Show Us Your Shorts Film Festival

This weekend, I was invited to volunteer for the final night of the second annual Show Us Your Shorts Film Festival. Started as a university project, Jeanette Burman, SUYS Executive Director, and Jessica Fralick, Festival Assistant, are dedicated to bringing to Calgary an interesting selection of Canadian short films. Saturday was also the awards night, held at the Plaza Theatre in Kensington. The main prize (a beautifully mounted plaque of a bronze pair of boy's underwear) went to Karen Hines for her gorgeous black and white film "A Tax on Pochsy."

 The photo is of a volunteer and Jessica (on the right) waiting at the front door for viewers to arrive.  Although the two are nicely posed, I think the eye in the foreground, the drawing on the window, and the film-headed woman on the bathroom door are what make this photo interesting.

Links:

• Show Us Your Shorts 2010 Film Festival web site
• Show Us Your Shorts blog
• SUYS 2010 Flickr photos

Nice Doggy...

Nice Doggy...
Originally uploaded by Sherlock77 (James)

My friend, the one feeding the doggy, and I went on a Calgary Flickrmeet photo field trip to the Calgary Zoo last Sunday. The weather was great, with just enough cloud cover to remove harsh shadows. It's interesting how you begin to see the world as a photographer. Things like weather and color and textures are all more meaningful.

For instance, a regular person seeing a peacock on a fence would likely say, "What a pretty peacock." A photographer's observation went something like this, "Look at how the rich brown tones of the building bring out the gorgeous blue of the peacock, and the bright white of the window trim..."

It was great hanging out with people who really SEE the world around them.

Links:

• More Calgary Zoo photos.

It's officially spring!

Yeah! It's spring! Saw this robin near McHugh Bluff this evening.

Spoken Word Festival photo!

This is so cool. A photo I took of Jen Kunlire, a local SLAM poet, is on the Spoken Word Festival web site [http://calgaryspokenwordfestival.com/Artist/Kunlire.html] and published in the Spoken Word Festival program guide. The guide actually gives me credit for the picture. A published photographer. So, so, very, very cool.


This photo was taken at the Black History Month: Spoken World event that Jen organized for the Calgary Public Library. Members of the Calgary SLAM team (Jen Kunlire, Kirk Ramdath, and Wakefield Brewster), Bambalamb, and the Ellipsis Tree Collective’s Theatre Company performed in the John Dutton Theatre, Saturday, February 6, 2010.


Links:

• Spoken Word Festival
• Jen Kunlire blog
• Black History: Spoken World Flickr photos

Trik graffiti

Trik graffiti
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

One of the things I like about Flickr is that you can see how often a photo is viewed. My most popular photo is this one of TRIK graffiti on a pedestrian bridge cable. Since August 12, 2009 it has been viewed 196 times and is considered a favorite by 4 people. The second most favorite photo is one of the same cable taken four months later with two more graffiti tags added.

Links:

• Graffiti on Flickr
• People's Choice on Flickr

Positive things about Ann Coulter

Warning: the following posting is a rant and has nothing to do with photography.

Before this morning I had never heard of Ann Coulter. No, I don't live under a rock. I don't live with cable TV. The rabbit ears on my little television barely pick up the local channels. So when I heard her speech was cancelled in Ottawa, my first question was, "Who's Ann Coulter?"

After a Google search, and a look at her web site I was shocked by her crassness, her insensitivity, her total lack of compassion and respect. Then, I was fascinated by the news of her. After reading all that she's purported to say, I'm not sure if she is for real or just playing a part. So, I tried to think up positive things about Ann Coulter.

1. Academia should love her as an excellent example of faulty critical thinking and really bad logic. Several years ago, in a Critical Thinking class, I was asked to find an example of poor critical thinking and write about all the assumptions made by my choice. If Ann was around back then (never mind when) she would have made that assignment so easy-peezy.
2. If you've ever wondered what ADD thinking is like, in a not-so-good-Robin-Williams-kind-of-way, look to Ann. She takes a topic and then goes to a completely different, dark universe.
3. She flushes out like-minded people. Amazingly, Ann Coulter could be considered laughable if it wasn't for the fact that there really are other people out there that think the same way as she does. I've known one or two or three. One or two or three too many.

