Thematic Photographic 126 - Night

Lunar soil
London, ON, September 2010

About this photo: We're kicking off our newest Thematic Photographic theme, night*. What's Thematic Photographic? Simply put, it's our weekly, absolutely non-competitive photo sharing activity. To participate, post a similarly-themed pic over on your blog or site, then leave a comment here to let folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to share in the goodness, and repeat the process as often as you wish. We also won't complain if you invite someone new to the picture party, too, as this is definitely a more-folks-is-better activity. More details available here, otherwise have fun with the theme!

The scene: I'm walking the dog on a cool late summer evening. He's his usual frenetic self, following his snorting nose from one tree to another, catching up on all the neighborhood doggie news as only he can. As we turn for home, I see the moon rising just above the horizon. I can almost touch it and feel the craters with my fingertips. I've never been much of an astro-specialist when it comes to photography, but I decide if I'm ever going to try, now's the time. So I encourage Frasier to skip to it so I can grab my camera and give it a go.

I won't be displaying the results at the university's next astronomy convention, but I'm still pleased I was able to bring something home that reminded me of that particular experience. Life moves so blindingly fast sometimes that I find myself struggling with sign-posting everyday moments along the way. Using the camera helps me ensure these moments don't dissolve into a sea of forgettable sameness.

This photo is one of those attempts to leave a stake in the ground. I hope it works.

Your turn: Does it? Do you use your camera to remember the everyday? How?

About the theme: There are no real rules when it comes to choosing photos to go along with a given theme. If it moves you and it's either closely or even remotely connected, toss it in and see what happens. Thematic Photographic is about expanding our optical horizons and having a bit of collaborative fun along the way. It isn't rigid, it isn't judgmental, and it isn't limited in any way. So if you took it at night, think it reminds you of the night, seems a little dark in terms of visuals or tone, or whatever, hit the publish button and see what happens. We can't wait to see what you come up with.

At the Stonecutter's Arms

Touch this
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, August 2010

Thought I'd throw in one final sepia-toned shot before we call an end to this rather well-received theme (here's where it all began.) It's been a wonderful week, thanks to everyone who's contributed, but all good things must eventually come to an end. Thankfully in my world, every ending is followed by another beginning, so tonight at 7 Eastern, we'll launch yet another theme: Night.

The neat thing about this shot is that I grabbed it in color and didn't post-process it. Sometimes, the light has a mind of its own before it works its way through the lens, onto the sensor, through the camera's circuitry and ultimately onto the memory card. I guess it was just a monochrome/sepia kind of scene to begin with.

Your turn: Now that we've had a week of sepia-toned goodness, it's time to reflect. What's the appeal of a scene without color?

One more thing: The title of this entry has a musical connection. Care to take a guess?

Vanity fair

Did you wash?
Montreal, QC, August 2010

It's hard to believe in the age of pervasive digital everything that photography was once a rarely used, rather expensive pursuit. Cameras came out only on special occasions, and the only pictures that resulted were rather conventional and repetitive. We're all familiar with the result - namely posed shots of groups of people standing next to each other and smiling uncomfortably into the lens - and aside from the folks actually in the shot, no one ever wants to see any of these pictures again.

Digital has turned the act of pressing the shutter into something less noteworthy. We no longer question whether or not it's worth it before we give our fingertip that final push. We shoot first and worry later, if at all. This has a bit of a dark side, of course, as we risk not thinking through a given scene because "we can always play with it later." Once upon a time there was no going back once we took the shot. Now, of course, everything's editable. Still, this is a minor quibble, for anything that encourages more creativity can't necessarily be a bad thing.

In my own case, I find myself taking far more everyday-mundane pictures than I ever did in the era of film. I use the process not as a final canvas - which film was - but as a place to begin exploring. I'm less afraid to experiment - and fail - because I figure I'll learn something new along the way.

