More Matt

This is Matt.

He's working in our dining room.

Sometimes he lets me take his photo (he ignores me while I do it, like a good documentary subject).

I bought more art!

I'm a big fan of 20 X 200 and now own a few images from the site. As a new homeowner it's nice to have some beautiful art from some incredibly talented photographers that doesn't break the bank.

So I was especially excited when I heard that 20 X 200 was selling images produced by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco that were shot from RFK's funeral train. All proceeds from the sale of this edition directly benefit the Magnum Foundation's Legacy Program, which is dedicated to preserving and making accessible materials related to the history of Magnum Photos.

The story behind the images is interesting. On June 6, 1968, while campaigning to be president, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Two days later, his casket was placed on a special train bound for Arlington National Cemetery. The trip should have taken hours instead took all day, as thousands lined the track in a spontaneous outpouring of grief.

Fusco was the only journalist on the train, shooting for Look magazine, and took more than a thousand pictures from his window, many of which weren't seen by the public until 40 years later.

I purchased two 8X10 limited edition prints and am happy to own something by a Magnum photographer (something usually well beyond my means) of such an important part of American history, all while supporting a great cause.

All of the 8X10 prints are sold out but there are still other sizes available here.

Welcome to Thornfield

My friend Teresa's husband grew up in Uxbridge on a beautiful historic 50 acre property called Thornfield Hall. It's a beautiful sprawling space with a grand house, a pool, a few smaller structures and old barns on the property. Quite simply, it's stunning.

Since all four of the kids have flown the nest, his parents decided to sell the property and move to what sounds like an equally beautiful property (on the water!). So in a bid to say farewell to the space, the people and the neighbourhood, his parents hosted a small party and his children decided it would be a nice gift to have some photos of the property and the family taken to remember it by.

They couldn't have picked a more beautiful day for a party. It was sunny but cool with a light breeze and everyone, including Teresa's twins, enjoyed the day.

The family themselves seemed straight from a catalogue - all beautiful, lovely and casual in front of the camera. It was a wonderful shoot. There was so much to see and by the end of the evening the light was beautiful. I could have shot there forever.

Rose and Mike Engagement

It's been a few months since I shot Rose and Mike's engagement and I just haven't gotten around to posting about it.

As a photojournalist, I usually shoot for editorial or corporate clients but recently I've been taking on the occasional portrait, engagement or wedding for a friend just to try my hand at something different.

Rose and Mike came dressed perfectly for their shoot along with Mike's son (and soon-to-be stepson of Rose's). Lots of fun bold bright colours that went together but didn't make them all "matchy-matchy" or too over the top. They were a stellar example of how to dress for a shoot.

Congrats to Rose and Mike on their upcoming marriage in August.

Spartan Race

People are so crazy.

This was confirmed for me when I photographed the Spartan Race. It's a race that involves running a 5km circuit, broken up by various obstacles, including slithering through mud and ice under barbed wire, running through fire and water, dragging/carrying heavy things up and down large hills, climbing over tall things, throwing spears and being attacked by strangers with large padded sticks.

Also, the entire course is a surprise. You have no idea what it's going to entail until you actually run it. You can't even train for it.

Why you would want to pay to do something that causes you to bleed, I certainly don't understand, but it was a lot of fun to shoot.

I will say this - this assignment kicked MY ass. I essentially had to run the course myself twice and returned home with a rash on my legs (poison ivy?!?), an eye swollen shut (allergic to something), sweaty (run, run, run to get the picture) and covered in mud.

Sustainable Farming

Some days my job is just too good.

I spent the afternoon driving to a farm in Grimsby to spend the afternoon photographing on a farm.

The sun was shining, the drive was beautiful and I was getting paid to take photos. Days like this I think I'm the luckiest person in the world.

Lori Stahlbrand is the President and Founder of Local Food Plus. The non-profit organization certifies farmers and producers based on criteria created by the organization to reflect sustainability, local food, humane treatment of animals and staff and environmental standards. Duncan Smith is one of those certified farmers.

Smith, the farmer at Two Century Farm in Grimsby showed me around his farm - from the cherry trees, to the just-barely growing peaches, to the sprouting tomato plants. Then his daughter sent me home with fresh roses from their garden.

Doesn't get much better than that.

Rightsleeve - The Amazing Space

I absolutely adore shooting these office spaces for the Globe's feature "The Amazing Space". The most recent one was Rightsleeve and it features Jack, their VP of Customer Service.

Check out the entire feature with all my photos on the Globe and Mail's site.

Macular Degeneration

Jan Ross is a healthy 72-year-old, except she has macular degeneration, a condition that slowly causes deterioration of her vision. She was really sweet when she invited me in to her house for photos - pretty shy about the idea that anyone would want to pay attention to her story. It was a nice shoot.

Totally unrelated to the piece, Ross' apartment was super cute with some awesome mid-century modern furniture. I was eyeing her table and chairs.

