“CONTACT is an annual festival of photography in Toronto, during the month of May, with over 1000 local, national and international artists exhibiting at more than 200 venues … the festival is devoted to celebrating, and fostering the art and profession of photography. CONTACT is the largest photography event in the world, and a premiere cultural event in Canada.” – Visit the festivals website for more information. (www.scotiabankcontactphoto.com)
Exhibit Overview | Primal Encounters featuring Janusz Wrobel
As I was roaming through exhibits the name and sample photos of ‘Primal Encounters’ featuring Janusz Wrobel for Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, the photos online caught my eye. There is something about nature photography with water that always seems to draw me in to the photo. Prior to even reading the description, I failed to recognize that these photos were taken in Canada in the Great Canadian Shield. The exhibit is being held at the Petroff Gallery (1016 Eglinton Ave W.) until June 6, 2011.
Contact Festival - Primal Encounters Installation at Petroff Gallery (photo courtesy of Petroff Gallery)
As I entered the gallery, I was greeted by some ladies who worked there and they gave me the scoop on the photographer and how he creates his photography. He basically camps out at various locations for a couple of weeks at a time and is very selective with his photos, every photograph is composed with thought and precision.
“Landscape photography is not about the art of seeing but more about the art of experiencing. I take the time to study and identify the relationships of all key elements. By the time I arrive at a personal perspective I have become a part of the picture” – Janusz Wrobel
What really amazes me is that some of the images are taken in Ontario. I’ve heard from a couple of friends who have camped around Ontario and mentioned that there are some beautiful places that you would never imagine existed in Ontario, but now that I’ve seen some amazing photos by Janusz Wrobel, I am intrigued to discover what Ontario has to offer. I’ve never camped before but I am always up for the adventure. Road trip and camping anyone?
Favorite Photographs from the Primal Encounters Exhibit
Deep
From Here and Now #1
From Pebble Beach #1
The last photo really brought back memories of the Philippines in 2010 when I went to Guintubdan and climbed the mountain to go to the falls. I couldn’t believe how clean the water was and admired how beautiful the rocks looked in the water.
Guintubdan, Philippines 2010
Exhibit & Photographer Information
WHERE: Petroff Gallery – 1016 Eglinton Ave W, Toronto, M6C 2C5 WHEN: May 1 – June 6 HOURS OF OPERATION:
Mon – Sat 10am – 6pm
Sun 12 – 5pm CONTACT INFO:
(416) 782 1696
PHOTOGRAPHER: Janusz Wrobel (www.jwrobelphoto.com)
“CONTACT is an annual festival of photography in Toronto, during the month of May, with over 1000 local, national and international artists exhibiting at more than 200 venues … the festival is devoted to celebrating, and fostering the art and profession of photography. CONTACT is the largest photography event in the world, and a premiere cultural event in Canada.” – Visit the festivals website for more information. (www.scotiabankcontactphoto.com)
Exhibit Overview | Bending Light featuring L. E. Glazer
I have been talking about the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival before it started in May and finally visited my first exhibit called ‘Bending Light’ featuring L. E. Glazer. When I was researching for exhibits in the area from the CONTACT festival map, the name of the exhibit sold me, for as a photographer, we usually try to work with light but the phrase ‘bending light’ seemed a lot more intriguing. The exhibit is located in the showroom of Olympia Tile International, a really odd place to hold an exhibit for the people who go there are looking for wall or floor tiles. Anyways, when you walk in to the showroom, the exhibit is on your left by the sun room.
The photographer, L. E. Glazer, exhibit focuses on reflective and manipulative photography. The exhibit description is a little confusing but from first glance it reminded me of some of my reflection photography. I really liked some of his works for it takes reflective photography in to a whole different realm of reality. It reminded me of some of my reflective photography work.
