This is the beginning of a mini series of portraits I shot on sadness. As I do remember it all started from some inspiring images of Erwin Olaf’s, an absolute amazing photographer that has created some really breathtaking work. The idea of this small series was to witness the subjects emotions close up wile at the same time stepping back and seeing their environments of solitude.

In the end it was brought to my attention that both the close ups and the environment shots could stand alone from one another and each become their own little series. But when it comes to my ideas, once I come up with something I have a hard time changing it. So I chose to keep them together as I originally intended to show the work.

A good friend of mine came to me wanting some portraits. Here is one of my favorites from the evening. Its easily one of my favorite portraits I have ever taken.

Ottawa will always be a special place for me. Between the countless trips over the years there with family and friends to spending a good amount of time visiting  a very special friend last summer, my girlfriend.

During this time last summer we spent our days visiting all the must see places in Ottawa and yes Lucky Ron was one of them. For those who don’t know about Lucky Ron he is amazing musician covering songs from Stompin’ Tom to Jonny Cash. His act at The Laff every Saturday will entertain you from 4 pm to late into the night but you better get there early, around 2:30 pm to be exact if you want a seat! I can honestly say it will be one of the best Saturday nights you will ever have.

We also spent a good amount of time just walking around, the days were just too nice to say inside (not having A/C in my girlfriends apartment might have been another reason).  Another great place we spent a day at was the National Gallery of Canada. This impressive building on the outside was just as impressive inside, as it seemed to never end. Days could be spent walking through all the exhibits to soak up all the information. At the time they had a POP art exhibit on show casing a large section on Andy Warhol which was pretty neat. Although I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Warhol’s work it was nice to see it all in person.

Of course while I was in Ottawa I had a camera on me, when do I not. I actually had a few cameras, my work horse D700, a borrowed Leica M8, and my little film rangefinder the Paxette. The D700 didn’t see much action, I mostly used the Paxette and at times the M8. All the photos I posted here are from the Paxette, it was actually the first time I had ever used it. I really had no idea how the photos were going to turn out or if they would turn out at all. Going from a highly sophisticated DSLR with more than your share of meters, sensors, displays, and levels to a camera from the early 50’s that has a fraction of the moving parts, no light meter and a focus system relying on a couple mirrors, a pin hole view finder that’s incredibly hard to see through that only measures the distance to the object.. After all that you still need to focus the lens. All and all it was a huge wake up call that I needed to pay attention to all these variables my D700 has done for me in the past.

Once the film was developed I could see it was all worth it. My amazing memories of last years summer will be preserved by some really great photos.

-National Gallery of Canada-

-Canadian Parliament Building-

I remember this day as being bitter cold and just hating every moment being out side but it all paid off with this shot of my good friend Wade Hunt.

With my iPhone 3G not being used anymore I decided to make some modifications to well, absolutely everything that I could. After a few days with my already jail broken iPhone I ended up with something that looked like it could have been from Star Trek.

A couple close friends and I decided to take a long weekend and head up to one of their cottages. We spent the time photographing some personal work and relaxing and by relaxing I mean getting the bee bee guns out and mangling some cans we had for targets. All and all it was a great couple days, we captured some great photos and some really sweet time lapses. I’ll post those as soon as they are done being edited.

Last September I took a trip to Italy with a small 1950′s rangefinder and a D700. In this digital age of photography I find we are spoiled with all the automatic features. With my little rangefinder I took much more time composing and figuring out my exposure, not having a light meter built in to it didn’t help.  Because of that 30 – 40 extra seconds it took, 80% of the pictures turned out and I would gladly hang them on any wall. Here are some images from my 8 rolls of film.