So, the other day I was in the cafeteria lineup at work next to our resident naturalist (and all-around bird expert, who also leads Friday morning songbird banding, for which my camera and I are most grateful).
In typical bird-nerd fashion, I asked her where I could go in the area to improve my odds of spotting a scarlet tanager, one of the most vibrant and colourful songbirds around these parts. Since my early childhood days of bird geekdom, I've still only seen them in field guides.
She told me, essentially, what I already knew tanagers like deep forest and high tree canopy, largely away from prying eyes.
But it got me to remembering my apartment-dwelling days. I spent upwards of four years in a fourth-floor suite overlooking a city park through the canopies of huge boulevard elms. And every May for a few short weeks, the treetops outside my windows would be filled with brilliant and wonderful little birds passing though during spring migration. Warblers, thrushes, kinglets and thrashers; from street level I'd have had zero idea they were even up there. Probably, much like that elusive scarlet tanager.
I created this digital illustration in homage of my search. I'm often hard-pressed not to look at a big fat tree and think of what's up there, out of sight in the leaves. But they're obviously there. The field guides say so.
This is almost an entirely digital concoction. The bird and leaves are scanned outlines, vectorized in Illustrator. The tree itself was originally a high-contrast silhouetted photo, inverted and simplified. The background is a tinkered-with scan of faux-wood panel. The leaves were repeated in an analogous array of greens, rotated and bunched for copy-and-paste sessions in Photoshop. For a closer look at the overall piece, you can click here.
It's hard to believe I'm now a third of the way through my photo-a-day challenge. And this past month has been exemplary of the highs and lows while conducting such a venture. There's the obligatory days where you want nothing whatsoever to do with the project. Days where an image falls in your lap. Days where there's even too much to choose from when boiling down to a single submission. This past month in particular, saw the arrival of my new camera (and replacement macro lens a week later), spells of brilliant and terrible weather and an extremely photogenic trip away to New York City.
It's ironic then, that in choosing my favourite snap from the past 30 days, I find myself not particularly drawn to any one shot. But in selecting this portrait of a savannah sparrow, I realized one camera-friendly reason why I love this time of year – bird-banding mornings at work. And though I was told the brightly-coloured warblers, ever the stars of these sessions, overflew the area this year, capturing a wonderfully-textured bird in the hand like this chap is still worth the time and effort.
As always, check my 365 progress as the set grows and grows, here – or view it slideshow-style, here.
The days leading to, and following our trip last week to New York City (and Philadelphia – thanks, Mel!) have been frenetic for me, so I apologize for my absence here.
And while Manhattan isn't top-of-mind on anyone's lists of most relaxing getaways, it certainly ranks high among the world's great distractions. And that's what I needed right about now.
Kerry and I traveled to New York almost three years ago to the day, and had a fabulous time. This time around was no different, although our approach to the trip subtly seemed to be; I didn't realize myself until we got home and I began to skim through the photos. Images from our first trip together showed scope and grandeur, frame-filling snaps of the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station and the Brooklyn Bridge. We were tourists in the purest sense, and it showed.
This time around, the camera was largely aimed back at us. We have photos of each other. Photos of good food we ate. Photos of small things, quirky sights and unsuspecting people. Photos of us carving out our little niche among one of the world's most frantic places. The pictures don't lie; it was a fun, fun time.
I dressed up a select series of images as panoramic black-and-whites. You can view the set here, or as a slideshow here.
It's been a whirlwind month for my photo-a-day challenge. April saw my trusty Canon Rebel sidekick disappear into the thieving ether, and two scrambled snaps from my PowerShot before an amazing friend of mine stepped forward with a loaner – another Rebel, no less – while I dealt with an insurance claim and the eventual purchase of a new camera. All along though, the photos came – and I consider this at least a small victory.
Amazing April weather was a big help, too (I wish I could say the same thing for May so far). Friendly conditions outside always makes for better material overall.
As has come to be a tradition with these monthly updates, I provide once again my favourite from the past 30 days: a portrait of our friends' kiddo being held my the ankles – simply because I suggested to dad that it would make for a fun shot. Hopefully kiddo doesn't hold a grudge; he seemed to enjoy it.
Be sure to stop by my photo-a-day home base on Flickr – or enjoy this ever-growing slideshow from the very beginning.
I never experienced the glory of a comic-book phase at any point of my childhood (or adulthood, for that matter). I was left awkwardly in the lurch in high school art class when my friends held competitions to see who could draw the best Wolverine. My only comparable obsession came from reading The Adventures of Tintin books, which were stocked as a beat-up, dog-eared collection in my elementary school library, usually alongside a few copies of Asterix.
Now that I'm all grown up – complete with disposable income – I'm slowly piecing together my own collection of the Tintin series. One here, one there – usually procured at Toad Hall Toys whenever I'm searching for presents for my niece or nephew (or for Kerry). I'm finally coming into my own as a full-blown Tintin geek.
