Backup’s are our friends.
I’ve been quite unlucky with technology lately.
Keep your shit backed up. I’m alright – haven’t lost anything, but then again I’ve also spent about a thousand dollars this month alone (actually a bit more) on storage.

oh, and if anyone was planning on buying ElephantStorage External housings,

DON’T!

I’m not sure how, but not only have I had two fail in a year, now they’ve also managed to corrupt and majorly fuck up my boot tables for other drives upon crashing. Disk Utility, even Disk Warrior couldn’t repair them. Second time in a week, this also happened to my boot drive, requiring a new OS format. (ugh)

Ya, Sweet. Do you know how much it sucks to move / restore / replace over 2.5TB ?
I do.

I don’t shoot weddings that often.
However, I did for a friend last week, and before I go though all the images of the day
(waiting on a card I left behind to come in the mail #PHOTOGRAPHER FAIL)
I do want to post this one image.

This is Wes, the party DJ.
Rad suit, rad guy, rad photo.

So, my sites been (and still is) a bit wack lately.
I’ve been hit with a random malicious script this summer a few times, probably coming from other accounts on my same web host.

Anyway, My amazing friend Josue has been taking care of security and clean up on the back end; lots of work.
Things should be back up and moving along again soon, however in the mean time, if you see something funny now you know why!

Best
James

1. Québec
This summer, my brother, father and I traveled to Eastern Canada.
A long overdue time for family. I thought about shooting some things, professionalish things, things to submit to fancy photo competitions, to brand in the “fine art” category. Though, somewhere between the mosquitoes and Nova Scotia, that idea quickly feel away as silly and trite. I was having too much of a great time with my family, in a 78′ Chevy van, across our country and didn’t have the time or care to do much else. I did still take a large amount of photos and video, they’re mostly of the vacation, family vernacular type. However, even so, there are a good number of which I quite like…
So to break them up, here’s part 1.

I’ve always liked this image.
I was editing though some photos I took a couple years ago and came across this image again.
It’s simple, lights and darks, indirect — Would most would throw this away? Would they think it a misfired capture, an attempt that didn’t work? “You cant see her face, whats going on in this image?”

I like that question, I like this image.
I clearly remember shooting it too, quickly seeing it, a fast guess at exposure, one step and it’s gone.
I think it’s beautiful, elusive… I want to follow her, to step into the dark, study the knots in her hair and count the subtle freckles on
her shoulders.

Real quick.
The other day a friend of mine told me how there is an image of mine that had as his desktop image for a longtime.
Which, I thought was nice.

So while I was going though images from my trip out east (more to come soon) I thought this one would make a nice desktop image.
So, here you go anyone who wants it.

LINK to 2560×1600 res. 1.5MB

Om nom nom nom
Food isn’t something I tend to shoot a lot of, though I was quite pleased with how this stuff came out.
This was fun to style (and at times challenging.) It’s always great to work with a talented client, and always great to work along side Chocolate.

Anywayyyyy.
Donna Hay, look out.

/photos/

This is from a hike I was on with my family two years ago.
My father really likes the outdoors. We’ll be traveling across the east cost of Canada over the next few weeks.
Hope to see a lot more of this.

On the beach.
Coney Island / Brighton Beach, Brooklyn NY USA

Sometimes Photoshop can make some really beautiful, neatly “designed” things.

(PS You cant really see in the photo, but each of those printed versions of the design are all slightly different, and there was a lot more than whats in this image. This is the kind of work that will drive you crazy. Designers, how do you do it?)

Helvetica Black, Kerning, Branding
My last name is my logo/brand/identity. It’s been an evolution over the years to this point for sure, and I’m at last happy with what I have. I’ve been using my last name set in Helvetica Black for a little while now, However, I’ve often picked at it, not being perfectly happy. The C has always bothered me, it’s shape I’ve always found awkward to kern tightly next to the H. I found the time today at last to tackle the problem. It’s so slight, and difficult to adjust, fine tuning this way and that, viewing large, small, on screen, in print, on my iPad. After many hours (yes, hours) of fine tuning this way and that, I’m pretty happy with the outcome, it’s tighter, and has better visual balance now, at least in my opinion, (so says the photographer wearing the design hat.) Most people would think I’m crazy, and that it doesn’t matter if a wordmark has a letter kerned .5 pt this way or that, but to me it’s all the difference.

