It’s a hot one in Toronto! This week we’re creeping up against the 50 degree with humidex mark. There are emergency cooling centres around the city, you can fry an egg on the sidewalk and the AC in my office is broken. Luckily for me… I love the heat. I love it so much that I can sit outside and knit wooly things for people in it.
Lake, lake, lake, smog.
That doesn’t mean that the idea of a cold dip in the pool after work doesn’t sound mighty fine though ;) and while I was contemplating that I thought of the aerial photography I did of the lake last year, and decided to feature aerials for a blog post. Heat, pool, lake, photography. Yes, that was how that went.
I wanted to remember Ontario Place, before they do whatever horrid thing they’re going to do to it.
Aerial photography is, no contest, the best part of my job. I love it so much that I’m starting flying lessons this year – let’s see how that goes ;)
Oooohhh….. cineflex….She’s a stunner, this city of ours :)
To Kris; if you’re reading my blog this morning, this one’s for you :)
Black Puddin is created for my dear childhood friend Kris, who does not wear colour.
Kris can be seen in black, off-black, grey-black, brown-black and very occasionally dark burgundy-black. This is Kris’s way of introducing variety into her wardrobe ;)
So, when I saw this gorgeous skein of Tanis on Etsy I knew I had to snap it up. It’s a one-of-a-kind colourway called ‘Woodland Path’, a beautiful variegated soft brown sock weight merino with tones of moss green and deep reds. It’s so subtle and so beautiful that it made me see, even more than her brighter, punchier colourways, what a master of colour Tanis is. The yarn is simply delicious.
It’s being modelled by my other beloved childhood friend, Yvette. There’s so much love in these shots, it’s perfect! We even had a cheesy Snow White moment when even the little birds came and sat next to Yvette, admiring my shawl, no doubt, and perhaps contemplating what a shame it was they couldn’t get some of that yummy yarn for a nest. I gave them dirty looks before they could get any ideas, of course.
I paired it with the pattern for a shawl called Sugared Violets by Rose Beck that I fell in love with a year ago but never managed to knit properly. When I was knitting it the fleurette mesh looked terrible – to the point where I was eager to get it off the needles and be done with it. But then I blocked it, magic happened, and I thought “I need to make one of these for myself!”. Isn’t that always the way? So if your mesh looks weird, wait for it!
I followed the pattern for the 550 yard version with one mod: because I wasn’t worried about running out of yarn I used 4.5mm needles instead of the recommended 4mm. The bigger needles added so much drape, and the shawl blocked out to an impressive 6 feet by 20 inches (and I still stayed under the 550 yard mark!).
I know there are good people out there doing great things. I see them every day – giving up their seat on the train, buying a coffee for someone who’s cold, smiling at someone who looks like they need it, helping someone cross the street. I wanted to collect these little stories into a short celebration of Nice Things That Folks Do.
Here was the idea; I wrote a knitting pattern that was free. All one had to do was write to me and tell me something nice that they did. I put it out there on my blog and sat back and waited (pessimistically, I grant you) for the knitting community to send me a big ‘fat chance’ in the form of collective inaction.
They didn’t. They sat and they wrote and they sent stories and photos. And I sat and I read and I occasionally got teary eyed and I emailed out knitting patterns. The response was huge and affirming and immensely cheering.
I want to reference the very first story that was sent to me – because it was as significant a first story as one could ask for. A woman wrote to tell me that she let a stranger use her phone, and discovered later that she had averted a suicide.
To me, this shows as clear as anything that the consequences of our smallest actions can be huge beyond our reckoning – it reminds me that the tiny pieces of kindness that we put out there go a long way. It was also a sobering glimpse into the possible consequences of tiny pieces of negativity too – something to ponder if you’re short with the person who made you coffee, cut someone off in traffic or neglected to hold open the elevator door.
I’ve collected some of my favourite stories, removed the names and created a free e-book from them. Feel free to download it, share it, and help put a little love out.
Will I do it again? Absolutely. I’m working on the next design, so stay tuned. Oh, and thank you – you guys rock.
Tito and I drove to Sault Ste. Marie on the weekend – a pretty ambitious endeavour since the Sault is about 9 hours from Toronto (13 if you stop, as we tend to do, for every interesting looking thing you see along the way). Before I do a post showcasing how gorgeous Lake Superior is, I need to show off the pics that made me the happiest.
