On May 15th I went to the Henry’s Photographic, Video and Imaging Show in Missisauga, Ontario with photographer friend Sarah Lisk. I gotta say I’ve not yet seen such an elaborate agglomeration of photographic utensils in one enclosed space before. My eyes got big and my hand rushed to my pocked to make sure my wallet was there for sure…

We had a lot of fun, stocked up on cheap memory cards and even met up with another friend of mine from Toronto, Roxy.

Happy Birthday to me! I turned 26 today. I feel old. Last year around this time things were very different. But this entry will not be about that. I have some good news! First of all I moved my blog to new hosting and as you may have noticed I have been doing some cleaning up around here. Soon you can expect to see the newest addition, namely a full fledged Stefan-style web site along with the blog. But that may take a while considering my failing attempts at wrestling with CSS/HTML code so far.

_{Gotta LOVE the ‘500 Days of Summer movie Soundtrack’}

For once in a long time I have been faced with what I call one of the greatest enemies of any photographer (or artist for that matter), the temptation to think yearningly about new hardware/work tools/toys. The predator that I had fallen victim to is the legendary ‘Full Frame’ of the world of Digital Photography: the unbeatable Hercules, the camera that could enable you to be the kind of photographer that in your heart you’ve always known you could be, but …due to not owning it, you never have been. You know what I’m talking about. You Canon users have your 5D’s, 5D MkII’s and not to mention the 1Ds MkIII! Others, Nikon users like me, have the D700 and the D3 as well as the D3x to dream about. The light sensor (which in digital photography replaces the film slide) the size of an actual 35mm film slide (yes, all you other photographers have smaller light sensors in your dSLRs …sorry to burst your bubble), which enables one to have sharper local contrast, more accurate colours and colour transitions, not to mention wider angles.

I have been, for a very long time, and still am, very much of a supporter of the school of thought that says that the camera does not make the photographer. And I find it easy to advocate this point of view most of the time too… I guess what I’m trying to say is …having such moments as these is quite the sobering experience. …Although I really could handle low light concert shooting at high ISOs way better with one …hmmm.

In other, this time non-technical news, a few days ago I met up with an old friend of mine. I met him when I was in high school, probably around grade 10. Back then his name was Daryl, he had short hair, loved hockey, lived at home and was always up for a bike ride. Now his name is Glitch. He decided to follow one of his passions, namely his love for piercings, and therefore moved out of the province for a while. Now he is back in town, along with his wife and his little son. Appearances can be deceiving. No, in fact I will rephrase that sentence. Appearances are deceiving.

I learned that this way. I went to visit him the other day. I hadn’t seen him in a long long time and although I didn’t realize it, I was expecting to see Daryl from a few years ago. Instead, when I went up to his door, the man that shook my hand was a person who looked entirely different from what I would remember Daryl to be like and his name was Glitch. His voice was the same, the jokes he’d make were just as funny as before and his laugh was just as unmistakably filled joy as years ago. Definitely an AH-HUH! moment for me.

_{Daryl – at Kiwanis Park, Waterloo, Ontario – July 5th 2005. It was a hot hot hot summer day. We biked there from… well probably from all the way where I lived back then, in Kings Tower, across the street of K.W.C.&V.S. (K.C.I.) on King Street. We were tired, but that was the kind of thing that memories are made of.}

Today the Kitchener Market had an Earth Day event going on where people were invited to exhibit arts and crafts made of natural materials. I went down to support my friend Sylvia who brought out some of her knitted clothing items. You can see some samples here and you may contact her on facebook and tell her how good she is yourself as well.