I have an iPad which was lovingly sent from New York, it was sort of the catalyst to this whole typographic afternoon. I’ve started the first stage of setting it up as a portfolio and needed an updated logo to use. I Can’t wait for a jailbreak to be available for the iPad to further customize it’s presentation.

I’m shooting Fashion Week, ah, this week.
Busy, busy, busy, contracted by blogTO.com
Follow what’s going on.

This fun little thing called ignite happens in Toronto at the Drake every few months.
My friends put it on, it’s part big network of interesting things and techy ideas. It’s perhaps the only place you will hear the terms “social” and “media” in just about every sentence spoken. This time though, was the best thus far, there was even talk of, well, talking to a glacier.

Video’s of the lectures are here (thanks to Mr. Varga)

Oh, and yes, black and white.
yep.

I’m the first to admit that I don’t always update things as fast as I should. This one took a year and a half.
I shot celeb gossip celeb Perez Hilton for the night club CiRCA when he had a party there in September of 2008, (remember CiRCA? isn’t that place out of business yet?) Anyway, I was never sure how I felt about the portrait, if I wanted to show it or not. Well after being reminded of him, I’ve decided that it is good and that I like it.

So, now in my portfolio.

That’s it!

Sometimes I meet someone randomly or more often, just see them someplace, and all I think about is how amazing they look.
Interesting people, with lots of character and strong expressive traits are outstanding, and make me think, wow, “I’d love to shoot you.”

Yosefa is one of those people, She was happy to help me out with some lighting tests I was doing, I was happy to get some amazing photos of her. She brought her sister alone too, I’ll have to get those pictures up too soon…

I shot the Interior Design Show last weekend for the show it’self. Working with my good fellow photographer friend Arash Moallemi.
I was able to float around. It was a neat mix of party event style shooting, where I pick out some interesting faces for portraits and that sneaky photojournalism style of capturing decisive moments. (this Fashion photographer needs to rock that Eddie Adams Workshop some how!)

A bunch of fun, and some really interesting images.
It’s jobs like this that you’re reminded just how much fun it is to shoot.

What’s up with art schools, flikr lovers and film?
—Film’s great, but please, its not about the medium. I made this little poster based on my thoughts and a little chat with my friend
Ken Chou. As a shooter of both film and digi, Ken makes the call to use either based on what he’s looking to do, not because it will be more stylish and hip one way or another. (although I must say, Ken is still a stylish and hip guy! haha)

Me personally, I tend to geek on the lighting, and treatment side of things. The way it was captured isn’t as important to me.

Use whatever camera you want, they all have different purposes. Ideas though! that’s the real magic, not the medium.

and on that note…
I think I’ll break out my Holga soon!
haha

Mad love to my film shooting friends out there.
—Well, the ones who know what’s being made isn’t all about the medium (or because of it…)

“Becoming” —New Series Started…

This is the first image, (rough) from a new series I’m working on titled “Becoming”
It’s a portrait series featuring a mixture of strobe and continuous light to produce a superimposed blur of the individuals face overtop of the portrait.
I like the idea of progression, growth, advancement; becoming.



My 4th year photo thesis (Horizons) was a series of people photographed from behind, walking toward Horizon’s though bucolic landscapes. I made that work to deal with questions of progression; the journey. How we are always chasing our future, our horizons. Our horizon is something we never reach, as it constantly advances, bringing with it new moments, a new present every time we step.

This new series is based around those themes, and grows from there. I’m looking to build this work around the awareness of becoming. A more internal, personal understanding of how you advance yourself. Horizons to me, was about the act of progression itself, Becoming is about the awareness and understanding of that act.

cant wait to shoot the next one tomorrow.

CUTEEEEEEEEEEEE!! My friends have this sweet little boy. He’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!
He will be a star.

There are a whole bunch of great off photos, but I’m not putting them up right now, maybe soon!

