My Parents At Seder Dinner

Much of my photos are of my family. That's natural, so it is with family that i get to try out different ways of shooting people. My kids, my wife (not cooperative), and my parents, when I see them these days. I saw this perspective during the seder - my mother in the forground looking intently at something or someone, my dad reading, as he likes to do, and following the event and the prayers. The calm and the watchful. With a bit of matzoh and masks.

Night of Dread - 2009

The blurred image is significant. Sometimes it is the opposite of what convention calls for. Sometimes convention is anti-everything perfect, and blur is cool. But blurring is also a way of conveying how I see some things. The movement, the action, the light - al displaced, as if we are witnessing the event unfold in our eyes.

This was October 2009 at the Dufferin Grove Night of Dread Parade. The Clay and Paper Theatre Company creates the puppets, stilt walking costumes and giant heads that mingle with the crowds. I imagined what this might look like to my children, especially when they were a bit younger. It is a special, thrilling and mysterious feeling that rushes through them and creates memories. So - sometimes I like to to try and re-imagine what those feeling must look and feel like visually.

It's Not Hallowe'en

Originally uploaded by SmashArts

Not it's not, but I love taking pictures of kids having fun. Their fun is for no one else but themselves, a healthy selfish thing. On the Saturday before Hallowe'en, the people known collectively as the Friends of Dufferin Grove Park organize the Night Of Dread
parade that winds itself up Dufferin, past Sufferin' Mall, along Bloor and down to College - back up to Dufferin Grove Park. I find it a great opportunity to see kids able to dress up as they wish and get out and walk in the middle of 15 foot puppets, crazy music and samba bands, and generally grownups acting bizarre too. The kids go nuts and laugh and sometimes get a bit scared, which is partly the purpose.

Start With A Picture

When I don't know where to start a thing, i start with an image, a picture. Not necessarily one where a picture is worth a thousand words, or a million, but one that brings up even just the important words that twirl around the surface of our brains at any moment.

So I start with this picture of my daughters Anne and Lara. It brings many words and scenes to mind, and and many thoughts about my place and their place in the world. I will present other pictures soon that I hope spark words, feelings and thoughts in the viewer.