On this day, we were visiting friends, and the still-life-timelessness of the washroom that faced the family room was too good to pass up. In the end, the scene isn't spectacular, it isn't huge, it isn't iconic in any way. But it's as real as it gets to the folks who live here. And after years of being passed over in favor of two-dimensional head shots, it was this washroom's turn to pose.

Your turn: As sepia winds down, I hope you'll pull out an ordinary-themed pic of your own. Just go here to get started. New Thematic theme launches tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 p.m. Eastern. I'll announce precisely what that theme will be in the morning...still mulling it over, and still open to suggestions.

Light me up

Diffused light
Toronto, ON, August 2010
[Click here for more sepia]

The Festival of Light, better known as Chanukah, gets underway today. Why does this matter? Because it isn't only grey outside my window; it's grey everywhere else. It isn't always something we see, either. It's a feeling, a sense that we can be better to each other, that we can try harder to look out for the other guy instead of for ourselves, that we can be less quick to judge and more quick to let our gentle side come out.

It's not that difficult. It starts with a little light.

Your turn: Fixing the world. In your world, where does it start?

Don't tread on me

Step to it
Montreal, QC, August 2010
[Click here for more Thematic sepia]

Sure, they're just stairs. But they're delightfully old and worn, and if they could talk they'd probably have such stories to tell of their countless summers and winters by the water at the far end of the island of Montreal.

After I took this picture, I closed my eyes and wondered what stories those might be.

Your turn: Care to share one?

Yesterday's database

Historical drawers
London, ON, February 2010

About this photo: Thematic Photographic, our weekly photo sharing activity, is exploring sepia-toned images through Thursday. If you've got one (or two, or...) that you'd like to share, click here and have at it.

I date myself when I say I remember going to the library and starting every research effort with a trip through the card catalog. You never quite knew where these endless drawers of time-worn, dog-eared cards would send you, and that, I think, was half the fun. The other half was simply drinking in the experience. I can still smell the wood and feel the drawers open and close. You took your time moving from one to the other as you tried to build up the best possible shortlist of finds.

It was never as ruthlessly efficient as a Google search, of course, and when you were back home well after midnight, you were pretty much up a creek if your original research was somewhat lacking (yes, I speak from hard-earned experience.) But no search engine could ever deliver the kind of visceral experience of rooting through the card catalog. It was deliberate, and it required you to show up ready to invest a little of yourself in the process. So whenever I come across an old library, I try to explore the drawers a bit to remind myself of what it once felt like.

I admit I miss it a little.

Your turn: What do we lose as we move from real to virtual?

WikiLeaks sucks

Deliberately hyperbolic headline aside, I'm evolving my feelings toward WikiLeaks. What was first launched as a somewhat altruistic endeavour designed to give political dissidents and whistleblowers a safe haven, a voice and a place to share their message without fear of reprisals from oppressive governments, regimes and organizations, has evolved into a somewhat different, more malevolent animal.

As the world watches the third major release of sensitive documents - this time it's U.S. diplomatic docs, while earlier this year it was the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts that had their inner workings shared with the world - I've been watching founder Julian Assange explain the rationale for his organization's actions. And I find what I'm hearing to be somewhat disturbing.

On the surface, there isn't anything in any of these documents that comes as a surprise. International sniping is a hallmark of the diplomatic process. Is this embarrassing? Sure. But shocking? Hardly.

What raises my antenna is the fact that we now have a process, a pipeline if you will, for disgruntled employees of any entity - government, military, private organization, whatever - to hoover huge amounts of data onto a flash drive, then upload it to this site. Got an axe to grind? The Web now has an answer for you. And Mr. Assange will happily accommodate you under the umbrella of "transparency".

Never mind that this is a pretty grotesque bastardization of proper journalistic process. Never mind that the checks and balances that have long governed the craft are nowhere to be seen. Never mind that no one seems to care whether the greater good is being served here. Make them public, says Mr. Assange. Let the world see what they're really like, he adds, and who really cares about the consequences, anyway?

I do. I spoke with CTV Parliamentary Correspondent Richard Madan yesterday, and he included a clip from the interview in a report he ran on CTV's national newscast at 11. Newscast link is here. Report link is here, and I've embedded the report below.

