15-3-31

*There are no purples in the sky in my original file. Blogger seems to be changing the colour space of my photos. I've noticed this a few times, it's really obvious in this one. Today I begin in earnest looking at alternatives. Perhaps WordPress. Not sure yet.

15-3-30

There are 5kms between where I live and where I work. It's the same 5kms. A hill, a bike route, a bridge, some other stuff. I walked today. This is the same photograph I've taken a dozen times before, but today it was off the other side of the bridge because I was walking.

I was challenged with taking 500 photos in my back yard once. I feel like I've taken 5000 photos in this 5km stretch of Vancouver. After the first year of taking a photo a day I took about 8 months off. I think I've taken a week or two off since then, but I don't remember. I've certainly missed days, some by accident, some on purpose. You try to mix it up with a road trip or some other distraction like film coming out of a 40 year old medium format camera.

You look for things to be different but they more often than not end up being the same.

Little metal ribbons connecting one coast to the other, just like Buster Keaton taught us in that grade school film we'd get to watch when it was too rainy to play outside or if we had a substitute teacher. When I see these tracks it's as close as I get to connecting to the horizon some days. Maybe that's why I take pictures of them over and over again.

But where are the trains?

15-3-29

Frederick Law Olmsted cries.

15-3-28

Two takes on the same picture. I didn't take it first, but I saw it before it was taken first. Or something like that.

15-3-27

Finally getting around to finishing this one.

15-3-26

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15-3-24

There is a magic to busy streets when they are deserted. The meaning of a traffic light changes when there are no cars.

15-3-23

.......

15-3-22

Sophie and I do Ai WeiWei.

15-3-21

20mm is a pretty wide lens. I had a 14-24mm Nikkor lens for a while, and I still have a 24mm lens that's fantastic but I don't use it very often. The 20mm is a pretty wide lens. Pretty wide.

I had forgotten that with the 14-24 you had to be careful about collapsing perspective, buildings looking like they are falling in on themselves, or rooms looking, well, just odd. But it lets you stand across the street from monumental buildings of magnificent scale, or, about a block long-ish, and swallow the whole thing in with that big, wide, 20mm lens.

It gives you lots of room to fix the photos on the computer. Some of the magnificence is lost, and the slightly unnatural perspective sneaks in when you stare, the verticals are parallel, but unnaturally so, the buildings can start to look like they get wider at the top. It's not too bad when the buildings are only 4 stories tall but if you look at it too long it comes across as slightly off. Both are slightly off, I guess. I don't know which I like more. Or less.

15-3-20

Thom Yorke. Limited white vinyl pressing.

15-3-19

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15-3-17

I'm glad the days are getting longer because it seems I'm leaving work later too.

15-3-16

15-3-15

The beginning of curry beans and rice. Soooo good.

15-3-14

15-3-13

I've been told by more than one person that I should read Murakami and I even have one of his books but I've just never found the time. But the design of this one is so beautiful that it might jump the queue of books I'm aspiring to read. Such a great looking book.

15-3-12

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15-3-10

Foggy Vancouver. Longer days and I'm finding it hard to find the time to take picture. Tired. Going to bed instead of heading out to take a better photograph.

15-3-9

Georgia Viaduct. There's a rumor they might rip this thing down. Not sure why it was built in the first place. It mostly goes over vacant land. Anyway.

15-3-8

I bought a 20mm lens off craigslist and it didn't work. I checked it but not thoroughly enough. I called the guy who sold it to me and he said I must have dropped it. I didn't. It was broken.

I spent the better part of last night taking it apart to fix it. The aperture blades were sticking. There was a whole lot of really small screws but I managed to not lose any of them and used them all to put it back together too.

I've been feeling like black and white photos recently, so I would have converted these anyway, but the lens still has some colour fringing and isn't super sharp. But it was $200, which is what it was worth if it worked. Broken they aren't worth fixing, unless you've already spent $200 on a lens that you can't use. So maybe I start filling a jar with change and, because of loonies and toonies, maybe I'll have a better 20mm prime by the fall. Though I'm getting picky about these things, it may take a lot of loonies and toonies because Zeiss is German for "expensive" and no one else seems to understand my desire to own a quality 20mm prime.

Maybe it's me.

It's probably me.

15-3-7

Full on spring, no denying it.

15-3-6

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15-3-2

Health & Beauty. And Butcher Shop. One in the same?

15-3-1

There's a hole in the road by my house. Someone thought it would be good to put an upside down table next to it.