Last week’s project was so much fun to do and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did something similar in the future.

Although the photos were only taken over a series of minutes early in the week, I worked on them for the remainder of the week and laughed as I looked at each one.

I would have liked to come up with some additional faces and ideas, but for the number we did come up with (50 each) I am very happy.

Technically there are some places I would have liked to improve, all dealing with flash. In many photos I forgot to change my flash settings and as such the exposure was different for a select stretch of photos. In addition I really need to read my flash manual to understand what the light indicators mean on the flash.

Looking to the future I would like to do this very project but with a group of people and 5 set poses/expressions for each of them to do. Perhaps I could set this up, informally at an event with friends or family.

Overall I really enjoyed this project and the end results.

This week’s project, like many, is one that I have in my head for some time now and with the two recent photo projects I’ve completed, Get Mugged and Photo Circus, I thought now was as good of time as ever to attempt a photo booth of my own.

So this week I set up a simple photo booth in my bedroom and had myself and Katie make some funny faces.

Although there is no formal inspiration for last week’s Photo Circus (other than nik harron asking me to join in), on searing the interwebs (after the project was completed) I found that a “Photo Circus” already existed.

The Photo Circus that I found provides a photo booth type service (much like what we did) that allows people to rent the photo circus for events to let their attendees have a good time.

So this week I list the “inspiration” simply as The Photo Circus.

I personally think that the Photo Circus this past Saturday was a complete success, but that’s just my take on it.

Although going into Saturday I didn’t really have a clue how things would pan out I have to say that I was happily surprised with the results. Having been sick for week prior I really didn’t really have an opportunity to plan much, but thankfully nik harron came through.

I entire night was filled with interaction by anyone who wanted to be part of the project. Seeing the smiles on everyone’s face as they dressed up and had fun reminded me that everyone has an inner child that needs to be released, even if its not on a regular basis.

Although the other aspects of the Photo Circus did not happen I was more than happy with how everything turned out.

Compared to Mug Shots a couple of weeks ago this was a different type of fun because of the atmosphere and nature of the photos.

On a technical note: I had hoped to use more flash to create more dramatic photos such as this one, but considering the atmosphere and number of photos, using an old-school overhead projector as a light sourced worked great for providing a dramatic effect to the images.

Last week’s project was in conjunction with Edward Jackman and nik harron as par of Nuit Blanche London, a London Fringe (Festival) Event.

Originally conceived by nik harron, we had hoped to have a number of photographic projects take place during the evening involving any pedestrians that wanted to be involved. We dubbed this, the Photo Circus.

One of these projects was the “Tickle Trunk” which provided pedestrians with clothing and props that they could use to dress up with and get their picture taken. All pictures would then be displayed on a projected screen on the side of a building.

The “Tickle Trunk” was so popular that the entire evening of the Photo Circus comprised of just this.

The images that follow are just some of the characters that strangers and friends came up with during the night.

I wanted to say thank you to nik harron for leading the change and supplying the power and props for the event. Thanks to Edward Jackman for adding another camera to the mix, Andy Berdan for stopping by and taking some pics, Chris Mcinnis for lending a suitcase full of props and all of our friends, community members and Londoners for coming by, being creative and make the Photo Circus a success.

The inspiration for last week’s project came from a number of internet sources and many local influences.

The local influences that impacted this project are all of the heritage buildings that I have seen destroyed over the past years and now where they once stood is either a parking lot or some horrible boxy looking building. I often wonder if in 20 years any of our built heritage (and the social heritage that goes along with it) will remain or if we will just be left with the now typical cheap throw-away buildings we seem to build in their place.

I just wanted to be reminded that although we might not understand or value the importance of something at a given time, later on in life we might miss this value and be unable to restore it.

As for internet influences, this project was inspired by such projects as the following:

Wildammo.com – 25 nostalgic photos comparing past to present

Flickr Group – Looking into the Past

Photimages.canalblog.com

Last week’s project is one that I have wanted to complete for some time now. Recently I have found more and more examples of such projects and my interest was sparked more and more.