I also discussed it with Craig Needles from London's AM980, Gary Doyle of Kitchener's 570News, and Jessica Samuels from Kelowna's AM1150. Yahoo! Canada Finance published my article - Wikileaks leak a wakeup call for business - on October 29th. I suspect the discussion - and the leaks that spawned it - will continue for some time.

Your turn: Is WikiLeaks a force of good, a force of evil or something in between?

Supercharged wireless: One step closer

Canadians are endlessly fascinating people. We're fascinating for more reasons that I can probably count - and certainly more than you'd be interested in reading here. So I'll pick just one: We love to complain.

We don't just complain. We whine. We moan. We bitch. Bitterly. Passionately. Endlessly. Gloriously.

Yes, I said gloriously. Because we wouldn't be the same if we didn't get into it on a regular basis. Life wouldn't be as rich if we simply sat back and took it. Because of our long winters and sparse population density, our expertise in complaining is probably the one thing that keeps us warm. And sane.

One of our favorite - oops, favourite; I keep forgetting the u - complaint subject revolves around wireless service. Whether it's an old-style cell phone or a newfangled, all singing, all dancing smartphone, we love to complain about how much wireless service costs us and what we get in return.

So when our Industry Minister, a gentleman named Tony Clement, announced the long-term timeline for our country's next major wireless auction, I saw it as an opportunity to write an article that explained why this was significant. Long story short, the next bunch of spectrum that's being auctioned off to wireless carriers will be in the 700 MHz and 2,500 MHz ranges. The former is of particular interest, because it'll underpin the next generation of super-high-speed, all singing, all dancing wireless networks. The service is broadly known as 4G (for 4th generation wireless) and it'll be pretty damn cool when it gets here.

The Toronto Star published my article - The 4G revolution: Canadians face hurdles in search for faster wireless - in today's paper (yes, Joe Jackson fans, I know some folks read it in the Sunday paper) and I've included the little graphic here because it led the business section. Coolness.

Your turn: Three questions, actually. 1) What country do you live in? 2) Are you pleased with your wireless service? 3) Why/why not?

One more thing: I've added a page to the blog that summarizes my published Toronto Star articles. The link is at the top of the page, just below the Written Inc. logo. Or just click here.

Life, the Universe and Everything

Safe haven
Montreal, QC, August 2010

About this photo: We're sharing sepia-toned pictures as part of this week's Thematic. Go here to share yours, or here to learn how the whole thing works. Or just read on if you're in the mood to be amused.

You don't see public lockers too often these days. Security concerns - thanks, Osama - have prompted places like airports and shopping malls to pull them out. Which means we're rapidly running out of places to store the burgeoning piles of stuff we inevitably accumulate when we're out and about.

Bowling alleys are, somewhat interestingly, exempt from this trend. I'm thinking the average cave-dwelling terrorist doesn't curse the Brunswick name at least once every waking moment, and hasn't identified these temples of childhood and post-retiree recreation as worthwhile targets of misplaced, hatred-driven opportunity.

Which is just as well, because places like this are interesting throwbacks to a simpler time*, and I'd hate to think of a world without strikes, spares, gutter balls and really cheesy-looking shirts. It strangely brings me comfort to know bowling alleys continue to survive and thrive.

Your turn: It's easy to dismiss bowling as a ridiculously stupid pastime. Throw a ball down a lane; knock down some pins; repeat. But I suspect there's more to it than that. What's its appeal, then?

One more thing: Why 42? I didn't even realize its significance until I composed the shot. Once I did, I had a good laugh. Which made total strangers look up and furrow their brows in my general direction. I hope fans of the late Douglas Adams enjoy the numeric reference.

--
* Disclosure: My mother dragged my very young self to her bowling league at a place in Chomedey known, then as now, as the Recreatheque. To this day, walking into any bowling alley ignites memories of sitting on the creaky, two-toned plastic seats while the ladies clucked around me in between frames. I took this picture, as an adult, as my wife and kids watched my now-retired mother bowl with her league. It was a good day, and definitely a circle of life-type moment.

