You know what, Internet? You’ve never looked at your watch, or crumpled your forehead, or quoted me the time, or inquired ‘Morning… ?’ and I love you for that. Your reward is this blog. We commit your mortal remains to the bosom of the MAE-West. That was a really funny joke I just made, it’s just unfortunate that you don’t get it.

I preferred this lot vacant but it is full of used cars again today. This first roll of b&w was shot during August through October in one of my infrequently used SLRs, the trusty Nikon FG.

Things happening on street corners.

This might be the masterpiece of the entry. I know I am getting started a little slow. We’ll see where this goes.

A subtle PBR cache.

This is a government of Canada building. Somehow in this country you don’t get guns pointed at you by private security contractors when you point a camera towards architecture.

Seeing a lot of these lately now that the new subway emerges right down the block from the office.

I was on a trip to buy some film that day. It was when I realized that the price of Tri-X has risen dramatically in the last few years. It was quite a while since I’ve bought any since I had a modest stash.

As an experiment I recently picked up some Arista Premium from Freestyle photo (google will tell you that many people consider this repackaged Tri-X or at least almost identical to Tri-X). I will talk about it in a future update when I get around to shooting some since some of the photographers reading might be interested (it is priced almost 1/3 the cost compared to a roll of Tri-X).

Since I’m down the path of wankery already, here is the Zeiss ZF 50/1.4 at 1.4 on Kodak TMAX 100 (the old version). This is the flower garden outside my old apartment on 14th. I often read when commuting and so when arriving at home I’d like to sit there for a while and finish off the current chapter. I guess that POV is a nice memory now.

Same thing, 1.4.

And finally, 2.8, probably my favourite aperture on that lens.

Seems this guy was wearing a hat.

I’m not quite sure why I did that. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I thought 1/4th made me a videographer too.

I was talking about how much character the shutter on the Nikon FG has. Naturally I had to demonstrate.

There was a rainbow. I promise.

In October I got my Leica back from service and put some trix in there. I guess I did not write about it here but in the summer my Summicron fell apart. Not many people know this, but on the third day, God’s Summicron fell apart also, and from his tears the oceans of the Earth were formed.

I said stand still I need to test the focus. I don’t know what’s more amazing, that my collimation is now corrected or that he didn’t make a face.

Let’s not.

His name is Rich Hope and he’s gonna whip it on ya.

But really I was there to see Grady.

And I had the pleasure of proximity permitting me to photograph the Gordie Johnson signature truss rod cover. It’s nice to look for the details like this when shooting live music. The stuff the other photographers will never get.

Then again it also helps being close enough to get knocked out by the headstock.

Rocking the epic double-neck.

And the Explorer, no less.

So that was the first roll through the reborn M6. This has been an intermediary update. More soon, kiddies.

I don’t eat out so often as any time when Kevin is visiting.

You kind of have to set aside a budget for it all together.

Once again beauty is known entirely only in its defeat.

Man plays thing, waits for bus.

Battles at Richards on Richards, September 2008.

One evening I was relaxing at home when I received a text message from Norm. He said come down to Richards and see this band called Battles, I think you’d like it. I spent about 28 seconds consulting the internet and left immediately because it was already close to show time and I had to reach downtown. As you can see it was pretty full when I got there and it is about as close as I got to the stage. But he was right, I did like it.

I remember at one point Craig came around to bring beers amongst his colleages. He had several bottles in his hands/arms and he was trying to offer an item to me but I didn’t know which one he meant to give so when I reached out I used both hands. I wanted to make sure that nothing was going to be dropped in this exchange but I quickly felt awkward as I imagined he was going to think that I was trying to take more than 1 of his offered beers. I felt pretty terrible and it was so loud at the time I couldn’t explain this to him properly. Still I never brought it up afterwards. Thank you for that beer, Craig. It was a bittersweet moment for me.

Mogwai played at the Commodore soon after.

Sometimes when you want intensely to make a photograph you will make your best effort with all of your knowledge and experience behind you but you will still fail. If you choose to show your failure anyway there will be people that say it is still good no matter what. Be glad that someone liked it but don’t listen to them because they are both wrong and right at the same time and how can you trust people like that?

I just spent half an hour looking for it without success but I read a review for this show somewhere which gave it a pretty bad rap. The author even went on to say that as he looked around the venue his sense of disappointment was mirrored in the faces of his peers! Well isn’t it pleasant when your feelings are justified by insignificant strangers.

One of my favourite moments was during the song Tracy which featured also the telephone samples like on the record and I think a couple members were caught by surprise as it almost seemed like they thought a mistake was going through the speakers for just a few seconds before they realized what it was. I couldn’t fight off the smile a lot of us shared in that moment.

At the end of the show the stage lost power and confusion began to spread. It was clear that the band wanted to play one more song. In the end they got everything running again and I was incredibly glad because as encore they played ithica 27 o 9 which sounded just amazing.

This is what Vancouvers olympic village looked like a year ago today as seen from Main St station. McDonalds in the foreground and city hall in the very distant background.

When my father decided to buy this car we assembled the following day in the back yard to stare at it but also to bolt a seat belt in the passenger side to drive more with the comfort of modern safety features.

I drove it later to the train station and it was the first time I ever drove something so powerful without power steering and I felt like an uncoordinated weakling.

Some guys opened for Grady at the Plaza on Granville street. It was evident that they came from the suburbs, perhaps because they still had passion.

There was no real way to get a nice exposure here. Maybe my next Leica will have HDR.

God, I love that epic double-neck.

Y U So Shady, Grady?

Towards the end of the evening, in response to an article in the weekly Georgia Strait which challenged the condition of hair hidden underneath that southern hat (Mr. Johnson defected to Texas from Canada lately), Gordy lifted his hat from his head triumphantly to demonstrate a full head of healthy grown hair and then launched into another blues-rock anthem. It is actually funny I come to this roll now because I have been listening to a lot of Grady lately. There is just no substitute for those greasy fingers.