See? Here's the Thing!

I just read a blog post by someone I don't know, and I'm not going to link to it or comment directly there because it's not my place. This is my place. So, the issue at hand: he'd just watched Blood Diamond and was feeling convicted about his new $120 designer blue jeans. A bunch of people commented, and put his life 'in perspective'.

"You think that's expensive!? There are people here spending $800 on jeans. That's crazy!"

"It's not your fault, this is just the culture we're a part of."

"$120 for those!? You got a great deal there."

See, that's what I'm getting at. Consumerism is rife. It's time for us all to catch a wake-up before we drown in this murky slop we're swimming in!

Bottenation 28

Here's something on the lighter side. Recently my wife and I were invited to a friend's birthday party. Here are the resultant pictures. This year's Bottenation started off pretty chill, but once all the mellow (or tired) people left, things picked up. I took my camera along on a whim, and I'm sure glad I had it!







A candy is placed behind the leg of this chair. The objective is to retrieve it with your mouth, not allowing anything else to contact the floor, while maintaining your balance on the chair (not like this hapless candidate). Try it sometime. It's harder than it looks!



Here a box is picked up off the floor with your mouth. Your only contact with the floor is your two feet (provided you have two feet -- if not feel free to improvise). Once everyone who can completes it, the box is cut down and everyone re-attempts. I have pictures of people picking up flat pieces of card from the floor. I don't have any of myself like that though...



Exceptional ice cream cake was enjoyed by all.

There. I think I'm most proud of the fact that we were all sober. I remember the whole evening clearly, I don't regret anything I did, and I suffered no ill effects the next day (though with all the bending and twisting, the same couldn't likely be said for everyone...).

I've been asked in talking about this "What are you, four?". For one slow moment on a lingering-light evening, yes. Yes, I was.

Movie Review: Children of Men

Well it's a relief to have this to unseat Grindhouse as my most recent review. The premise here is that a few years in the future humans can no longer reproduce. But the real story is what humans do without hope. This takes a true story lifted from today's media, extropolates it into the future, and makes it even truer. I'd like to pretend that with faith, I wouldn't lose it as bad as this society has, but there's this ringing in my ears (a cleverly repeated device used in the film that I suddenly understood the intent of much later ) that reminds me that I'm not really above anything.

So what hope do we have on Earth? Is our only hope really self-propagation? And is that all that's holding us back from falling into the abyss? It's a worthy question, and one that I've never seen asked better. If you choose to watch this, know that it's not easy entertainment (as per most of what grabs me and what I review here), but asks you to wrestle with your own self. In sum total, this is a powerful statement about where our increasing fear and hatred will take us, and what it will take to prevent it.

To everyone who thinks this would make a great video game, you've entirely missed the point. It is like a video game -- the comparison is obvious. Watch for an extended one-take action scene toward the end: it looks just like a first-person shooter game, except like the lead character, we don't have a gun. And the stakes are much higher. If we continue to live shallow, sheltered, selfish lives, the consequences are more dire than we care to imagine. That imagination is what Children of Men is for.

A Soul for the Torn Apart

And time is the unseen hand pulling from behind
Crinkling the corners of her eyes,
The corners of her mouth more up, more down,
her dress tighter.

She laughs as though nervous
from the top half of her lungs.
She always has...

Over burgers and salad
we nod sagely together
as mystics over a think-boiling pot
quietly wondering 'What the Hell?'

But we smile because we can't help it.

Too Close. Too Far.

A large chunk of my life was spent playing in the blood red African soil. From tag (where it's called 'touches') to rugby, my childhood sweat and blood have mixed into the dirt, and it's deep, unconquerable human truths have in turn been abraded into me.

I've spent the ensuing years trying to figure out what that means -- I don't think I'll ever get it. But this quest seems entirely fitting as this generation enters a global identity crisis. When one product, one brand, one financial strategy has so much unreprecedented and unpredictable power for good or evil, we each need to wrestle with this. Where we can suddenly see in webcams the damage we inflict with bombs we are (almost) right back to fighting hand-to-hand. Soon the victims will have more personality than the combatants, perhaps that's as it should be. Can we not come to a solution in this to undermine war? Hatred? Mistrust? And then work together to fight poverty? Disease? Oppression?

I'm coming to a new awareness. I'm living into the reality of words I've said my whole life. Beautiful words about harmony, unity, peace. About being able to achieve any dream. They're sullied when you don't really mean them. When you scorn people that are trapped by their circumstances. Their powerlessness. Even their own decisions.

