Last night I attended the launch of Vancouver photographer Gabor Gasztonyi’s wonderful new book, A Room in the City, representing a five year project of photographing the residents of the Cobalt, Balmoral, Regent and Sunrise Hotels in the Downtown Eastside. I’ve seen many, many projects come out of that part of the city but few as strong as this collection of wonderful, heartbreaking images (Lincoln Clarkes Heroines, published in 2001, must also be mentioned).

The launch was also accompanied by a gallery exhibition, the first one for PhotoHaus Gallery, part of Vancouver Photo Workshops (and also the studio where I am based from) at 14 West 7th Ave. If you have time to make it down you will not be disappointed.

Here are a few photos of the book…please excuse the low res…

I spent last weekend in Victoria at an exciting workshop with Luz Gallery and instructor Dave Aharonian. Through a process of creating digitally enlarged negatives and contact printing them using the platinum/palladium process, it was a welcome return to traditional printing methods with breathtaking results. The fusion of modern and traditional tools in this process seems a logical hybrid for future work…I plan on incorporating this new process into my fine art work flow. Thanks again to Luz and Dave for the great weekend!
Here’s a few snaps from the darkroom…

Dave discusses the chemistry

Mix it up!

Applying the emulsion

Negative sandwich for contact printing

Into the contact printing frame

(looks like I got too excited here to photograph the exposure process in the light box)

Developing...

...and evaluating the print

And away we went printing our own work for the afternoon.

One of mine from the Pacific series...love.

Showing “fresh works from creative professionals”, Photography Served has featured my recent collection of Polaroid Corporate portraits.

Issue 19 of New York’s  Creative Quarterly magazine is out now!
I was honoured to be awarded a winner in Professional Photography for some of the work from the Future Imperfect series.

I received a lovely thank-you letter in the mail today from the folks at The Canadian Cancer Society. I had donated some artwork for the auction at the annual Diamond Ball in April and they wanted to let me know that over $665,000 dollars was raised at that event. Among other things, these funds go towards Camp Goodtimes for children fighting cancer and their families as well as the continued work towards eradicating cancer and enhancing the quality of life for people living with cancer.

Some personal work from a recent shoot with local performer Symone.

More creepy kids…and no Photoshop on those eyes…honest.

See other images from my foraging trips at the following links, or click on the Lost + Found category down the right hand column:

Brothers and Sisters
Tintypes
Creepy Kids
Howlett Euclid Portraits
Good, clean fun
Teacher, Teacher

We added some of the wonderful new Polaroid film to the portrait shoot last night at Sugar Studios. Pretty stellar if I say so myself.
Thanks to Brent, Nathaniel, Matthew and Theo at Richards, Patricia Lagmay for styling, Katrina Molson for hair + grooming, photo assistant Sandra Nieuwenhuijsen and of course Sugar Studios for the amazing space. The rest of the shoot will be forthcoming…
Cheers.