This is a sun dog, photographed from Toronto at 6 am:
I felt it was a good omen to see atmospheric phenomena right at the beginning of our journey. That night we found a road we thought (wrongly) would be empty, pulled over, and got to enjoy an au natural Canada Day light show:
The best thing was that this time, they were so bright that I saw them. Not squinty after my eyes adjust to the darkness and I think ‘kinda maybe?’. Nope, I saw them. They were so bright that at first I thought it was still blue hour, even though it was 11:30pm.
They dimmed after that, but I still got some gorgeous images, despite the fact that the ’empty road’ turned out to be a highway and the mosquitos gorged themselves silly on me.
All taken in the wee hours of Canada Day – what a great way to celebrate!
As a traveler, and a photographer, I know a good landscape when I see it. I’ve shot the Amazon jungle, the ruins of Italy, the English countryside, the temples of India, the gardens of Japan, the Andes, the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica and countless other places that have, literally, taken my breath away.
But I am biased. Horribly and blatantly biased. You see, I have also shot the coastline of Newfoundland, the Rocky Mountains of BC and Alberta, the frozen monochrome of Manitoba in the winter, the highest tides in the world at the Bay of Fundy, the rocky isolation of Peggy’s Cove and the sheer wonder that is Northern Ontario. And I happen to think I live in the most beautiful place on earth.
This is not only a land of immense natural beauty, it’s also a land of diversity, art, fashion, research, progressiveness, compassion and resourcefulness, framed by a national identity that celebrates tolerance, compassion, peace and equality.
Here I am, a first generation Canadian, an Indo-Guyanese mix and a young woman. Here, I can be anything I want to be. I can practice any faith that works for me, or none at all. I can soar without limitation based on my age, colour or gender.
Yes there is always room for improvement – there is racism just like anywhere else. There are failures of our government to steward the vast riches of our natural inheritance, the terror of the oil sands, the tragedy of the seal hunt… so don’t think that I’ve got rose-coloured glasses on. There is much work to do, but there also so much to be so very proud of.
Here are a collection of photographs, taken coast to coast, that celebrate this beautiful country that I am proud to call home. Happy Canada Day!
Tobermory, OntarioLong Beach, British ColumbiaKilarney, North OntarioWheat Fields, QuebecHopewell Rocks, the Bay of Fundy, New BrunswickBanff, AlbertaSelkirk, ManitobaPeggy’s Cove, Nova ScotiaThe Battery, NewfoundlandGoldstream Falls, Vancouver IslandTerra Cotta Reserve, OntarioThe Rocky Mountains, Alberta
Last Friday night Tito and I were invited to our artist friends house for dinner and creativity! To add to the night I brought the camera and a collection of glow sticks, sparklers and bubble mix.
Sadly, breaking tubes of glow sticks and pouring them into bubble mix completely failed to produce glowing bubbles, as I optimistically hoped it would. First I added enough glow stick ooze that the mixture glowed brightly, but was now unable to produce actual bubbles. So I added more soap. Bubbles, but no glow. So I added more glow and got…. glow but no bubbles.
This cycle continued until my friends gently told me to lay off – partly because my friends kitchen looked like I had slaughtered an alien on her counter.
We settled for using the remaining glow sticks and bulb exposures on the camera to have a little light painting fun. Here’s how you do it!
Put the camera on a tripod
Set the exposure to ‘BULB’ – this means that as long as your shutter button is pressed (or in this case, as long as your remote release is locked) the shutter will remain open.
Attach your remote release and set a 10 second timer on the shutter to give you time to get into position.
Make sure your ISO is 100 – the exposure may blow out otherwise.
Lock the shutter, go nuts with the glow sticks and when you’re done, hide the sticks and go turn off the camera.
Laugh at/admire your results ;)
This makes for great, imaginative fun. We made a car!
And a fire breathing dragon (we were especially proud of this one)
And a house (portal) tree (mushroom cloud) and sun (evil glowing ball of menace).
Then we got a little creepy, dropped the dragon and went for fire breathing friends.
And crazy nebulous zombie friends.
And then we opened up the sparklers and went for glowing ball of light encased friends.
This was all watched by the cat who, despite the normal propensity of cats to run around after things that glow, seemed uniquely unimpressed with our antics.
Thank you Catharine, for a wonderful, artsy, liberating and fun evening!
I loved my TFA Colour Affection so much that I had to make another one – in colours that sing Shireen. Ocean and earth colours from 3 skeins of Viola Viola that I seem to recall having made, and discarded, other plans for, came together for this beloved new wardrobe staple of mine.
This time I followed the Yarn Harlot’s suggestion of adding a yarn over at the beginning of each row and dropping it on the way back to create some ease along the edge. Worked like a charm.
I’ve taken FO shots of this shawl no less than 4 times, and this was the only set that survived. I’ve been plagued by tech fails, including, but not limited to, my camera!