I wonder at people. We have the power to destroy the world several times over. I'm not just talking bombs. I'm talking about every product, every cleaning chemical, power generation, everything. And in comparison, what do we make that has the power to heal?

I tell you what. The first step toward healing is to learn how wounded you really are. Please take a look at this short film called Bloodline. It's shockingly and crushingly sad. This shows you a reality you already know -- now it just gives it a name and a face. What's your role in the world? Well that's your journey. That's your own quest. This is my invitation you to engage and participate. This isn't a call to a specific action. Just to action.

After you watch, feel free to pop back here and debrief...

Ignore, Retry, Fail -- Y/N?

Memories in human brains have no off. Or reset. Try a happy pill. Try a sedative. Try a laxative. A long drawn-out note played on a smooth jazz station -- all sizzle and no steak. I'm the sincere voice telling you it's great. Don't say anything insensitive about the humanoid aliens, because we're all people sharing the same universe. New and improved flavour -- disregard the thiamine hydrochloride. And 0, 5, 5, 7, 1, 2, 1, 0, 0, 1, 4, 2. And the fact that you don't even know what those mean. Trust the machine, and the unseen fingers with their unseen callouses from unknown places and races all ground up and processed down into your breakfast cereal. Now 50% more candier. More marshmallowier. And supposably more juicier. (And everyone says "I could care less", which too is meaningless.)

If you quit you're just giving up. Don't turn off, turn down, tune out. Imagine what you'd miss. Never ask a question you don't know the answer to. A bullet in the guts, and you can watch it's trajectory. That's t-r-a-j-e-c-t-o-r-y. The place is clean from clues, but wait for the confession to follow the fourth ad break. Like a breaking news story that broke some time last week. You just need five uranium pills to power your house for a year. How many pills for how many houses for how many years? And what do you do with them when they're done? Wanna know? Stay tuned for the next breaking story...

Don't you long for a simpler, better time? Now you can have it with a brand new flatscreen, widescreen LCD TV. It's brighter than your dull reality. And wider too. Let's see, a brow lift, tummy tuck, tooth veneers, breast implants, full-body liposuction. This show sponsored by Scalpel and Syringe, brand names for high-quality self-delusion. Watch now as she spins on a record player -- her own seductive soundtrack and male-gaze fixation. We'd go almost as far as saying how she's fully ****able, but this is a family station. Edgy humour is funny until it's replaced by edgier humour. But haven't I heard that laugh track before?

Granville Island

I've heard about the mystical, whimsical land called Granville Island for years. I was even told that I should go. But after living in this area for an accumulative 7 years, I still hadn't looked fate full in the eye, and made the quest. I finally braved the perilous odds when invited by a friend of mine, and voyaged out to see it last weekend. (To paraphrase Kurt Elling from a recent concert "I'm just riffing here -- I don't know what I'm on about.")

It's actually pretty cool. The weather started off miserably cold and rainy, but that gave me and my shooting buddy some time to re-connect in a nearby coffee shop. And then when the sun broke out in the later afternoon, we grabbed our gear and dashed out to capture some stuff.


A dreary day makes colours pop. You gotta just keep telling yourself that... (I love that my new camera is weather resistant.)


Sorry, am I boring you?


Try as I might, I couldn't get my shadow out of the middle of this picture...


Just going for a simple composition. I think I'll call it "Yellow on Yellow, and Shadow"


When (not if) I go back, I'm going to work harder on these lights. They're just so cool.


The entrance to the fabled land as seen in striking sunlight.


Another graphical composition. Looks cool at desktop size, but you'll have to take my word for it. Unless you're going to stretch this to fit. (Not recommended.)


Something about the grey boat, the grey clouds, the striking sunlight, and the pink floaters, or bumpers or whatever they are. Oh and the name 'Free to Wander'. Yep, something about all that...


I worked here on getting some interesting foreground and background going on. I like wide-angle lenses. (Can't wait 'til I get an even wider one!)

The Big Jump Off

I'm on the big ride, nearly at the top of the hill. There's no looking back. I'm going to be shooting my first digital wedding this Spring. After years of trusting film, this is quite a rollercoaster. I've been blasting the camera at everything that moves (and quite a few things that don't) trying to prepare for this. But when it's over I know I'll have some shots that I really like (the couple's likes and dislikes are secondary... ;-) ). I have the assurance because I've now worked out some of the kinks that I was experiencing with my new gear, and it and I are getting along. It's almost to the point where's it's out of my way and I can shoot through it instead of with it. Almost.



