Ophelia

The camera we took out from the school (a beautiful medium format!) didn't work today (no idea, the repairs guy figured it was something in the body, and I exposed a whole roll of film.. booo.) but we'll be trying Ophelia on film again in a few weeks. ... Maybe this time with a Holga! In the meantime, I took a few after the camera disaster with my digital ... I think I may look at another location for the second portraits. Lacy did such an amazing job! The clothing is by Macey Faulkner, and my fellow photo student Carolyn did an awesome job with the strangely fun flippy-outty reflector.

  

Ophelia : Inspiration for tomorrow's portraits

 

John William Waterhouse

  

Cabanel

  

John William Waterhouse

 

John William Waterhouse

And my favourite : 

 

Millais

Olympics! 2010

Yesterday Jenn, Justin, Me, Jamie and Jenn's Mom went to Vancouver! Of course, at the moment, the 2010 Winter Olympics are happening there and it is kind of crazy and pretty awesome to walk the city streets at the moment.

We watched the hockey game in Robson square with a rather large crowd of people, saw a man juggle swords on a unicycle whilst wearing only underwear and a pair of fun socks, saw Chewbacca carry the Canadian flag, and I ate from my very first hot dog from a street cart (it was so good I dreamt about it last night), rode my first skytrain, AND saw the Olympic cauldron.

In between, I also found time to pick up this purse from Urban Outfitters, our new book club pick Shutter Island at Chapters, as well as a new wallet. (Which I can't seem to find on UO so I'll take a picture of later.) It was such a long day, but such a lovely experience! I'm so glad we all went.

This upcoming week is busy! Portraits on Saturday with Lacey and Carolyn (CANNOT WAIT! This time there is a Shakespeare theme.), finishing up my little map (pictures to come as soon as I get the major parts done.) and then almost nearly completing my stop motion owl movie. Macey and Crystal and I are working some new fully costumed photo shoots as well, with a much looser theme than last time, so planning on those will hit full swing sometime in the next few weeks and in amongst it all, PACKING! for the big move in early May. Ahhhh, I love having so much to work on.

 

  

  

  

Life like one big road

I'm currently working on a handstitched project for photography class, wherein I'm retracing my road trip from Thunder Bay, to Chilliwack, and to Masset... and back again. I've made that road trip several times now, not always with Masset at the beginning or the end, but I've traveled many a kilometer through the prairies, the mountains, and the forests.

Stitching this project has been very time consuming, but as I'm stitching, I find myself remembering all those road trips. From the last time, when Brad and I made the trip from Thunder Bay to Chilliwack in the span of two days, sleeping in a super packed van with the stuff in the back pushing our seats forward at uncomfortable angles... to the many road trips we made when I was a kid, camping through B.C. and visiting Vancouver Island. My first trip from Chilliwack to Prince George, to Prince Rupert and then to Masset was pretty crazy. From Prince George onwards, my cousin Melissa drove us -- four plus a cat crammed in the cab of our trusty 4x4 "Pearl", 26 hours straight, from the ferry at Prince Rupert where she didn't sleep a wink, onto Haida Gwaii and all the way to Masset, where she pretty much crashed.

From the moment I set eyes on the Queen Charlotte Islands, I fell in love. I can't describe to you properly the scenery, the ocean, the forest, the people... finding little agates on the beach, seeing groups of eagles flying over houses, the pastel colours of all the little houses all lined in a row, playful ravens hopping next to you as you walk along. I think I left a little piece of my heart behind there, somewhere still, it wanders beside the tides and offroads along North Beach.

That is kind of the soul of roadtripping though, of travel. You leave little parts of yourself behind, and pick up new little parts along the way. And someday, you make it to the place you want to stop for awhile, or maybe just someone you want to stop with.

Here are just a very small handful of some of my traveling pictures.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Pirate Treasure and Teacups

I am having a very exhausted day today. I ran a bull mastiff around the block last night, and came back to the house expecting to collapse into delightful and amazing slumber, only to toss and turn until the wee hours. I managed to make it through most of the day without dozing, but am right now ready to pretty much collapse into a pile of quilts and blankets and things and watch some movies I grabbed earlier in the week from my store: Blade Runner and The Count of Monte Cristo. I have this strange desire to make my way through all the 7 day rentals, all the while checking off things from my great, big, huge list of movies I need to see.

I finished American Gods, and before that The Thirteenth Tale, both of which were just lovely. Today I meandered over to my favourite field in town (which is kind of marshy in February I found out) and took some pictures of books and old estate sale black and white photographs. When I got home and I discovered that Brad had dropped off presents from my lovely friend Carole : teacups, little dog and horse figurines, and a gorgeous vintage hand mirror / comb and brush set. The back of the brush and hand mirror features needlepoint! AHHH! Awesome.