David Dunlap Observatory

The people of Richmond Hill don't want more suburban housing, they want to preserve their now dwindling green space - at least that's what Karen Cievitz believes. She's part of a group defending the 100-acre David Dunlap Observatory property, which is currently slated to be turned into housing.

Yay! More suburban housing! Urban sprawl! Wicked!!! (I grew up in the suburbs so I'm allowed to be sarcastic on this subject.)

Yes, I know that the actual observatory isn't in the picture. It's deep in the woods, on private property, and can't be seen from the public space. This screwed me up a bit when I arrived since I imagined that the iconic observatory would be in the photo somewhere, but as I'm finding, we can't always get what we want.

Still, Karen was an eager subject and it was nice to take some time to walk around the park to learn about the space. It is a beautiful - and rare - space. I hope they find some way to preserve it.

Fruits and Veggies in a Suitcase!

I recently took these pictures of fruits and vegetables in a suitcase (and not in a suitcase) to accompany a story on how we don't always know where our food has come from (hence the suitcase). It felt a little weird wandering around the newsroom with a suitcase and a two bags of veggies but it was certainly a fun shoot.

Gardening

Remember when it was sunny over the long weekend for like 5 minutes?

Yeah, well I spent a few of those glorious moments thanking the gods that it was my job to be outside taking photos of the plant-feeding-frenzy-orgy-that-is-the-May-long-weekend at the Sheridan nursery.

Apparently the May long weekend is the busiest weekend of the year for the nurseries. Who knew that it was the Christmas of gardening?

People fighting over plants, soil and tools. It was crazy at the Sheridan nursery. But I was outside taking pictures - and getting paid! - so there's nothing better than that.

(Except for the parking ticket, which is the worst.)

Nadege

I love my job.

If you haven't eaten some of the yummy pastries at Nadege, please go asap. You can go to their location on Queen West just east of Trinity Bellwoods park or to their new Summerhill location on Yonge (just south of the LCBO on the East side of Yonge) that opens on May 12th.

Nadege is delicious and the store is pretty too.

Wanna know a secret? Sometimes when I'm alone I think about their pastries. This happens a lot.

Colin Egglesfield

Colin Egglesfield is turning into a movie star. At least that's what I'm told. He's in a new movie called Something Borrowed but since I'm pretty much a 12-year-old boy I didn't know what it was until I googled him.

(It's a romantic comedy by the way.)

I spent all my time getting set up in one room, only to be told at the last second that I would actually be photographing somewhere else (wicked, love when that happens) oh and yeah, "you have five minutes."

I will say this though - I love shooting celebrities only for the fact that they know how to move in front of a camera. No awkward, weird faces, they never ask "why do you want me to do that?" and you don't have to give them a ton of direction.

Sadly, most of the time with normal people I spend the first five minutes of a shoot trying to undo their strange impulses when being photographed (which normally include wanting to stand against a wall, under a sign or holding whatever it is they want to promote, putting their arm around their buddy like it's a facebook photo or staring at me awkwardly like they're being executed).

An assignment causes me to reflect

I photographed Hadia Akhtar on her last day in Toronto. She had just graduated from university and was boarding a flight that evening to Camroon (!!) for a six month internship. Hadia was nonchalant about it but I could tell she was excited.

Hearing about the trip I was excited for her and couldn't help but remember my last day of university. I was exhausted from four years in class and couldn't wait for what was next.

Then I stopped and realized that I had graduated from university just over a decade ago.

One. Decade. Ago.

Instead of being upset about the passage of time, it was actually nice to stop and reflect on how much has happened in my life since graduating. I realized that my last decade looked like this:

0 - 5: Traveled Western Europe, moved to Toronto, started a career in PR, went back to school part-time for three years while working full-time, moved way up the corporate ladder through seven promotions and travelled to Thailand, Ecuador, Peru, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

5 - 10: Quit successful career to backpack solo for eight months through Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Tibet and China, made decision to change career and become a photojournalist, moved to Victoria for photo school, worked as a photojournalist in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto, traveled to Uganda and Tanzania as a photojournalist, fell in love with Matt who is the most incredible guy ever (easily the most important thing that has happened in my life), drove across Canada in a 1970s convertible with Matt, traveled to Hong Kong, LA, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, fulfilled dream of having a photo (and more than one!) published in the Globe and Mail, fulfilled dream of a front page of the Globe and Mail, started a successful photography business and bought a house with Matt.

When I graduated I had no idea that ten years later I would have fallen in love with the most incredible person I have ever met, seen the world and be living my dream of being a photojournalist. I am the luckiest gal in the world.

...and my job made me remember this.

I now know too much about recycling

I spent the morning with the folks at Tremco for a piece on green solutions. Tremco makes sealants and waterproofing products and they've decided to make zero waste go to landfill for their manufacturing. So they're recycling everything - wood, metal, plastics and cardboard.