But the job of the photographer at a wedding is only partly to make a record of the events of the day. The much bigger part is to integrate into what's happening, to offer reassurance to harried parties, to look for and celebrate the moments that hardly anyone sees. If wedding shooting was all stress and pressure, I'd never do it. But I find the things that I know the couple is going to want to remember and catch those fleeting moments for them. For me, the way I shoot, there's no convention, routine or tradition. Every situation is unique, because people are unique. It's my goal to find who the couple is. I want to find the soul of the union and harness it. When it works, I follow and the pictures happen naturally. And that's fun, in the truest, deepest sense of the word.

I wasn't the principle shooter at this wedding – that honour belonged to a friend of mine. It was fun to grab shots (nothing of what he set up, mind you) without any pressure, except that which I naturally put on myself.

Open Letter to the American Media

Well now you're covering a horrific massacre at a college. It's catastrophic, shocking and sad. But there's an upside: I won't have to hear about Anna Nicole Smith any more. (After far too long, you were still rife with commentary and 'updates'. “Yep, you guessed it. Still dead.”) Unfortunately with that substitution, all news is tainted. Now ANS and 33 dead college students have both been granted the maximum you can offer. This is far from the first time, but it so face-smackingly obvious this time that I can't just let it go.

Your loss of credibility is pretty much total. It's going to take you a long time for you to recover it, assuming the goal is even on your radar screen. You've proven that honour and dignity are merely words in forgotten dictionaries, and now you feel equal to the task of handling this much bigger, more significant story? One with real impact on families, politics and a whole culture? Your sensational bungling is my skepticism feast – how can I bring myself to care about anything you tell me is important? I can't: I don't trust you. You've shored up a nation's apathy and a generation's cynicism because you went all histrionic over something vapid. And you've got no reserves left for a story with real significance.

But hey, I know it's not your fault. What can ya say? It's just been a slow news year...

Screaming in a Soundproof Room

A dream is a myriad of disconnected thoughts trying to weave themselves into plot points. Hello and welcome to tonight's episode of the sedentary life. You're instructed to sit and wait it out. It will all be over soon. The world is polluted, the food supply is contaminated with genetic modification, and animal life that we haven't even identified yet is dying. You should care. All this and more, after these messages.

Are you thinking about sex right now? Why not? Is there something wrong with you? Well isn't there? Is your body already letting you down? Yeah, you probably should be concerned. But we can help. We're the corporate smooth operators; call now -- someone will be on the line to assist you. Celebrate your unachievable advertising-land dreams, and your comparative mediocrity with vigour. We have the solution to put you to sleep, to wake you up, to make you forget, and to invent some [wink] meaningful friendships. Lonely? Sad? Horny? Great! Think of me as your rich uncle, with a professional manicure.

Oh welcome back. Look who's been saying naughty things. Well, we can't tell you what he said, but we can show you the clip. "I'll tell you that she's a [beep] [beep], that's for sure." In the footage, notice the pixelated censor marks. Ignore the war, the changing climate, the extortionist fuel prices, but pay careful attention to the witty banter. Allow yourself to laugh a little. Feel better? And for those of you just joining us, here again are the pixelated censor marks. Intriguing, aren't they?

Got questions? Got pain? Get solutions! Call 1-800-DIVERSIONS-R-US, and we'll help you ignore life's bigger questions. Are you still trying to be a social activist? Are you holding out for real change? We need your money! Is life going too fast, or are you just living too slow? Maybe you need a bigger car, a bigger house, a better job or a brand new and improved spouse 2.1 with all the latest upgrades 2,000 years of medical science can provide. Downloading 76% done...

[I've just finished Douglas Coupland's JPod, and thought I'd try to write something inspired by his style. I think it's very me 2.0.]

Movie Review: Grindhouse

This is kind of the movie that my future brother-in-law would call "light-hearted entertainment". Which (when you use the "future brother-in-law" decoder ring) translates into "normal people are going to throw up in their shoes". It's light-hearted in the way that Sin City was. Or... well, no I can't think of anything else comparable. But what a ride!

People who are complaining about the length of movies these days could be directly pointing a finger at this one. Strictly speaking though, this is two movies. The first one, Planet Terror, is a gross-out movie, more gory than anything I've seen. It turns into sort of cartoon violence -- it's so over-the-top it's ridiculous, and yet still somehow realistic and believable. That's pretty odd. The second one, Deathproof is, well, kinda the same, though with more car chase.