Favorites from the Bending Light Collection
Soho No. 1
Quilt
Street Dancer
Exhibit Information
WHERE: 1000 Lawrence Ave W. Toronto, M6B 4A8 WHEN: May 1 – 31st HOURS OF OPERATION:
Monday – Wednesday 8am – 7pm
Thursday until 9pm
Friday until 4:45pm
Sunday 10:am – 5 pm by Appointment (416) 785 6666
“So here I am sitting in a corner
feeling the world around me, slowly caving in …
watching the walls coming closer
as I shrivel up into a ball
getting smaller and smaller …
Feeling the pressure incase me
trapping my soul …
For after death, my souls all I have,
and as I take my last breaths
I appreciate what life I have left …
just gotta live life with
NO REGRETS”
- Liza Mae (Drunken State in Kentucky – May 20, 2005)
another year of my life has passed and as I trace back my past … I smile with great appreciation. As of late, I started to look at all the people in my life with such love and appreciation that I am starting to feel all this love in my heart that it shows in everything I do. I’m sure the love was always there but I took it for granted and I apologize. Now that I’m starting to pay attention I feel truly loved. Maybe it is due to the fact that I started to look for love within myself and God that it transferred outwardly to people around me.
Press Play.
“My friends wonder what is wrong with me
‘Coz I’m caught up in a hazy love, you see
It’s comeback to let me know
Got a thing called love and it won’t let go
Love is the word, have you heard, it’s superb
It’s got groove, it’s got style, it’s got feeling
Love is the word that I’ve heard
It’s so hard to describe what it is that I’m feeling|
What you know about love?
The truest kinda love I know
Is when I love myself for my soul
What good am I to you if I don’t love myself
Before I love someone else?
The realest kinda love I know
Is when I learn to love and let go,
Sometimes you cannot hold on to
To the river when, when it flows”
- Sweet Back | Love is the Word
I have never felt this way before and I hope the feeling doesn’t fade. I appreciate everyone that has influenced my life in the most positive ways for you light up my life. The least I can do is show my appreciation.
I designed May 2011 desktop calendar wallpaper on LuxaVision and it is getting quite the traffic and it really excites me to see such progress in such a short time frame. I created this on PhotoShop CS4 – I know I should upgrade to CS5 but haven’t gotten around to it. It is one of those things on my to-do list but isn’t on high priority, so it happens on a random day like today. I was just gonna go to Timothy’s to relax and have a coffee with my MacBook Pro after a property showing and I walked by the Riverdale Mac store (which had such friendly and helpful staff – much better than the Apple store where it smells like foot funk) and it triggered a thought that I should get quote on how much it would be to get my DVD reader/burner replaced, which was a little bit more than I wanted to spend and made me inquire about upgrading my RAM. This was something on my to-do list as well and thought the best time is now! So I upgraded from 2GB to 8GB RAM awesomeness which will be 4x as fast! I thought it was more important than a burner for I am on my MacBook Pro majority of my day and I burn a CD/DVD a few times a year. So back to my point, I will eventually get to upgrading to PhotoShop CS5 but probably wait until CS6, knowing me, I mean I read that there aren’t significant changes between CS4 and CS5, so I’m not in rush, unless someone tells me something really cool about CS5 compared to CS4.
Three years have passed us by and I remember the first days our eyes crossed – it was just like yesterday. Something about those big brown eyes that had me mesmerized. I truly miss you and it sucks that we are at a distance but you are always close to my heart – near or far. I love you and I am blessed to have you in my life. Happy Anniversary Mi Amore.
Montreal in 2008
Montreal in 2008
This is a song that reminds me of 2008, the year we met | Estelle – You Are (Feat. John Legend).
Every Little
Every Little
The first time I met you
You were so quiet and cool you
Never thought that you would catch my heart the way you did
All of the sadness in passing
Making me feel like I’m past it
But you really end in the sweetest way
Oh I’m so commended by you
All in my music all you
Do you keeps me surfing on the hook that we can be together are you
I hope you listen to this
I hope you get to feel this
Because everything is you
Come on
Come close to me
Only your love can do me
Every little thing I do you are
Baby you know your special
I don’t care what the rest do
Every lttle thing I do you are
If love had a face then its you
Made for me how did you know
The best type of love who must have led you to hurt me
If there’s anything I can do
Let me know I’ll be a fool
But don’t take advantage coz I will hate to have to leave you
Your touch makes me feel like a woman
Takes me beyond feeling human
When you touch me oh the smell of you drives me drazy
When we’re alone its beautiful
makes me not want to leave you no
Everything is you
Come close to me
Only your love can do me
Every little thing I do you are
Baby you know your special
I don’t care what the rest do
Every lttle thing I do you are
Come close to me
Only your love can do me
Every little thing I do you are
Baby you know your special
I don’t care what the rest do
Every lttle thing I do you are
Ooh when your lying next to me
I can’t believe your next to me
It’s only us in this moment
No interuptions we’re focus
Tell you I’m glad I risked it
God knows that I would have missed it
You’re so amazing baby everything you do
come close to me
Only your love
Everything little thing I do you are
Baby you know your special
I don’t care about the rest
Everything little thing I do you are
Baby
Baby you are
Baby you are
Baby you are
Baby
I recently created a Tumblr page for Luxavision for I’ve been hearing about it everywhere I go and see many mentions from my feed on my Twitter. I’ve been holding off for I already have many things on my plate like managing multiple sites, starting a new project (to be released this week), managing a couple of properties, and so on – the list is endless but I finally jumped on the Social Media Bandwagon. The statistics alone just made me a little more curious for Tumblr currently has 16.5-million users/blogs, 4.5-billion current posts, and has about 26-million new posts per day!