Beach Boy.In the middle of shooting some beautiful girls in swim-ware, my glance turned to the side and I saw this.
Quickly throwing my camera to my left, I took a single frame.
It’s probably my favorite picture from the day.

These moments of poetic beauty; amazing.
The image is slightly soft, shot from too far (this even is a crop), and entirely unplanned.
It’s pretty perfect.

An image a day at the least? I doubt I’ll be that dedicated. I tell myself often to post more.
So, here is one for today, a quick test crop for my new 11×14 book.

Photography in the days of square Hasselblad’s was easier.
Hell, there still are a few square fans. Aspect ratio can be dealt with in two ways. The first being you just don’t give a fuck and do whatever you want, change sizes and not think twice about it. The second is much more me, in that you think and consider the matter of size, aspect, bleed and white space to a degree that is just crazy.

My physical portfolios have gone from 13×19 to 11×17 to now 11×14 (all portrait aspect). Here is the thing. 13×19 is the best aspect ratio, that is, the best relation of height and width, I find anyway. However, the book was too big and I coudln’t take individual sleeves out for easy ordering. 11×17 is weird for my work. Great for others I’m sure. 11×14 I feel is too small, but small has it’s advantages. I’m trying to put together the work for this book and see how it lays out. I figure since most go with 11×14 portrait there may be something to it. But does it work with me… Oh the things I worry about…

This blog needs a bit more me. I was having a conversation once with one of the cities biggest ad shooters. He was saying how he never goes out and takes pictures because he feels he’s “above that.” Fair enough I guess, although I’d sure like to think that my income, jobs or age wont ever effect my desire to just take pictures for fun. But hey, maybe I’m not entirely jaded yet. Is that just what happens when you start making huge ad money in the business? Maybe it will happen to me? Well! —in the meantime I’m going to try and post more personal stuff to my “professional” blog, maybe while I still can… DUN! DUN! DUNNNNNNNH!!!

These are some photos from the summer, my friend Lindsay and I checked out Casa loma, not so much because it’s all that exciting (it isn’t) but more so because it’s always good to do things, go places, why not? And besides, I’d never been.

Kingdoms is a hardcore band, signed recently to Underground Operations, a division of Universal Music.
Rad Bunch of guys. The shoot was short but went well, after we waited out the rain for an hour and a half. We caught the end of golden hour and it was damn good. As for the post, that Stars Image was a bit of an exploration into an idea. I was working on the shot and they were just lit so dramatically from above, this real glowy light, I kinda had to do it! —Gods of the universe or something, I coudln’t resist and kinda like it actually, I’ve been thinking about doing some fashion like that. Thought I’d try it on the boys first though.
Kingdoms Come.

So, I just was thinking that I don’t think I’ve put a post up about my admission into the Eddie Adams Workshop
It’s coming up fast! Just one week away. Strange how things come all at once — I fly the very next morning after my Flash Forward show to Newark, NJ, pick up a car, and then drive an hour or so to what I assume to be the middle of nowhere in New York State. In this middle of nowhere will be an outstanding experience, both personally and professionally. Top American news and editorial editors will be there, alongside professional photographers working at the top levels of the industry, plus about 99 other young photo cats like myself from all over the world. Oh!, one of those 99 is my friend Mark Blinch. Mark and I went to University together, nicest guy, amazing photographer. He took the time to teach me how to process black and white 35mm when I was in first year, best guy!

oh, and then I plan to hang in Manhattan for a few days. Meet some editors, meet some friends, see some art, take some pictures, live some life.

It’s all very exciting…

I do a bunch of work for The Drake Hotel It’s really nice having a client that trusts me, is super hip, attracts great people and has a wonderful staff to work with. Anyway, so aside from “event” stuff, I’ve also done some promotional and interior work for them. Just thought I’d post an example of this one image I’ve been working on for a long time. The dining area of the Drake is the most difficult place I’ve ever shot. So many different light sources, colours and intensities. And as if that wasn’t enough, It’s also a dining room and people are often kinda weird about having their photographs taken while eating. Anyway, after a lot of work, I think I have a very successful image. Maybe I’ll post some more of them. But probably not anytime soon. I’m so busy preparing for The Eddie Adams Workshop in New York, priorities ya know? Which is too bad because I don’t put up nearly enough stuff on this blog. I deal with photos everyday, I have to get better at sharing them. Something to work on…

I have work in this year’s Flash Forward The opening is on Thursday October 8th, 2009 at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery. (12 Ossington Ave, Toronto — Ossington + Queen W) I’m very happy to be a part of this show and publication, It’s quite a notable thing to be a part of. Flash Forward is an annual event in the fine art/documentary photo community put on by the Magenta Foundation that highlights top emerging photographers under 35 from the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.