I feel like I just participated in some cult-status-initiation-ritual thing, and I don't know anything about what I just joined. Like all good cult movies, this one has now flopped at the box office (though that might just be publicity's spin -- it is actually making some money). Part of the fun of this movie would be doing the research and the backstory and knowing all the little knick-knack details. I can't bring myself to care that much about it. But it was wild shenanigans to experience it.

I think this is a retro statement whose time has come. The thing is that every element of these movies feels real. The production values are lower, the budgets are obviously smaller, and they are more off-centre than anything in mainstream movies. But with no cg, or at least nones that discernible, they just have a raw, real feeling. You have to work hard if you're going to suspend your disbelief over these two. Or you can just choose not to care, and go along with the camp craziness. In the end, I'm still trying to figure out what these two mean for me -- there's something deeper in them that what's visible. I just can't articulate it yet...

On a side note, if Deathproof inspires a movement of rat muscle car (a natural to follow the current lo-buck rat rod trend), I'm going to be a little miffed. I wanted to be unique just once! But whatever happens, I'm not going to kill people inside it by driving them to death -- that just gets messy!

The Vancouver Car Show (Part 2)

Um, I've always had a thing against Ford. It goes back to when we owned a Ford and a Chevy when I was learning to drive, and the Ford had really loosey-goosey steering. That's a freaky thing to come to terms with when you're first starting out. And the Ford had a bigger motor but was heavier and performed worse and got worse gas mileage. And its seats were covered in a nasty grey fuzzy polyester -- ask anyone about me and polyester. No sir, I didn't like it. (That particular car is a knock out in a demo derby, though. If I ever go crash-up competitive, I know the car I'm using!)

As a family we've had a few other Fords down the line, and actually now my whole extended family has Fords in their driveways. Yep, almost everyone. (Hmm, that's strange.) Anyway that's a long way to get to my point -- Ford blew me away this car show! They were the ones generating the most out-and-out excitement with their GT supercar, and the Shelby GR1 concept.

Ford GT (retro take on the classic GT40)



Shelby GR1 (Concept)

You should have heard the comments about the GR1. "How're you supposed to keep that clean?" and "Can that car be legal with all those sun-reflecting curves." C'mon people, it's a concept! I only wish that I had the outdoor lighting that's caught in the background pic. Sigh. My camera was going nuts trying to get a decent exposure with all the hotlights bouncing off the car. I had to take over, and dial it in with some test shots. And I had to do some pretty interesting gymnastics to try and get people out of the shot. Car shows aren't ideal for the amateur photographer...







I still won't ever buy a Ford -- luckily my wife's with me on this one. But finally they're making stuff that's wildly daring and interesting. And if someone gave me either of these, then -- hey -- I wouldn't complain. Unless they have loosey-goosey steering and polyester upholstery...

The Vancouver Car Show

A buddy and I recently went to the Vancouver Car Show. Actually it wasn't so recently -- I've been procrastinating on some procrastinating I need to get done... Anyway, the car show.

I feel a bit weird visiting a car show seeing vehicles that cost many times my annual salary, and even thinking how ridiculously out of my league any new car is, let alone any car I'd actually like. And then there's the whole thing about cars aren't so great for the environment, and they're made by, y'know, corporations and stuff. However, I love cars, always have, and there is something worth celebrating in the industry as it creates unique and impressive automobiles (sometimes) and brings them to reality (sometimes). So I took my camera along, and now I 'own' all kinds of vehicles!

There were two cars that I really wanted to see. The new Camaro. And the new Challenger. They were both there. The myriad of other cars recently announced at international car shows like Geneva were not in appearance (why isn't Vancouver as vehicularly cool as Geneva? It's a mystery...). I tried not to feel too bummed, reminding myself that the two cars that I really wanted to see were both there...sigh. Okay.

The Camaro





The Challenger

They are both great-looking cars, but I love the Challenger. First and foremost it is a Mopar (ie belongs to the Chrysler family, which is true of all the cars I've owned so far), and it's such a perfectly updated throwback. It's thoroughly retro and thoroughly modern both at the same time. Interesting details on the Chally, the side signal lights were stickers (not quite ready for prime time, obviously), and check out those wheels! Not only are they huge, but they also have cutouts that run sideways through each spoke -- tres cool!