I haven’t really submerged myself in to it but if you don’t know what Tumblr is, it basically is Twitter on crack. As quoted on Tumblr’s site,
“Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be.”
How-to Use Tumblr
I would use it mainly for sharing photography stuff from personal or inspirations but it is an open platform with endless opportunities. What I love about Tumblr is the simplicity and ease of use. This is Tumblr‘s Dashboard view from my browser:
I see many people use it to post photos with their iPhones and I think there is an app for BlackBerries too but I can’t be bothered to add another app on my CrapBerry. Once I get a new phone, I will be posting more on Tumblr but for now I will only update it when I am online.
Tumblr Free Themes
I haven’t really spent too much time modifying the theme, I just used one that was available for free, and eventually want to start following more people. I have probably spent 1-2 hours setting up an account, picking out a theme, and just exploring some basic options and this is what my Tumblr page looks like thus far. What do you think?
Tumblr Widget for WordPress
I am always looking for the latest and greatest plugins for WordPress and I was curious if someone had developed any of interest and I came across the Tumblr Recent Photos Widget created by V.J.Catkick. The plugin is self explanatory and acts like a Flickr RSS Feed but for Tumblr. It is ideal for my current layout and it is very easy to setup as long as your theme supports widgets. This is how the Tumblr Widget looks on my sidebar:
I hope that gave you more insight on Tumblr and don’t forget to Follow my LuxaVision Tumblr feed @ luxavision.tumblr.com.
I have been excited about shooting newborns since my first ever shoot with Baby Ayrianna. It is something I am passionate about and whenever the opportunity strikes, I get an immediate high. I used to think that newborn babies looked the same but after shooting them, you start to see the little features that resemble their parents, siblings, and other family members. On this day of the shoot, I met Baby Kyla’s mother Karolina B. (whom I went to elementary school with), father, brother, grandparents, and great grandparents. It was great energy having four generations around and seeing how different features transfer from generation to generation. I get close up look at the baby, so I can distinguish where they get their small lips, coloured eyes, nose, hair, etc.
This is the behind the scenes look of my photo shoot of newborn baby Kyla, pictures courtesy of Karolina B. This was taken in Baby Kyla’s grandparent’s home. My main source of lighting is natural lighting on my left and I usually have a bean bag for the baby to pose comfortably on. I have learned a lot from this shoot in terms of essential equipment to bring, number of looks on a shooting day, what baby poses work best, and many more (which I will talk about in another post – TBA). If you need a newborn baby photographer or know anyone who is expecting, referrals are welcome.
As I read through Zen Habits list of 75 Simple Pleasures I thought it would be nice to make a list of my own. I have always made these lists in my written journal but why not share it with the world. It is just simple things that make me smile and be happy. It is not too complicated nor costly, just simple. Sometimes these things are what keep me moving especially when the current is going against me.
Note: Not in any particular order, just random thoughts.
an edited excerpt from a journal entry I found when I was in the Philippines dated April 27, 2010.
+++
Today I woke up at 6am for I slept earlier due to exhaustion of the previous day. My cousin, Tonette, yelled to me to grab my camera. I ran to the patio deck that looked out to the sea and mountains that surrounded it. The breath of freshness refreshed my face and the smell of the salt water was like heaven.
Two months earlier I did not imagine this, sitting at my cubicle of my engineering job. I am content and I know the future has many brighter days ahead.
I am a twenty-somethings female photographer in search of love, the meaning of life, and adventure. I am passionate about anything photography from the snap to the click.
Montreal in 2008
Montreal in 2008
I hope that gave you more insight on 