Top 10 Places You Don't Want to Visit

Top 10 Places You Don’t Want To Visit

Posted using ShareThis

Calgary School of Samba

Last Saturday was March 20th and the first day of spring. Malcolm, a founder of the Calgary School of Samba, decided it was a great reason for a school percussion jam up and down 17th Avenue. The setting sun was a bit of a photographic challenge, especially when the group headed east and the sun was shining brightly behind them. I'm sure Malcolm was wondering why I kept dashing for shadowy places to shoot from. In this shot the group was heading west with the sun full on their faces. The golden hues in the color photos is nice, but I really liked the brightness of the converted b&w versions even more.

untitled Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

I'm still trying to get the hang of the new Canon 50D DSLR. Most of the photos taken Saturday were with my Canon Powershot G10. Below is the only photo of about a dozen that I shot with the 50D that I liked. The zoom lens on the 50D feels a bit intrusive compared to the little G10.

Not everyone likes a percussion band. The fellow in the wheel chair was very verbally abusive. In between his swearing he complained that the drums were messing with his hearing aid. He also tried to kick one of the drummers as she passed by him - no easy feat with only one foot.

Links:

• Calgary School of Samba
• Calgary School of Samba - Flickr Set
• Calgary School of Samba (Facebook)

Centre Stage Theatre

Black History 2010 - Shades of Black
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

One of the things I love about photography is discovering something new. At the February Collectively Eclectic Shades of Black event I discovered Centre Stage Theatre, a new (new to me) local theatre group. At Shades of Black they did a reading of an up and coming never performed piece that included John Ware and grifters. I must admit I was caught up in the photography and missed the flow of the story, but it looked cool.

Their line-up includes renditions of books, as well as Western-Canadian pieces. For instance, next weekend, March 27th, they are performing Charlotte's Web.

For more information visit the Centre Stage Theatre web site: www.centrestagetheatreco.com

Have a look at some of the Centre Stage Theatre photos I took at Shades of Black.

gray chinook dawn

gray chinook dawn
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

Usually, Chinook sunrises are splendid in their colors. This sunrise, however, was gray (no b&w treatment, here). But the clouds -- such amazing textures!

tower magic

tower magic
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

Here's a phenomenon that boggles my mind and adds a little magic to my walk to work. The Calgary Tower is on 9th Avenue and Centre Street, yet is reflected on buildings six blocks north of it. See the 3rd Avenue building windows just behind the lion and in between the two gray buildings.

vintage Suzi & Clyde

vintage Suzi & Clyde
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

Sometimes the best special effects come naturally. These are my neighbor's cats, Suzi and Clyde. (Bonnie and Clyde did not play well together.) The "vintage effect" was created by turning the color photo into black and white with Corel PhotoPaint and by my neighbor's really dirty window.

Sunrise 1

Sunrise 1
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

red summer dawn
sheer fire haze curtain
breathe ash air

- W. Martin, Aug 16, 2009

Relaxing recreation

Relaxing recreation
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

The cat: a little

body being used

By a little person

- J. Kerouac, Book of Haikus

Tossed Tim cup

Tossed Tim cup
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

Part of my Tossed series of photos that focus on the garbage people mindlessly leave behind.

Tossed

Tossed is a collection of photos of the garbage people mindlessly leave behind.

after the fire

after the fire
Originally uploaded by Wanderfull1

There is a campfire smell in Chinatown when you walk near the buildings that caught fire in January.

That cold Monday, January 25th morning, the CBC Eye Opener radio traffic reporter announced that only pedestrian traffic was allowed on Centre Street Bridge, due to a fire in Chinatown. As it happens, the building that was on fire was one I walked past every time I went to work. That particular morning, I left for work a half hour earlier than usual so that I could take photos to post to Flickr.

More images of the 2010 Chinatown fire.

Black History Month - Shades of Black party

Last Saturday (February 27th), I was invited to take photos at the Collectively Eclectic "Legacies: Shades of Black" party held downtown at the Chinese Cultural Centre. Collectively Eclectic has been putting on Legacies events to celebrate Black History since 2008. This was my first. It gave me an excuse to buy a new outfit. It also gave me a chance to give my new DSLR camera a good run; although I was glad I also brought my little Canon Powershot.

"Shades of Black" was a night of music, art, fashion, theatre, comedy, poetry, dance, and partying to celebrate Black History month. There was a buffet of various kinds of food I'd never tried before. Loved the fried plantain. Yum!

Interesting side entertainment included models dressed as prominent people in history. Included were Malcolm X, Josephine Baker and Rosa Parks, a young Michael Jackson look-a-like and Dr. Anderson Abbott, a Canadian civil war military doctor.

The evening's entertaining hosts were Ify Chiwetelu, local poet and a founding member of Collectively Eclectic, and Calgary stand up comedian, Rock Di (aka Daniel Tseday). The event took place at the Chinese Cultural Centre, Saturday, February 27, 2010.

The photos I took are posted to my Flickr set: Black History Month 2010 - Shades of Black. Also see photos of the Black History : Spoken World event held at the downtown Central Calgary Public Library.