The towers that connect us

Telecommunication
Palm Beach, FL
December 2008
[Click here for more sepia]

I often write about mobile devices and the wireless networks that make them come alive. So when I'm wandering the hinterlands of this crazy continent of ours, I seem to notice every last iota of technological infrastructure.

Some would call these cell towers ugly. I'm no authority on what defines beauty (except for anything that applies to my wife, of course) but I'll admit I wouldn't want one of these things in my back yard. Or my neighborhood. Or anywhere remotely near any place where I spend any appreciable amount of time.

But like most nimby-esque cell phone tower haters, I willingly consume the bandwidth they pump out. I use my BlackBerry to make work happen, to connect with my family and to keep a window open on the world around me. I realize that the magical wizardry of any technology often comes with a bit of a dark side, and the answer (i.e. towers bad, not here) is never as simple as we wish it could be.

So I like to linger a little whenever I find myself near one of these towers. They're the perfect example of built-to-a-purpose engineering. Nothing is wasted, especially the effort to make any of it look good. Aesthetics? Not so much.

But then I circle back to that whole I'm-no-authority-on-beauty thing. Who says this isn't beautiful in its own way? Who says anything - or anyone - is or is not lovely in its own way? Who elected us final arbiters, anyway?

Your turn: How do you define beauty?

Thematic Photographic 125 - Sepia

Linear
Montreal, QC, August 2010

Sepia: A brown pigment obtained from the inklike secretion of various cuttlefish and used with brush or pen in drawing. Photography: A print or photograph made in this color. Source: Dictionary.com

Sepia: The theme for this week's Thematic Photographic. To participate, please post a similarly themed pic on your blog, then leave a comment here. Click here for the details on how TP works. Or just dive in and see what develops. Source: Me.

I'm fascinated by sepia for the same reasons that I'm fascinated by monochrome photography in general, because it strips away the patina of color and leaves you with composition and light to tell the story. It's a little simpler, a little more spare. Sepia adds an additional dimension to basic monochrome that seems to pull the entire scene back in time. Just a little. Just enough to let the viewer wonder what it must have been like before...

Before what is up to you. The point is that we take the time to imagine. Which is why we shoot, why we look at and appreciate the results, and why we never stop looking forward to our next stint behind the lens.

Your turn: I've got a hunch that you've got lots of sepia-toned scenes to share over the next week. So I'll step back and get out of your way. If you're still wondering how this all works, just click here.

Blinded by the light

The Green Lantern
London, ON
October 2010
[Click here for more candid Thematic]

I'm going to bet that this guy had no idea his picture was being taken. I'm also going to bet that he was probably rendered temporarily blind by an apparent explosion of Jello-green brilliance.

I've never been much of a party animal, so I haven't spent huge amounts of time being bathed by laser light filtered through fog machines while dance music assaults my eardrums with the subtlety of a Hummer H1 churning through the dunes on a protected stretch of seashore. Yet I found myself entranced by the scene and wondered if it was even remotely possible to somehow paint it on a memory card.

Short answer: Yes, it is possible.

Long answer: I need to party a little more. Although I've never felt I needed to eat, drink and be merry to, you know, actually be merry, there's a certain coolness associated with tossing yourself onto the dance floor and just enjoying the moment. I won't be making a nightly habit of it, of course, but as an occasional escape, I suspect it'll be good for the old soul.

Your turn: Why we party. Please discuss.

One more thing: I know you've all been having so much fun with this week's candid theme, but all good things must eventually come to an end. New theme, sepia, goes live Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. If you've got any residual candidness left, click now or not-quite-forever hold your peace.

Black Friday approaches...

It's been a busy writing week so far, and there's more goodness to come from my pen.

Wait, I lie. I'm not using a pen. I'm using a laptop. The last time I wrote something from start to finish in pen was probably in high school. And I'm sure my English teacher went blind from trying to decipher my scrawl. Typing's definitely my thing now, so I'm not sure why I still cling to the notion of "picking up my pen," but I guess it's easier and more artful than "picking up my HP laptop."

