Archive for January, 2009
January 28, 2009
As the kids from Piga Picha Toronto went around their neighbourhood taking photos - so did I. I wanted to concentrate on details rather than my usual portraits so next week I can show the children examples of texture, colour and space.
On another note, who’s responsibility is it to clean up all that police tape in Regent once a crime scene is over? Get on it man! It’s messing with our morale.
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 1:18 am ||
POSTED IN Personal
January 27, 2009
I missed the boat on the film “Me You and Everyone We Know” (it was released in 2005). However last night after watching it for the first time I’m glad that I did. It unlocked a nostalgic archive of a way I felt about the world in 2005. The movie is a bunch of instances that fit together and somehow create movement, a theme. Each instance funny, silent, strange, and inconsequential until it all ends in a tidy package. A package that shows that humans regardless of age, sex and race universally need each other with the utmost intimacy. They need to be understood and allowed to disappoint.
How does this all relate to the above photos? I’m not sure really. I took these last week in Regent Park while teaching a class to 12 year olds about photography and it’s ability to unite through a universal story language. Other than that the photos abstractly remind me of a scene in the film when Miles Thompson’s character shows his younger brother a birds eye view of ”me you and everyone we know” made with punctuation marks from his computer. Later he says “I’d live up there if I could, if there was no gravity.” We crave distance and intimacy at the same time (or as Dar and Emily would put it - attention and anonymity). It’s a delicate balance.
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 7:49 pm ||
POSTED IN Personal
January 18, 2009
During the post election ethnic riots in Kisumu Kenya, Sister Philomena wouldn’t let the children of St. Clare’s orphanage outside. She was afraid a Kibaki’s police would kill them. The children had plenty of time to think. Their lives are hardly ideal, but they want to be engineers, doctors and teachers and pilots.
Months later I was at the orphanage for six weeks, and time after time I saw the juxtaposition between the children’s most freeing moments and their most bored. Slices of their environment tell of a general restlessness. The boys are mostly pensive and graceful; the girls strong and bold like the housemothers that are raising them. They all seem to be waiting to grow up so they can carry on with life.
The dichotomy between freedom and boredom fascinates me because it mimics a trait that I see in my peers at home. They too seem to be waiting to grow up and have freedom even though they are for the most part in their mid-twenties.
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 5:17 pm ||
POSTED IN Personal, Photojournalism, Travel
January 15, 2009
The view during the train ride home from Bramps is hardly pretty but there is something familiar and comforting about the barren industrial landscape. I wonder what the story is behind all of it. Tons of warehouses with smashed windows, junk and shipping yards, old CNN trains, a strange boxy banquet hall, the fast flowing river, panel houses, fields sprinkled with towers… there is so much to see. The ride often seems a little too short to take it all in and as I arrive at the Bloor platform I often wonder when I will get another chance.
(Thanks Dar for the post title)
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 5:25 am ||
POSTED IN Personal
January 13, 2009
I remember the first time riding in Ben’s car. It was early -7 am? The Kisumu sun was coming up orange and we were riding around photographing a Celtel promotion. Steve said I should name the car - so I coined the yellow Peugeot “Ole Yeller” (the boys had never seen the movie but they humored me). There was another time we were driving up a hill the back door flew open and Joanna almost fell out - seat belts save lives…
The photographs above are from a memorable afternoon with Ole Yeller (the same afternoon that I shot
these.) The car was leaking gas and we ended up broken down in the hot hot sun. So while Ben made the trek to get more fuel we played with some neighbourhood children. Their laughs of delight as I popped up from behind the car door to photograph them are permanently etched into my memory. What had begun as a sad morning has ended up as a fond memory. Good Ole Yeller.
POSTED IN Photojournalism, Travel
January 13, 2009
age 17
in a 25 cent “boot” (booth)/ posing in n.y.c for a photo to send to my mum
skinny tie & tapered pants… mhmm
I love my Dad. He’s pretty awesome. First off his name is Oscar - awesome right? His childhood was pretty much a mix of Huck Finn and Little House on the Prairie. He grew up on a farm with the ocean in his backyard. He talks about anacondas, alligators, and mangos the size of your head. As a teenager he rode a motorcycle, and in his twenties left South America and went to University in the BRONX. He scored the woman of his dreams after 2 years of cross continental pursuit through love letters. Not to mention he saved a man’s life once right in front of my 5 year old eyes… need I say more?
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 4:46 am ||
POSTED IN Personal, Portrait
January 10, 2009
Kisumu, has been on my mind lately. Here are some shots from my time there.
POSTED BY Alyssa AT 9:47 pm ||
POSTED IN Personal, Photojournalism, Travel
Older Posts