Below are some of today's pictures. Yaaaawn. And now for a bit of a lie down...

 

  

  

  

 

Back to Wonderland part two

I'm currently in the process of planning out some more photo shoots for this spring and summer, mostly involving faeries, the loose interpretation of various fairy tales, and identical twins. With the ball nearly, almost, officially rolling, my brain is starting to swim with all kinds of ideas and themes, and my mind is drawn to thoughts of soft fabrics, lace, and the Edwardian era. These photo shoots usually cost a pretty penny, so in the spirit of being able to keep Macey, Crystal and I in our share of delicate fabrics and beautiful patterns, I will be opening a shop soon to sell prints. If you have any preferences on what you'd like to see up for sale, feel free to drop me a note, or leave me a comment!

In the meantime, here are some more re-visitings of the Alice In Wonderland photo shoot from last May.

 

  

  

 

  

 

Back to Wonderland

Taking another look at Alice...

 

 

  

  

 

Stop Motion + Spring Break!

I am officially now on my spring break and I pretty much love it. If I could craft an interpretive dance dedicated to spring break that would BLOW YOUR MIND, I'd be right on out there making jazz hands and wowing the world with my continuous kick-ball-changes. Not that I don't have a truck load of things to do through this week, it's just that most of it is really fun.

1. Finish my stop motion! I spent about 30 hours glued to my computer a week ago, and after creating a little trailer (posted at the end of this post) and joining together most of my footage, I've decided to do a little reshooting. I'm still also working out the music of the film ... classical music? Or music by the lovely Josephine Foster and Fleet Foxes? At any rate, I am in love with this whole stop motion process. Some day I'd like to start work on some wire work .. have them move arms and legs and the like, in more elaborate storylines with fixed, non flickering light. Ahhhh. Lovely.

2. Photography Project! The assignment is to reference something from our past.. so I dug up some of my old black and white negatives and reprinted them with liquid light on envelopes and other things. I'll then be embroidering those onto a big square of fabric, and pinning them down with colour photographs as well. These photographs will chronicle my journeys between Ontario and BC, a road trip which I've now made several times. Tomorrow I plan on curling up on my little couch with a needle, a thread, and my collection of old horror and mystery films I bought at work tonight, just getting the bulk of the piece finished.

3. Drawing. I am not much of a sketcher. I am pretty impatient when it comes to drawing, and let's face it: not all that good at it. I need to bulk up my drawing portfolio for drawing class, ... also, I cannot seem to stop myself from adding things that aren't actually there to the little things our instructor asks us to sketch. Little drawings of twigs and pinecones... suddenly need to have tiny polka-dotted mushrooms added to the side, and little flowers. A strange piece of piping dug up from who knows where .... has intricate patterns of diamonds and circles all around it. The other day my instructor walked around the room and paused at my sketchbook and said, "Oh. No.. this is really good .. for you." Hah. (I will scan these in eventually.)

Also, Happy Valentine's Day, World! When I was a kid, Valentine's Day was always more about going out to my Grandma's house for her birthday, where we'd give her little heart themed presents. Last night Jamie and I went out for dinner, and then back to his place to ... are you ready? Play awesome video games, until I crashed at about 10:30 p.m. because I am an old woman. An awesome, video game playing old woman.

Finally, I am fully addicted to GoodReads. I just finished "The Thirteenth Tale", and am working my way through American Gods. More photo shoots are also in the works... as well as some awesomeness involving journals. Ah! I am at my happiest when there are multiple fun projects to work on.

And finally, the trailer for Little Brown Owl Goes Outside! The song playing is "Melody for a Fallen Tree" by Windsor for the Derby.

What I'm working on these days..

I'm putting together a stop motion animation movie for the first time ever and it's pretty time consuming. Luckily, in between editing photos and splicing together little bits of movement, I am also catching up on shows such as "Supernatural", which I'm pretty addicted to. (They've shot bits and pieces of it out by Fort Langley over here! Exciting! ... I am a dork.) Also, listening to lots of music. I'm trying to figure out the perfect score for my little film, and I'm quite torn between classical music such as Mozart, or Opus 17, and something mellow and quirky (Josephine Foster, Jolie Holland) or maybe just something moderately old and jazzy (Billie Holliday or some such?)

Anyways, still tons of work left to do on it, and the midterm critique for it arrives this Monday. In the meantime, here are a couple of stills of the adventures of Little Brown Owl! (Incidentally, thank goodness for my Jamie who helped in animation ... partially so I wouldn't lose my mind trying to balance a half broken tripod, while taking pictures, while ever so gingerly moving LBO across the frame.)