This particular assignment is to capture the city through street photography. It’s still a work in progress, but I thought I’d let you take a peak.

On Monday the Most Loyals invited me out to shoot some video while they recorded parts of their first full length album. It was an incredibly energizing and inspiring day. There is something about being around enthusiastic, hardworking, talented folk that just makes me feel full.

Well, I’ve sent them off. All of the photos from Honduras. They’re done and I can’t wait to see which ones end up in the fall issue of World Vision’s Childview Magazine. (I’ve included some out takes from the trip above so you can get a sense of what I was up to over there.) It sure is nice to be home, sitting on my old couch in my new apartment, drinking coffee from my South Africa mug and listening to songs on repeat.

Many of you already know about the Contacting Toronto exhibit in the Toronto subway. My photographs have replaced some advertising posters in the Toronto subway for the month of May in participation with the Contact Photo Festival. Special thanks to our curator Sharon Switzer, Pattison Onestop, the Ontario Arts Council, the TTC, the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival. A brilliant thanks to my friends Melissa and Dave and my brother Curt for being willing to participate in the project. You can find the posters at the following stations:

-Bathurst Station (Westbound Platform)
-Bay Station (Westbound Platform)
-Pape Station (Westbound Platform)
-Kennedy Station (Eastbound Platform)
-Summerhill Station (Northbound Platform)
-King Station (Southbound Platform)
-Eglington West Station (Southbound Platform)
-Lawrence West Station (Southbound Platform)

I took this photograph in India while covering a story about gender inequality in the northern region. Vatandeep was given away by her parents after being taunted by their neighbours because she was the fifth girl in a family without any boys. Read the full article, Wanting the Unwanted in the spring issue of Childview Magazine here.

Here are some more photos of Vatandeep and her community.

India was a hard trip for many reasons, but I was very moved when I met one of Vatandeep’s neighbours named Sona (pictured below) and her Grandmother. After spending a few days with Sona I decided to sponsor her.

I’ll climb home.

It’s pouring rain here in Yoro. I can hear each sharp drop on the aluminum roof of my hotel room. Outside cars are honking at each other, little girls in school uniforms share flimsy umbrellas as they run for it, and the supermarket with the giant electric yellow sign looks glorious.

This is my third time on assignment in Honduras in a year and a half. The scenery gets me every time. I’m still sorting through the mound of photographs from my assignment, but I thought you might like to see some snaps from my phone.

i) the mountains on the way from El Progresso to El Negrito
ii) the children at the local school decorated for our visit
iii) the view from my hotel window

I shot these last fall for my church’s magazine which also doubled as program for Inns Choi’s latest play about the King James version of the Bible.

- And then -

- But finally -

All in a day.

To be honest with you, I was creatively depleted when I shot these for Dar F.M. last November. Thankfully the gang put in a real team effort and we got the shoot done. After all, cousin Emily was visiting and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dress her up! Of course we wanted Ali (again) for the shoot and her houseguest Karen also gracefully agreed to humour us. So, after sorely neglecting to process these photos for months and months (sorry gang) the imaging switch in my brain has finally flipped on again (with a vengeance) and I’ve been working on these (obsessively) for days! I approached these photographs in a painterly way. I focused on colour blocking with a very specific palette and edited each image with special attention its shadows. Overall, I wanted the colours to be vivid but not overly saturated. My approach to texture was a little different, instead of the concrete textures I usually lay over my images I sourced the journal pages I photographed last week. I’m pleased with the end result of these photos — they’re a pleasant departure from our past Dar F.M. editorials.