Yahoo! Canada Finance has just published my latest piece. If you're Canadian and you're looking across the border for some Black Friday or Cyber Monday bargains, the article, Black Friday is all green for Canadians, may be helpful.

I've also set up a page for everything I've written for Yahoo! Click here to see more.

Enjoy!

Is this bird truly candid?

Are you looking at me?
Deerfield Beach, FL, December 2009
[Click photo to embiggen]
[Click here for more candid photo silliness]

I may be stretching things here. I initially selected this photo for this entry because I figured shooting fast-moving birds is about as candid as you can get. Birds don't smile - at least as far as I can tell - and they don't pose. At least not in the way your sequin-gowned Aunt Wilhemina does when she grabs anyone within arm's reach and crinkles her face into a megawatt fake-smile in the general direction of the camera.

Yet the more I looked at this photo, the more I realized the gull was Looking Straight At Me. If he (she?) were a mangy dog, it would be a Cujo moment and I would suddenly hear ominous music play in my head as the blood nervously rushed out of the rest of my body. But Stephen King was nowhere to be found. So we'll have to go with heavily modified Edgar Allen Poe instead.

Oops, literary tangent there. Sorry. So, the bird's not exactly unaware of my presence. Which makes this photo not-quite-candid. But I'll share it here anyway. Because rules were made to be broken. And I like this photo. More importantly, I like that it reminds me of a day when everything in my world was zooming along pretty nicely. Days at the beach will do that to ya.

Your turn: He (she?) is thinking something. I just can't quite put my finger on it. Can you?

He shoots, he scores

Focused
London, ON, September 2010

Quick note: This photo supports Thematic Photographic's candid theme. Please click here to participate. It won't hurt.

We never really know how our kids will turn out. We do our best as parents, of course, by learning from our mistakes and from the mistakes of others. Sometimes, it seems like a never-ending, open-ended lab experiment, one that leaves you wondering if all you've done is enough.

The upshot of it all is that there really is no way to know. There isn't a teacher sitting at the front of the class, waving an exam with a letter grade on it. There's no end-of-semester, no finish line, no established metrics for knowing if you've passed or failed. But that's the way it is, so we deal with it.

A small token of validation sometimes comes from watching these little versions of us follow somewhat tentatively in our footsteps. Don't get me wrong, the last thing I'd ever want is for our kids to be carbon copies of us. They're their own people, and nothing brings us greater pride than to watch them follow, without fear, their own path through life. But I admit I get a little jolt of happiness when I see them cross my path, however fleetingly.

For example, all of our kids have become very comfortable around and motivated by cameras and photography. I've never pushed it on them, but I guess a lifetime of having lenses stuck in their faces has rubbed off. Our daughter just got her first Nikon, and she carries it with her wherever she goes. We review her work together and then she heads out and shoots some more. Listening to her talk about the joy she gets from recording the world around her is, frankly, a joy for me, too.

Here, our son explores the nearly-deserted restaurant around us (see here for a scene from the same night.) He was so careful and deliberate with his composition that I couldn't not pick up my wife's camera and record him, too. It made me happy knowing he was happily exploring this place through the lens. My lens. Maybe this parenting thing is going to work out, after all.

Your turn: Are your kids like you? Are you like your parents?

Off to the penalty box

Disciplinary action
London, ON, September 2010
[Click here for more Thematic candidness]

You may be surprised to learn that London has a hockey team, the Knights. They play in the Ontario Hockey League - not exactly the big leagues, but it's something we see more as an advantage than anything else.

See, we're a small-ish town, so we'll never have our own major league team. We get that. But it's that smallness that seems to play to our advantage. Games here are still affordable for the average family (vs. a four-figure night for the average Toronto Maple Losers fan) and sitting in the stands still feels like you're part of a community instead of a slick, marketing-driven, moneymaking machine. It filters down to the ice, too, as the players, still working their way up through the hockey hierarchy, haven't become megabuck, megawatt stars.

