of, just a few parties for the Globe's Society pages) they get really excited. I could be shooting all sorts of amazing, important stories involving everyday people, but they will still continue to fixate on TIFF.

"Who have you met?"

"Who have you photographed?"

"Who's the most famous person you've shot?"

So for all of you asking, here are a few TIFF shots I did for the Globe's Society pages. Nothing exciting photography-wise, just a ton of on-camera flash for the two seconds you get to photograph people against terrible backgrounds.

For the record, it's not that glamourous. It's not like I got to sit down and knock back drinks with these people. They aren't inviting me to their LA mansions or to hang out with them next Sunday over brunch with their celeb friends. We are not facebook friends or BFFs. To them I'm just another idiot with a camera interrupting their night out.

And yes, that is the Dog Whisperer with Jian Ghomeshi.





















Canada's Youngest Breast Cancer Survivor

Aleisha Hunter is four. She is Canada's youngest breast cancer survivor.

This story was both the saddest and most uplifting story I've been a part of so far in my photography career. Aleisha was the sweetest little kid. You can read her story at the Globe and Mail here.











Some TIFF fun

It's TIFF, which for me apparently means standing in the rain in a dress and high heels waiting to take photos of celebrities who obviously don't want to come outside into the rain.

Now, I realize that this is an incredibly unflattering photo of actor Geoffrey Rush, but he got in super close to my camera to goof off for a photo as he was leaving a club, which was actually pretty funny. Kind of like a sea lion playing with you in the ocean.

He gets two thumbs up for fun celebrity behaviour.

Strike

TIFF is a busy time here in Toronto, normally associated with glamour. So hotel workers at the Royal York took the opportunity to grab some of the limelight by staging a strike.

Celebrity Martin Sheen, a guest staying at the hotel, even decided to take a few minutes to strike with them. One striker got Sheen and his son, Emilio Estevez, to autograph his strike placard.

Now, I haven't been on a lot of picket lines before but these guys actually stopped picketing to break for lunch and they didn't seem to have a problem letting people cross the picket line. I thought this was a little weird, but it seemed to work for them.







Wolfville, NS

Wolfville is a pretty town. So pretty that it almost seems like a movie set, like someone invented this place.

It rained a lot here in Wolfville because of the hurricane - Wolfville was untouched - so it was a stay-in-and-watch movies kind of weekend, but we did manage to take in a few of the sights by car on Sunday, including a trip to see the ocean, a corn maze and a tractor ride.













Julian Schnabel

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of my favourite movies. I first saw it in the theatre while in photo school and I remember being amazed at how it looked. It was this giant screen of beautiful colours - gorgeous, blown out highlights, bizarre framing and focus on tiny details. The story itself is incredible, but for me it was all about the way that it looked.

I photographed the filmmaker behind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel, at the AGO. I know him as a filmmaker, but he's an accomplished artist - producing giant, modern paintings - which are in a show that runs at the AGO from September 1st until the end of the year.

He's known as a pretentious prima donna. He's been known to wear long robes and monogrammed slippers and is even quoted as once saying, "“I’m as close to Picasso as you’re going to get in this [expletive deleted] life!" but I was impressed at how down-to-earth he seemed during the walk-around with media.

The best parts about him were his shoes and socks. Check them out.





Tom Petty

I know he's old, but I love Tom Petty. I can't help it.

It's all nostalgia. His album Wildflowers came out when I was in grade 12 and I pretty much listened to it on repeat that entire year of high school.

In 2008 I photographed him while I was working in Winnipeg and it was an incredible concert. He opened with a song from Wildflowers and I remember realizing that I was actually relaxing and enjoying shooting the concert (in 2008, as a recent grad, concerts were stressful for me - such a short period of time to shoot and file). So I was excited to photograph him again, here in Toronto.

Tom looked a little older, even since the last time I saw him, but I thought he sounded great. Shooting the concert made me feel like I was 16 all over again.













Ava

A few weekends ago I had the great surprise of photographing my friend Christina and her family for an assignment. So I couldn't help but catch a few quick snaps of her adorable daughter Ava as I was on my way out the door.





Wedding!

I only had a short period of time with some of the groomsmen at Kat and Kareem's wedding at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, but I thought that I would at least grab a few shots.