Don Bridge Queen St E HDR

I guess I've officially jumped on the HDR bandwagon now. If you don't know what HDR is, you basically combine multiple images at different exposures to give you detail in both the bright and dark parts of your photos. It's all pretty complicated, and it's kind of cheating, but it's also the way of the future. Maybe I'll write more about it later. I used a program called Photomatix, but there are lots of great HDR tools out there, including built in support in Photoshop CS2.

It was about -30C the day I took these photos, and extremely windy. I literally almost got frost bite. It took 20 minutes in my car with the heat on high and my hands in front of the vents before I could drive home. Well worth it in the long run, but damn that was painful. Gotta suffer for the art, right?

Heather's Jogging Pants Party

Heather throws kick ass parties! But when I read the evite for her jogging pants themed party, I was a little skeptical. Shame on me. Goooood frick'n times!

Props to Evan for bringing the homemade over sized jenga game! Soooo much fun! They really need to start mass producing these.

And double props to Heidi and Jo for letting me takes pictures of their cleavage. These are far and away my most popular photos. Come on, everyone loves boobs. And these sweeties have some lovely lady lumps ;)

The Constantines @ The Opera House

As part of my on going "let's upload all those old pictures I never got around to uploading" series, I've FINALLY got my Constantines pictures online from their show back in November.

It was a fabulous show! The Hold Steady opened with some solid rock. Their keyboardist was frick'n hilarious! Dude had a mother fuck'n handlebar mustache and was drinking from a 1.5L bottle of wine (or maybe it was a magnum of Champaign).

The Constantines rocked out hard. It was a flawless set with lots of cameo's. I was already a huge fan, but this solidified things. These guys are frick'n awesome...

Tenth Annual 416 Graffiti Expo

I took these graf pics last summer at the Tenth Annual 416 Graffiti Expo. If yah don't know, this is a yearly event held in the big parking lot between Spadina and Bathurst on the south side of Queen St, and the back allies just south of Queen.

The 416 Graffiti Expo is a blast every year, and this year was no exception. The graf was stellar, the hip hop was fresh and the bboys and bgirls busted some phat moves for hours in the blazing heat...

This is one of my last sets from '05 to be posted. I put off editing these for a while simply due to the sheer number of photos. When it was all said and done, the graffiti pics alone took up 14 flickr pages! It also took up about a week of my free time spent editing these photos in photoshop. For most of the photos all I did was adjust the levels and added a bit of saturation. I can't even image how long this would have taken if I'd really tried to tweak every foto.

Whatever. It's done now. If you love graf check these pics out cuz some of this graf is just amazing! My personal favorite is the foto where a little girl ran in front of my camera. Her dad must have apologized to me 10x; little did he know she made my day. I think my favorite thing about these expos is how it gives me the ability to take fotos of incomplete graf still being worked on. It gives me much more of an appreciation for how these amazing pieces are created, and the time, effort and skill that goes into them.

...almost time for next yeas Expo!

Going Up

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

One Thursday night in February, after playing poker at Dave's place, I started my walk down to The Speakeasy to see Anagram play... Despite the fact that it was about negative ten billion degrees, I couldn't resist breaking out the camera and trying to get a picture of this building. The reflection off of the building behind me producing an upward arrow was just too perfect. Hand held shots weren't working out (possibly due to frost bite), so I did my best to use a fire hydrant as a tripod... and this is the result.

Henry Rollins @ Convocation Hall

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

Henry Rollins in totally insane and a complete masochist. He's also pretty much the closest thing I have to an idol (yes, me to Alain). This guy jumps into things head first and NEVER backs down from a challenge. I fuck'n love his outlook on life! He'll bring you to stitches and scare the crap out of you at the same time. Fuck'n brilliant! Or insane. It's a bit of a gray area.

If you ever get the chance to see him live, DO IT!

Alley Jaunt

Back in August I spent a day biking around the back allies near Trinity Bellwoods checking out random art displays in random peoples garages... and what an amazing day it was!

They basically went door to door asking every house owner in the area if they could use their garage for a weekend. If I recall correctly, there were about 16 stops, with chalk marking the path between exhibits. The plush city was my favorite! There was also some cool blown glass work and photography.

Just north of Bellwoods I found some huge and very colourful flowers swarming with bees. Me not having much sense, got right up close for some crazy macro shots. Seriously, check out the full sized images and prepare for your mind to be blown.

Goin' Steady @ The Boat

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

A few pics from the last Goin' Steady 50s party at The Boat have been posted. There's another one happening this Friday. Check it out!

There are also a few pics from The Constantines show at The Horseshoe in this set. Good show, but I was way too far back to get a decent pic. I've said this a million times and I'll keep saying it. I hate The Horseshoe.

Anagram @ The Speakeasy

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

Not quite as bitch ass late as the Meligrove pictures, but pretty frick'n late none the less...

Anagram were awesome as always. People moshed, lead dude smoked cigarettes, then moshed, then smoked some more... many bottles were thrown. It was anarchy, and that's what we came for...

Meligrove CD Release Party @ The Mod Club

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

These pictures are crazy late... I'm a lazy fuck, sue me.

Many many thanks to John for lending me his memory card after my dumb ass forgot mine!

Basically, Meligrove kicked ass... I see a bright future for these boys.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

Last Saturday, or somewhere close to that, was Michelle's birthday. If you don't know Michelle, well, then that’s your loss cuz she's pretty frick'n awesome. She's also got some kickass friends who brought lots of treats, gifts, games, and of course, the love...

The evening started off with a birthday pre-party at the Markham house. Cake was eaten, pin the horn on the unicorn was played (apparently donkey's aren't hip anymore), and much alcohol was consumed.

Then it was off to Zoi Zoi at the Boat for some French pop, dancing and further consumption of alcohol. Generally good times, although the vibe at The Boat seemed a bit off. I can't tell if it was the lack of people there (they got busted down by the fire martial, so now they actually have to adhere to their capacity limit of 120-150), or if it was due to the advertising in the dreaded 905...

After I left the birthday partying crew, I walked up to college for Sophisticated Boom Boom at Rancho Relaxo... And all I can say is "wow, what a party!!!". Scottie was all over the map with the music, but somehow managed to lay down crowd pleasing trax after crowd pleasing trax. The dance floor was jumping all night! I'll definitely be going to Scottie's next event!