I just picked up my finished prints today, bloody expensive, face-mounting doesn’t come cheep. I have one diptych (two images) in the show, from my current series in progress, Beacons. Even if you hate my work, come for the others. There are some really talented cats in the show this year. It’s going to be good!

I think you should come.

Oh, and don’t be offended if I don’t go out after for drinks, I have a 6:45am flight to New York the next day, with the Eddie Adam’s Workshop happening, that afternoon!, Oh boy, things are busyyyyyyyyyy.

Lawyer Fashion I shot a story for the September issue of Precedent Magazine an impressive and well designed editorial quarterly focused on law in Ontario. We scoured the financial district for some stand out legal characters.

Respect to writer Benjamin Leszcz, Publisher and Editor of Precedent Melissa Kluger, Vanessa Heins for the link and my assistant Chris Dale for the help.

My friends do amazing things. Tonight was Ignite. My main broher Peter Horvath , with his ties to O’riley media, put together a small one night lecture series called Ignite. Ignite has a history in many places, but this marks the first time it’s came to Toronto. These short talks of 5 mins and 20 slides drew speakers from across Toronto’s geekosphere. The “ignites” ranged from a variety of subjects across social media, from local food markets, to documenting graffiti online, interactive robotics, media on demand and more. Hosted at the Drake’s underground (why is this of no surprise.. haha) it was a night of interesting speakers and cupcake decorating. The cupcaking came first, if you are ever wondering how to keep a room full of adults busy for an hour or more, just give them cup cakes to decorate. I guess babysitting strategy for a 5 year old applies to us all.

A good night. Here are some selects. (The full set is here.)

(Full set of the night here.)

I’ve been spending a lot of time around The Drake Hotel these days.Fine by me, nice place and anything to get me out of my apartment is a good thing. I’ve been shooting a bunch of stuff for the Drake and as it happened, my buddies André and Jon were having their regular dancey/DJ party More Proof night in The UNDERGROUND. Needless to say I stuck around for the fun and did a little half work, half party. View all pictures here.

View all pictures here.

Sometimes the best emails come at 2:55am

I’m pretty happy about this news which has come to me at this early (or late) hour. It had in it a link that has my name (all together perhaps erroneously included) with the winners for The Magneta Foundation’s annual International “Emerging Photographers” contest. Fast Forward is a neat, artsy photo thing and I’m very happy. Best part is some of the names along side my own are friends and artists I have a great deal of respect for.

My last post was a complicated, retouched image.
This is not.

I took this photo of Ryan on a Nikon D3 he borrowed, we were trying to make double exposed RAWs, which it seems, Nikons can do (even if it is buried in a submenu. Hey Canon, why the eff can’t we do that!? -anyway. I like this photo. I like that I put no effort into making it. I like that it is good. I like that there were a lot of bad ones that you wont ever see and that I get to show you this single image and it makes me look good. Furthermore and unrelated to this image, I like Ryan. Every artist, needs a fellow artist to chat and bounce shit off of, especially if that fellow artist is a hustler that would put to shame any bootlegger, used car salesman or mafia. So in an effort to post more things to my blog: from NEF RAW, to Lightroom, to jpeg, to FTP, to WordPress, to you… here is something.

I’ve been doing a lot of shooting latelyand although blogging should go along with that, well I guess I’ve just been lazy – and I don’t like lazy so let’s change that. This is an image of a beautiful girl with a beautiful first name/middle name of Julia Scarlett. That sounds so nice doesn’t it? The lovely and talented Amy Harper took care of the hair styling and and makeup, she’s wonderful. I’ve very happy with this creative, and even more happy with the treatment applied to it. I will work what I shot into a short series of images. I like that approach. It’s something I’ve thought about doing lately, working more in the “fine art” series mode from school, rather than just working on a single image to present. So, watch for whats to come.