With insane gas prices getting insaner, I wonder if we're not only going to be reliving the muscle cars of the 70s, but the gas crisis that killed them too... Just a case of history repeating...? (If that's true, buy one with the biggest Hemi, and tuck it away in a garage for 30 years. You'll be able to sell it for the price of an entire condo complex! Let's see in 2037 I'll be...oh, never mind!)

How 'Netro'

I've been having a realisation that I quite enjoy. Every historical medium is now being available on the web. Writing, audio, video, recorded and stored indefinitely, or performed live and gone. It's all there. The written word is important again. The spoken word is important again. Images, motion picture, every medium we've ever known -- it's all there.

Despite the fact that it's flawed, co-opted, diluted and polluted, the internet is living up to all the dreams that everyone has had for it. It's re-becoming an encyclopedia and a self-regulating democratic conversation forum and turning away from being just the corporate catalogue that it seemed doomed to become.

The internet doesn't bring us much new in and of itself, but it summarises everything that has gone before it, and that has immense value. Hopefully we'll be able to make some semblance of sense of things before we are propelled on to what's next.

"It's a Free Country, Last I Checked"

I can't help feeling we're at a huge crux for democracy. It's not the soldiers in the Middle East “defending our freedom”, or industries that are seducing and enslaving populations in need and debt. No it's more fundamental: do people even have a clue what freedom means anymore? We have an increasing number of blowhards that make comments that get picked up and broadcast over a huge audience, and then get lambasted by the very media world that they are a part of. It's oddly hypocritical – stories are only publicised because they're sensational, and the sensationalism is carried by everyone telling the story, who is each then complicit in the original offence. And top to bottom, front to back, everyone is using the same descriptor: free speech.

Howard Stern has played this game perhaps most publicly and most successfully. Recently, many others haven't been so lucky. The stories gain this ungainly momentum, and take on a life of their own, and the offence that is so scandalising becomes blown entirely out of proportion. Suddenly in this internet era when words in many cases are all we have to lean on, and private and public spheres are blurred, those words have a hell of a lot of importance. That's part of it, but wait there's more.

There is an understated but direct culture clash that we've been living with for decades. It's been in the wings, the oft-quoted “live and let live tolerance” thing. Segregated subcultures have been allowed their own ways and biases, in fact those have even been encouraged. And now suddenly the broader culture is saying that's not enough. There is a recognition that we should be living in unity with respect and forgiveness (dare I say, love?) for each other, and that's the fulcrum on which this whole thing pivots. Is the world really ready to buy fully into what that means, and make room for it? That's a whole lot of opt in, and the ramifications are extreme and I believe, in this reactionary period, not well thought out.

Of course, this could be just a bunch of whiners complaining that they don't have enough freedom, because other people's freedoms are impinging on their own. (When everyone is free, no-one is?) I'm interested to see what becomes of it, and what changes are effected. (If any.) Either this goes away (again) with some sincere-sounding apologies and crocodile tears, or we make some unwieldy rules 'n' regulations, or it becomes internalised change at the gut level. As for you and your house, that's your call.

Have you ever heard “if we offend you, don't watch”? That's the sort of defence that's been around for decades – the "if you're offended, it's your fault" mentality. It's been twisted to defend everything from edgy comedy to pornography. If we're serious about this unity gig, and don't want to be hypocrites, that mentality dies here. There's no room for it in community. Or if we believe in free speech like we claim to, then we take a few knocks every once in a while by people who can get away with abusing trust. Sometimes you need to hear a lot of crap before you hear one true thing. And of course, this is all juxtaposed with the real need that people have to be offended, whether they know it or not. So now what?

Well, all I know is this: I can ask prophetic questions, but I'm no prophet.

Oh, Now I Get It

"If it bleeds, it leads." Why is the mediated news always bad? Because people don't know how to care if it isn't. Good news and celebrations don't carry nearly as far as tragedy -- especially if the tragedy keeps compounding and growing. People meet each other better in times of pain, sorrow and suffering. It's where people become most clearly who they really are. It is humanly natural to learn and to feel in defeat. What can you learn from something good? Less. That's just truth. (edited addition: In fact, it is now such a cliched truth that we have become almost entirely desensitized. We are so over-exposed to pain that feeling anything is actually hard work.)

I've (re)discovered this recently in quite a number of situations that are close to me. Now I'm trying to figure out how to deal with the realisation. Do I exploit it, and play that tune more? Or do I play its relative major? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I'm just beginning to understand that I need to tell more stories, happy and heart-wrenching.

I think this will find its way into my psyche. And I plan to honour the abundance of the life I've been given.