The shoot was a little tricky given that I had to shoot while wearing security glasses at the same time as my glasses - they insisted I wear them. There were also a number of space constraints since there were only so many "safe" places to stand and photograph. Finally, let's be honest here, there's only so much that actually needs to be recycled that I could photograph.

It took a bit to get everyone to stop looking at me as they threw their recycling into the bins or piles (what's with this impulse?! just be natural, pretend like I'm not here!!), despite telling everyone several times to just do their thing and try to ignore me. Their PR person must have gotten them all worked up to pose, which was slightly frustrating, but they eventually figured it all out.

We had a long chat about recycling and while I do enjoy learning new things, I'm afraid I know way more than I ever really wanted to know.

My Matt

We get pretty light in our living room and sometimes it hits my favourite subject, Matt, just right.

Raising Money For Cancer

I felt terrible when I arrived at the Mennard house for their shoot. Mark, in grade 7, had just lost his grandmother to cancer and his mother Judy had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Instead of wallowing, which would have been understandable, Mark decided to do something positive. He's organizing a fundraising event called "Minor Hockey Fights Cancer".

Sometimes these shoots can be difficult because you can feel intrusive when a family's going through a difficult time but the Mennard family was extremely upbeat and friendly. This was especially notable considering that our photo shoot had ruined plans for a nice family night out for dinner (that had already been rescheduled once) and Mark was hobbling around with a cast on his leg.

Mark was polite, but not shy, and relaxed in front of the camera, which made it a great shoot. He showed me some stellar ball hockey skills - his cast didn't seem to be holding him back at all.

And just for the record - I did NOT force Mark to go out and play ball hockey with his cast for the shoot. He's the one who suggested it. I'm not heartless.

Easter

I spent the night photographing mass, the evening before Good Friday, in Little Italy.

There was some confusion since I had been told people would be dressed up in preparation for the big Good Friday parade taking place the next day. There was supposed to be a Jesus, a cross, horses and Roman soldiers but I didn't get any of that.

Instead, I tried to figure out the game plan for how mass rolls out so that I could anticipate where to stand to get shots I wanted. Unfortunately asking how the ceremony unfolds only provoked awkward questions like, "How don't you know how it works?" which forced me to explain that I was not Catholic. This caused much anxiety among the congregation members, who all seemed to suddenly developed super sonic hearing and immediately ran over to bombard me with questions.

"Are you Anglican? Baptist? Jewish?"

Not wanting to get into a gigantic discussion about my faith (or lack thereof) I just smiled politely, laughed like I was a giant idiot and immediately changed the topic by blurting out, "I cheer for the Italian team during the World Cup!" Where did that come from?!?!?

Most awkward change of topic ever.

Still, this made everyone happy and I was allowed to slink away, feeling shame that I had lied - in a church on the eve of their most important religious holiday no less.

Since I didn't get an answer about the roll out, this meant that I was constantly standing in the wrong place during the ceremony, occasionally provoking small facial ticks on the priest's face, which were directed at me to indicate, "There are people coming down the aisle behind you!" or "Move a little to the left so that I can walk down the aisle now!"

On the way out of the church he smiled and joked with me, asking where his commission was for the shoot. I was relieved. Obviously I didn't offend anyone.

My greatest fear while shooting is to suddenly draw attention to myself in a way that causes the event I'm shooting to grind to a halt. So far I have been lucky. No giant gaffes in public yet.

I Love Rewards

I spent the morning at the gorgeous offices of I Love Rewards as part of the Globe and Mail's new feature, The Amazing Space. Below are a few images from the shoot.

Check out the full piece that includes all the photos and an interview in a slideshow format on Globe and Mail's site.

20 X 200

Photography is beautiful. Photography can also be quite expensive. That's why I am in love with Jen Beckman's website 20 X 200. Their mission is simple - make art affordable for everyone.

Via the 20X200 website, they introduce at least two new editions a week: one photo and one work on paper, and offer limited editions of the work in a few different sizes (depending on the image). Most pieces offer:

- 200 copies of the 8" X 10" image at $20
- 500 copies of the 11"x14" image at $50
- 20 copies of the 16 "x 20" image at $200

For some prints they also offer larger images (around $500 - $2000) in a series of 10 or 2.

Every single print is delivered with a numbered certificate of authenticity that is signed by the artist, the artist's bio and statement, and instructions for caring for your print.

My boyfriend got me this 11" X 14" of VII photographer Don Weber's print for my birthday two years ago:

We also bought this 11" X 14" of Alex Brown's Sad Vader.

Today I just purchased this 11" X 14" piece by Christian Chaize:


I also dream of these images (sometimes I "visit" them on the internet):

Mike Sinclair's beauty pic of fireworks

Joseph O Holmes' taxi print

Mike Sinclair's beautiful Nevada lights

Jeremy Kohm's amusement park stunner

Until the end of March they have a March Madness sale going on where everyday they're selling one 11" X 14" image for $30 until 5 pm. Check in on their website, on facebook or on twitter for more information.