Here are some close up details. Along with the colour, that texture and grain took a long time to develop however I love the result! Actually, perhaps more fun than the details is this grid arrangement.

Day ONE of Toronto Fashion Week coverage. I’ll be shooting the whole week, commissioned by blogTO. I’ll try and blog about as much of it myself as I can, but anyone interested should also check out blogTO for content as I’ll be very busy and not sure what kind of blog time I’ll have. I only have time to post one image right now. This is the designer Philip Sparks, really nice guy with a great design sense for menswear fashion. I liked his stuff.

Ok, now off to the DRAKE, shooting party stuff tonight! COME.

♥ jk

I did some portraits for Doug Agency, a sweet ad agency based in Toronto. They’re revamping their website and needed some slick new shots of the top crew at the agency. (By the way, if you catch the link to their site BEFORE they update it, you’re in luck, the temp site they have up is pretttttty funny -props to Jill at Doug.) Anyway, the photos were a bunch of fun, I hope to work with them again soon. These are the final selects, a couple of them I would have opted differently for, but they all fit together real nicely so I’m quite happy with them.

My relationship with sleep is erratic; capricious perhaps.
I had fallen asleep around 10:30pm or so, only to wake around 3am, with the feeling of utmost calm that quiet times, and night skies brings. I awoke to a dream, or a thought, something with overtones of sad and distance, like the longing for a loved one long since passed away. Though everything was fine, a kind of quiet that most mistake for true wistful sadness, but is really just peaceful. I did some dishes, picked up a few things., I love how clean my apartment is. I keep my possessions at a minimum, it’s so much better that way it’s not even funny. I wasn’t always like that, but things change, people change. I always want to change. I feel good about who I am, had a good day today, did headshots for a sweet ad agency downtown, great people. I guess it’s morning, and a new day, so thats fine, cause I’ll have a good day today too. Made myself some food, you’d think I’d get sick of zucchini, I eat it everyday, but damn I love the stuff. Some fried zuch, and a veggie dog, perfect breakfast food at the 5-or-whatever-AM I had it at. Looking at my fridge and seeing it filled with healthy, natural things – vegetables and fruits, tofu, free run eggs, skim milk, water and orange juice, makes me feel so good. I decided to become a full out vegetarian a couple days ago, finally giving up fish, (for environmental reasons mostly) and it feels really good. Eating, cleaning, emailing, thinking, facebooking, photoshop-and-lightrooming, what a wonderful morning. A nice little twitter conversation going on and an Elliott soundtrack completes the perfectness of it all. Things are good.

I hope you’re good too.

I love the look of messed up film. It’s awesome. Shooting film though, isn’t especially awesome. I like doing it, don’t get me wrong, but it gets expensive and impractical for most things. So… I present the following:



I think it looks pretty good, I could have done more of course, crop to a square, blur the image more, flatten the blacks, but i didn’t want it to look “TOO MUCH” like film. Digital’s nice, you have full control – which is dangerous sometimes because you can get carried away… (haha. see my previous post!)

I’ve been working non stop on my portfolio, redoing everything. Lots to redo, resort, reedit and lots more that I haven’t even started. Working on this gets a bit tiring after a while, and I just want to play. I like playing… it always weirds me out that my “professional” work is so straight, while the stuff I like and find really natural often is pretty fucked. Anyway, I got to playing today, this is what I came up with.

PS, This is a photo of my friend Lauren, shes wicked.

You see, I was just going about my self appointed task of replacing a blown ugly white seamless with a nice gray one, Oh? you don’t follow, here let me show you.


I took another capture where the light was different and took the background around her from it and placed it into my current picture, then fixed the gaps. Next was the job of masking out Lauren, no big deal. I’m quite good at it now, Thanks for spending my summer close cropping sears products, yikes!