Originally I had wanted to use original photos, but they were hard to acquire and expensive at the same time. I then decided to use images on a CD that I collected while working at my last job. I had wanted to print them out, but my plans to do that were foiled by a comber of complications.

In the end I just overlayed the images in a digital way.

Technically I would have liked to put more effort into this project but because of humid weather and me being sick for the majority of the week I didn’t put into taking the 2010 photos as much as I would have liked it.

Overall I like what these photo mashups offer. They offer a look into the past, of how London use to be and they help us to better connect with the heritage of London that we often take advantage of and destroy.

I have many photos that I would like to match up with modern day locations, however I don’t have any geographical reference points to do so.

There are still about a dozen photos that I can match up but I just haven’t had the time (or the means) to get o their locations from across the city.

Back in week fifteen of this year long project I took it upon myself to fiddle around with designing a new website for the London Poetry Slam.

Not endorsed or recognized (at the time) by the Poetry Slam itself, I wanted to see if I could put something together that better reflected the Slam, it’s participants, audience and that fit in with the new logo that had been created by nik harron.

At the time the Poetry Slam website looked like the above and I thought could use some help. So I found a base theme, fiddled with it, tweaked it, made some simple yet effective custom graphics and came up with something that I believed gave the London Poetry Slam a fresh new online presence.

I presented what I had created (out of love and fun) to the London Poetry Slam and got a good response and some feedback. Some changed were made, some content updated and as of this past Friday the new site was launched.¹

I also made sure to include a mobile version of the site that would properly render on the iPhone, considering the vast number of people who have such devices these days.²

Although in the beginning I never intended for my work to be actually be used as a new site for the London Poetry Slam I am very happy that I was able to create something as part of Fifty-Two Weeks that other creative individuals could benefit from and use.

Make sure to head on over to www.londonpoetryslam.ca to check out the new site design, the Poetry Slam itself and the details of the next Slam that you should most definitely come out to (it’s this Friday).

1. With thanks to rtraction for hosting the site. [↩]
2. Thanks to Brave New Code for the great plugin [↩]

Last week’s project combined my background in history and my hobby of photography with my love for London.

The project is pretty self explanatory, so just enjoy.

NOTE: Yes the photographs aren’t that stunning, the perspectives are off and some of the historical photos might no be in the ‘exact’ location, but I think you get the point.

Although last week’s project was something I was asked to do I still managed to find inspiration in a couple of places.

First I looked to Rannie Turingan or The Photo Junkie out of Toronto to inspire me in so much as event portrait photography in concerned. The Photo Junkie can be found at almost any event in Toronto taking photos of almost every participant. Sometimes setup with lights and a photo booth, other times not, the Photo Junkie hammers out portrait after portrait.

After meeting Rannie Turingan earlier in the year at PodCamp Toronto I realized that he has something going for himself that I do not. His ability to approach complete strangers and ask for their photos is amazing. Perhaps it is because he is known so well in Toronto or because of his personal character, or a mix of the two, but he’s really good at what he does.

It’s not that I’m not a people person, because I think that I am for the most part, it’s just a different type of people person. Perhaps with time I will get more confident and courageous to do what the Photo Junkie does.

Second, and a more local and technical inspiration is that of Jason Fredin. After PodCamp London and tethering/automator/photoshop/email/posterous setup that Jason had for his photo booth I knew that I needed to try something similar out as I thought it was very effective. The ability to shoot, apply a title block and upload an image in a matter of seconds was something that caught my attention right away.

Although my process was almost identical to that delivered by Jason I wanted to add something else to the mix. Having a TV that played a slideshow of the images during the evening added something additional to the workflow but I think allowed for attendees to be more interactive and engaged with the camera.

One thing is for sure, without seeing Jason’s setup in action I would have never thought of something like that on my own.