APRIL + ERIK

Well, the opening was Friday nite. A stellar turnout.

I guess it never hurts when the Arts Editor in the paper blogs this.
Or when the newspaper art critic writes this article.

But probably the main thing that brought out the crowds? Sex sells.

Some scenes from the opening:

(For those of you wanting to see the whole APRIL + ERIK suite
of pix……hold on. I’m going to post all 12 photos on their own
dedicated web site. My workload, these days, precludes getting
that up until next week.)

NORTEL LAYOFFS

I was asked by a business magazine to shoot a portrait of Jozef B.,
a long time Nortel employee who was recently laid off……

Like many Nortel casualties, Jozef is hard at work, working on
turning his (and his team’s) expertise into a new, independent
start up. The new engines of the economy.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Festival X (the Ottawa foto fesival) sponsored a panel discussion
this past Wednesday. A discussion with the rather formidable
title: The State of Contemporary Photographic Portraiture.

The organizers were at the top of their game. The venue looked
totally pro and the hype was such that, even tho the room could
hold one hundred souls, about 40 people were turned away.

The thing was moderated by Dr Lily Koltun (Director of The Portrait
Gallery of Canada) with panelists Michael Schreier (prof at the Visual
Arts department at the University of Ottawa), Steven Loft (Curator,
Indigious Arts at The National Gallery) and me.

It was the first time I’ve done something like that and, let me tell
you, I don’t remember a thing. So there will be no synopsis here.
I do know, though, that the discussion was wide-ranging and,
almost everyone concurs, the opposite of boring. A video was
shot of the deal. I’m told that that video will be online in a bit.
So any of you droolers who want to check it out: stay tuned, I’ll
notify you once it’s up.

I can leave you with the quote of the nite. At one point the discussion
turned to “the snapshot” and Flickr:

“There’s a difference between a snapshot and a circle jerk (Flickr).”

CAMPAIGN

Spent a couple of days shooting pix for an advertising campaign
for a local shopping centre.

Here’s a few behind the scenes views…..

And a couple of actual photos (and, no, these will NOT be getting
close-cropped. we shot ‘em like this on purpose, baby).