Fun with hair!

There are a few more on Flickr.

I’m heading to Scotland in a few hours.  In the meantime, check out the new additions to my iStockPhoto portfolio!

The G20 summit is being held in downtown Toronto this weekend.  Today, there was a “peaceful demonstration” planned.  Approximately 4,000 people would meet at Queen’s Park, walk down University to Queen Street, then head West on Queen to Spadina, and then back up Spadina to Queen’s Park.

You can view all 150 of my pictures from today on Flickr.

It started out peaceful enough…

… with a few crazies.

Police lined up on Richmond to prevent people from heading South towards the security perimeter.

Something happened at Queen & Spadina that I did not see. People started running around yelling “TEAR GAS!” but I read online that it was smoke from a flare. After that, it got a little bit crazy. The protesters began heading back East along Queen Street instead of going up Spadina. Sometime in those 5 minutes, someone(s) smashed all of the windows of 2 police cars.

Police officers came and blocked the area that contained the two police cars. They all put on gas masks. Shortly after this, I headed home, since I live in the same block.

When I got home, I saw on CP24 that Starbucks at Queen & John had been smashed, so I went back outside.

The police officers had left the area, and I saw that people had painted the vandalized police cars.

I went back home and started transferring pictures. A few minutes later, my boyfriend asked “did you hear that?!” We looked out the window and there was black smoke coming up from Queen Street. I grabbed my camera and went back outside. Someone had lit the police car on fire.

It was surreal seeing people walk all over the street. Shortly after this, I saw a few people set the other police car on fire.

I watched from my balcony as cops were rushing protesters to push them North.  Just around the corner, protesters were becoming increasingly violent.  The whole thing was pretty scary and surreal.

Check out my Flickr set for more pictures from the G20 protests today.

This is from An Insignificant Harvey, which may be released later this year!  Possibly.  I hope.

The Deaths of Chet Baker aired on Bravo!FACT recently.  It’s a really good short directed by Robert Budreau and starring the amazing Stephen McHattie.

Of course, Kenneyville.  Isn’t this creepy?

Toronto Fringe Festival starts at the end of June!  I recently did some pictures for a sketch comedy group called Apocalypse Later.  Their show is called Everybody Panic! Here’s the description:

Marcel Dragonieri, Jocelyn Geddie, Brandon Hackett and Ann Pornel (writers and performers for sketch groups Etched in Sketch, Colonel Mustard, and The Bob, one of Canada’s longest running sketch comedy revues) present EVERYBODY PANIC!, a brand new sketch comedy show about the difficulties of life and the uncertainties of the future. Sharp, witty and inventive, EVERYBODY PANIC! tackles issues like love, hate, friendship, debt and monsters: you know, real life.

They were tons of fun to work with and I can’t wait to see the show.  (You should see it too!  Buy tickets!)

The 2-man band is called Automatic Toys (Myspace, Facebook) and they got in touch with me because they were throwing together a last minute music video shoot and wanted me to do some still photography.  It was at a sound stage in Mississauga, and a professional event lighting team was there with awesome lasers and fog machines and stuff.

At one point I was standing on a piece of plastic and lifted up by a forklift.  Everything was great until I lowered my camera from my face and realized how high I was and that I had nothing to hold on to, and I almost peed my pants.  It was fun though.  (I sat down after that.)

Good times.

Writer/Director Brooks Hunter and Cinematographer Pasha Patriki.

This is Michael Scratch as the film’s villain, Adrian Black.  Really nice and talented guy – I didn’t get to meet him during phase 1 of shooting.

Sean Samson prepping Vanessa Broze‘s head for drilling!

Ewwww.

The effect looked really cool, from what I saw on the monitor.  Can’t wait to see it in the final film!

This Friday we’re filming a huge fight scene with multiple bloody deaths.  I’m very excited.

Yesterday, we filmed at a motel in Shelburne, ON (about 90 minutes North of Toronto).  It was great to see everyone again!

This time I’d like to get some shots of Vanessa Broze not being tied up and/or duct taped on the back of a truck.

See: examples from last September.

Doran Damon Okkema (who plays Donovan), Vanessa Broze (as Kelly/Megan), and writer/director/producer Brooks Hunter.

Vanessa tied up with Brooks Hunter, Director of Photography Pasha Patriki, and Dany Gehshan (as Charlie/Patrick).

This is one of the most fun sets (okay, the most fun set) I’ve ever worked on.  Everyone is really nice and infectiously energetic.  Also, I love working on films that actually encourage posting pictures online – most productions don’t allow it.  Speaking of which, you can see lots more pictures on the Kenneyville Facebook page.

On Friday we’re filming in Cobourg.  The key prosthetic makeup artist from Resident Evil: Afterlife has created some crazy special effect props.  There will be blood.  There will also be pictures.

Now there are 8!  It was hard to find a time for everyone to get together, and if you live in Toronto, you may recall that it was raining for most of this week.   With Wednesday night being our only option, I had to improvise in my tiny home studio.  When I say “tiny”, I mean that it’s a 10′x10′ room that 8 people (+ a photographer) wouldn’t fit into without lighting equipment and a backdrop.

I think we were able to come up with some creative ideas to get around the space confinements.

4 hours – and 800 pictures – later, I have a lot of compositing to do!  This is a work in progress, but the end result is going to be really fun.

I wanted to post today, because Your Heart has a show tonight at Supermarket in Toronto.  They also released their new album, Autumn, and a free companion EP, Fall.   Both are amazing!  Check them out.

More pictures to come.

On a personal note, wow, my photography has changed so much in less than a year. I learned a lot at this wedding.

I haven’t updated in a long time – again – but I wanted to write a quick update about what I’ve been up to.

Booking weddings for 2010! I’m only booking a handful of weddings this year, and so far each and every one of them is going to be fun and amazing.

Portraits! It’s getting warm outside, and I have some family portraits and engagement sessions coming up.  I would really like to do a trash the dress when it gets warm.  Interested?  Email me!

Accounting! Wait… that’s not exciting.

Stock photography! 2010 is the year of iStockPhoto.  I’ve been working really hard at building up my portfolio.  Here are some recent additions:

Something for Easter.

I’m working on a big cupcake series right now, as a result of becoming slightly obsessed with food photography.  I will post more when it’s done.

Tea!

These are from a photoshoot I did with an awesome couple earlier this year.

A client saw this martini image and requested that I do something similar for a print for their kitchen, but with red wine. I’m working on a red wine series that I will post soon. I love that splashing things and making a huge mess is “work”. I have the best job ever.