Anyway there you have it! of course, at that point I had to start playing with my wacom tablet and brush settings and.. well one thing led to another…

Here is a detail of my layers and what not:


I’m excited! another blog post. I’m getting better at this. (Sorry January)

I photographed the Drake Hotel’s 5th anniversary party Thursday night. What an amazing place it is (they even use DIN as their typeface in all signage!). Nice little private party for Toronto’s hip movers and shakers. Lotta’ food and open bar, lotta’ attractive people. There is a direct correlation between wealth, success, fashion and art, it’s all so sexy. There was a lot of great stuff at the party for sure. The food was sumptuous, everything was resplendent; art and performance. A good night. Here are some of my favorites. The full set of the night is here.

Full set of the night here.

I worked a film set a few weeks ago with Arash, he was directing a commercial. fun times in the non still image world. He asked me to shoot some stuff while on set., document the event, and crew. Here are some of my favorites.

The lovely Lauren Pirie asked me to come by and shoot her little art party at the C1RCA showroom. Rad people showed up.
Fun times. Here are a few of my favorites, the entire set is here.

more here.

This summer I had the nightmare of being homeless, a good apartment is so hard to find.
Johnnie and Bob are such wonderful people, and like good wonderful people, they took me in for a few weeks.

choas.
went for a walk today, found this… pretty.

Big sale at Headshots today. Good reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Seems a New York rental house went under and Henrys bought up their stash.
I picked up a small chimera softbox and profoto speedring.
New stuff is always a good excuse to take a few pictures.
I’ve been wanting to photograph things lately,
though a strained heart puts a downer on creativity,
… I’ll have to get that creative thing going again I guess.

I went to the sale with my good friend and fellow photographer Arash.
After, we had greasy eggs and buttery toast at Mars on college.
Being around friends helps a lot,
everyone has advice, they’re probably right.

Anyway, here are some images, part testing of new gear, part “I need to make things or I’m going to die”; small softboxes are nice, my model on hand though could have used some work.

Bathroom.

I was asked a question.

Q.
Photographers tend to be based in media-heavy cities. While staff
positions do exist, particularly in the publishing industry, slightly
more than half all photographers were self-employed in 2002. What is
really involved in making a career in photography?

A.
Photography as a career is 99% about everything, and 1% about taking a picture.
Anyone who desires only to take a picture, will never be a professional. Photography, like most things in life, is a journey, and it’s one that anyone walking must know can move in many different ways; at anytime. It’s about keeping an open mind, rather than an open eye, about learning how to talk with a person, not just capturing some lucky moment. Photography has evolved beyond the point of a technical medium into something higher. It is a language, a communication, that speaks to film, and design, to documentation, social constructs, expression, art and more. it is shared by all, but mastered and understood by few. Today, photography is not a profession as much as a layer of understanding to apply to one’s endeavors.

I’ve been shut-in all weekend, and maybe it’s just that I’m tired of cleaning my apartment or staring at white walls, but I really wanted to be around people today, to be someplace, to be doing something.
The AGO opened this weekend from its long redesign. Amy’s busy, so, a solo trip.

It was a 2 hour line up, beside the ugliest building in the world just to get in, but the gallery was exceptional.

Furthermore, they were giving out Free AGO dark chocolate!

I lay awake in bed, and stare at my window, patterned with shadows and silhouettes, colour from the street and condensation. I look at it, it’s beautiful. I wish she was here to share this with me.
3am is so still, so perfect.

There is much to do, today I thought about important things.
Today I want to make things.

I want color and motion….. a good ambition to have.

Last night was the annual Family Thanksgiving.
Another proud meatless dinner for myself, I am also proud to say I learned to tell the difference between squash, turnip, and sweet potato for the first time.

For those interested, it goes as follows:

Turnip – soft greenish yellow, smooshy texture, tolerable; however not awesome taste
Sweet Potato – acid impossible orange, smooshy texture, wicked taste
Squash – pale yellow, smooshy texture, decent taste

Afterward, I scored 197 in 5 person Family Scrabble; lucky letters. My aunt and uncle played a video from my and my brothers childhood. wow, were we ever that innocent.. Toys and Christmas, sand hills and jumping, another world. I should spend more time with my family.

I left my camera at home this thanksgiving, so ill upload a shot from Thanksgiving 2007.

Andy is awesome.