It all worked out – that day there was a Nova Scotia and New Brunswick tourism event going on at Harbourfront. Now, if you read this blog with any regularity you know that I think the East Coast is the most beautiful place in the world. My shawl, having been inspired by that very region, belonged at this event…
….where I had pie for breakfast…
…got to watch someone spin on a wheel…
…and got to have this giant cat model my shawl.
Oh, what did I do with this lovely version?
I gave it to Jeanette, my beautiful shawl model of course. It suits her perfectly :)
La Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain has a rich history. I’m going to take a quote here from wikipedia, who explain it much better than I could ;)
The site was originally a pagan temple, then a VisigothicChristianchurch, before the UmayyadMoors converted the building into a mosque and then built a new mosque on the site.[1] After the Spanish Reconquista, it became a Roman Catholic church, with a plateresque cathedral later inserted into the centre of the large Moorish building. The Mezquita is regarded as the one of the most accomplished monuments of Islamic architecture.
The fascinating thing about this building is that it’s quite literally a mosque, with a Catholic church right in the middle.
I had to shoot hand-held in there, so the photos didn’t turn out quite as good as I would have liked, but you can definitely get a feeling for what it’s like to stand in this space, the origins of which date back to the year 600.
Here’s another wikipedia quote:
The building is most notable for its arcaded hypostyle hall, with 856 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite. These were made from pieces of the Roman temple which had occupied the site previously, as well as other destroyed Roman buildings, such as the Mérida amphitheatre.
When I leave a place like this I feel inspired to go home and create something beautiful. My travels are, by far, the place where most of my own creative ideas are born.
My favourite thing about the Andalusian region of Spain was the Islamic architecture. Yes… I think I’m definitely in the mood to travel again ;)
I backpacked through Spain in 2009 in what was probably my least-planned trip ever – I got a rail pass, and winged it. I stayed in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Cordoba, Cuenca, Granada and Seville.
Spain is gorgeous and textured and culturally rich and would take a massive blog post to really describe, but today I wanted to share the photos I did of the Hanging Houses, or ‘Las Casas Colgadas’
The Hanging Houses of Cuenca were built over the gorge above the Huecar River, sometime in the 15th century. It’s hard to find much information about them but I’ve read that the design is possibly of muslim origin. I’ve also read that, though only 3 of the actual ‘Casas Colgadas’ remain, this type of architecture used to be very common in this region.
I enjoyed shooting them so much that I neglected to do important things that night – like find lodging. I ended up wandering around long after dark looking for a hostel with space – if not for me then for my camera (yes, keeping the camera warm and safe and getting it charged was more important than doing the same for my person – you have to have priorities if you’re going to be a photographer) and narrowly avoided sleeping on the railway platform. Luckily a small hostel took pity on me ;)
Even with all the travel I didn’t see nearly as much of Spain as I had wanted to – and Tito and I have plans to go and explore it together sometime next year. This time I’ll book a hotel ;)
My life is going through one of those periods where I feel out of rhythm all the time. I’ve been travelling for work a lot – and while the shine hasn’t quite worn off on the idea that someone likes my photography so much they’ll fly me around instead of finding a perfectly suitable west coast photographer, I’ve got to confess I’m tired.
My equipment weighs about 35 lbs, and when all your projects are in a small locale you walk everywhere. When the weather is good you might find yourself (as I did) shooting for 15 hours with only the slimmest of breaks for things like food. Because my work is weather dependant, sunny skies often put me in a state of mild panic when I’m working, feeling the pressure to get every shot in and make it perfect before the weather gods move on.
Silly things start happening towards the end of such a day, like me splitting the crotch of my jeans wide open while trying to shimmy up a lamp post for a shot (luckily it was in the parking lot of a mall, so I repaired the problem post haste), my camera crapping out on me, and the discovery that I now talk to myself in public as I caught the fact that I was giving the camera a pep talk while petting it as though it were a dog and begging it to let me finish the shoot. I believe I even dangled the carrot of a sensor cleaning afterwards.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore my job. I love to travel, I love to shoot, and I love the amount of knitting time that travel affords. I finished another colour affection shawl almost exclusively on planes and in airports, 2 weeks start to finish (of course, I can’t show you photos because I don’t have a camera). That’s pretty awesome, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I’m now sort of haggard looking, haven’t been to karate regularly, am feeling the stress of my camera being in the shop and have become an insomniac.
So what do I do at 3 am? I spin. And even though my brain feels like spaghetti, I swear it’s getting better.
The Blue Brick 