This primarily stems from my absolute love of Hergé's artwork (that, and the fact that any scan of Captain Haddock's furious mug usually makes me laugh). But Hergé's graphic, flat-colour, stay-within-the-lines approach has always had an appeal for me as a sensible, structured and detail-oriented graphic designer. I've long wished to make an attempt at placing a character of myself into Tintin's world, seeing how we share similar dimensions, taste in clothes – often, even the same wisp of hair. And this week, I finally pulled it off.
Click here, for a closer look.
I will be the first to admit this blog is stagnating. Partially because, on the flip-side, my photo-a-day challenge over on Flickr is booming – until today anyways. My trustiest of trusty sidekicks, the Canon Rebel I received as a gift for my 30th birthday five years ago, was stolen this morning along with a lens I gifted myself with funds procured from leasing this photo to the City of Winnipeg, my wallet and Christmas iPod. So while I begin simultaneous grieving/recovery periods, I thought I'd mosey over here and see what's what. See what good things there are that have made me happy recently.
There was this photo shoot, part of Ian McCausland's ingenious Facebook Foto Friday get-together, an open house of sorts at his studio for friends to acquire pro profile pics.
There was this attempt at a self-portrait, which, though didn't pan out exactly accurate, did have me dabbling in the messy soft pencil arts once again. I prefer this picture of the picture more than the picture itself, which I can't show because the scan of it was on a flash drive, also stolen.
There was my friend Jason, who returned from the Big Smoke to once again take part in the spring nocturnal owl survey a couple of weeks ago. We heard four owls and smashed ice blocks like we were nine years old.
There was – and is – Kerry, who joined me on an amazing spring hike and cookout/smorefest on the most glorious day of the year so far. Who took me on a mystery date Friday night to one of our favourite restaurants. And who loaned me two bus tickets, 20 bucks and bought me a brownie on this bad day spent canceling credit cards, acquiring a new drivers license, talking to police, insurance and the ceiling.
With the arrival of spring it has become infinitely easier to add tallies to my photo-a-day challenge. Three days ago marked the two-month benchmark, and even just quickly glancing at the grid above I see more light, more colour and more 'interestingness' (as Flickr calls it) than in the first 30 days spent in snow and too-short daylight hours.
Not so strangely enough, my personal favourite from the second month of shooting is another portrait of Kerry. This was taken a couple weekends ago under exciting circumstances – she had just received sudden notice her second book of poetry had found its way to an interested publisher (and will be on shelves in the fall). Titled Vs., the book will focus on her training and anticipation of her successful boxing debut. A second image from the impromptu portrait session is being used in the publishers' promo materials, and perhaps even on the back cover.
Be sure to view my photo-a-day progress here, in handy-dandy slideshow format.
For the past couple of weeks I have been scoping out a certain tree in the neighbourhood, as it was rumoured to be harbouring a screech owl. Friends of Kerry's had spotted it on more than one occasion in a notch of a grizzled tree about two kilometres from our house, but were reluctant to disclose the exact location. Owl hogs.Luckily, I was able to recognize the tree from the photo they showed. We found it during our frosty walk a couple of weekends ago, but the owl wasn't included. Two more visits by bike this past weekend were equally fruitless, though the ride – my first of the season – was muddy, filthy and tons of fun. Yesterday though, I struck paydirt, and the owl and I had a decent 10-minute shoot before direct sunlight disappeared. It seemed half-asleep, but tracked me with a mean stinkeye (below) as I navigated around with the camera.
I am hoping this is the little fellow's home and not just a hangout; it looks more than suitable. It would be great if I could track its progress over the summer.
Illustration Friday's current theme of subterranean – very specific, which I like – allows an opportunity to display wares from a weekend spree of woodcut-based monoprints.
In January, a friend offered me a couple of small blocks of particle-board and some cutting tools to try my hand at carving, something I hadn't really done since high school (on linoleum, I think we all did this in high school). After a few sessions of trial and error, I carved myself a nice little cut of a burrowing owl (above). 
Actual printing went down on Sunday; about a dozen or so decent copies (above) run off on a small but effective homemade press at my friend's place. These I am quite proud of.
For Illustration Friday's purposes I scanned one of the black-ink prints (above) to further the piece digitally, though I hoped to retain the print's sense of hand-craftedness. Burrowing owls are unique among the owl set for nesting in abandoned prairie-dog dens, among other subterranean abodes, and the stark, confined nature of these prints suited an idea I had in mind. Where the concept – and this write-up – takes an odd turn is in the piece's source of inspiration. Subterranean, for some reason or another, made me recall the mining sequence about midway through Dance, a two-minute animated National Film Board vignette that used to fill space on CBC when I was a kid (any Canadian worth his toque should recognize this tune).Click here, to view the illustration larger (and on black).