To wit, Daniel Erlich, #92, who plays centre. He visited our kids' school last year as part of the team's community outreach efforts, and they've been avidly following his progress ever since. He's being billeted by a family we know in the community, and he's been a regular guest on a radio morning show. He isn't a superstar - yet - but he's already the kind of person, a good soul with a tremendous work ethic, that my kids want to emulate.

So when we attended a recent game, I followed him with my camera for a bit because I knew the kids would love to have a picture or two of their favorite player. I've long been critical of how sports has tainted our definition of hero, but a hometown team like the Knights, with good kids like Erlich on the roster, is enough to soften my formerly curmudgeonly attitude.

Maybe he can teach the Maple Losers a thing or two about good sportsmanship, too.

Your turn: Can major/minor league sport ever return to its simpler roots?

Please don't squeeze the Charmin

Soft and strong
Toronto, ON
July 2010

About this photo: Thematic Photographic is celebrating candid this week. If you've got a candid shot you'd like to share - or if you just want to see what all the fuss is about - click here.

On a good day, shooting in public is a bit of a highwire act. In this post-9/11 era of paranoia, pulling out a big lens in a wide-open space may not be the smartest thing to do.

But done carefully, with quick, unobtrusive camera technique and a specific focus on avoiding identifying features, public photography is still, if not easy, at least possible. And a good challenge.

So as my brother-in-law and I wandered through Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre on a bright afternoon, I looked over his shoulder and saw Ms. Charmin here. I think he knew I wanted to shoot her before I did. I already had the camera in my hand, so I wheeled and shot. As you can see, composition, focus and exposure are more than a little off. This shot won't be winning any awards, and I highly recommend against clicking it to zoom in - it's just that lousy. In fact, I came pretty close to deleting it off the camera. I kept coming back to it, kicking myself for not being more meticulous.

But that's the thing with candid shots: You may not have the opportunity for meticulousness. When you have zero time to think things through, a flawed result is often better than no result at all. Because photography doesn't always have to be perfect. The world it records, after all, is far from it.

Your turn: Do you self-edit less-than-perfect shots out of your archives? Do you sometimes wish you had held onto something that didn't make the technical grade?

The Running Man

Reckless abandon
London, ON, September 2010
[Thematic explores candid this week. You can, too, by clicking here]

It was the first day of school and for some odd reason I found myself standing on the roof of our kids' school. I'd been asked to take a group picture of all the kids in the school, so I figured a high-up perspective would make the resulting shot a bit more interesting than the usual head-on pose.

This was one of those nice-in-theory, not-so-great-in-reality ideas of mine, because once I went upstairs through the smokey hallways (please, don't ask) and climbed out on an adjacent balcony before hopping the fence onto the asphalt and definitely not human-friendly rooftop, I approached the side of the building and realized just how much space now separated me from terra firma. So I tiptoed near the edge and, as I waited for the bell to ring - perfect time to shoot was when they'd be lining up to head inside - I practiced on my kids to make sure I could shoot without suffering from vertigo.

Little man made it easy, because true to form he was his usual happy-to-the-core-of-his-being self. He hadn't yet spotted me in my sniper-like perch, so I quietly snapped away as he went about the very serious business of being a munchkin. As you can see, It's hard to avoid feeling his energy, and wishing that more of it would rub off.

Your turn: What's he thinking?

Thematic Photographic 124 - Candid

Real or not?
Laval, QC, November 2010
[Click photo to embiggen]

Welcome to the new Thematic Photographic theme, candid. If you're new to our weekly photo sharing activity, the deal is actually pretty simple: Post a pic to your blog or web site, then leave a comment here letting people know where to find it. Feel free to visit other participants to share the joy. Repeat often. It's not a competition...just an informal way to stretch our photographic bounds a bit. Click here for more background, otherwise, buckle up for the ride...

About this pic: I'm in a shopping mall - Carrefour Laval - with my mom. I've been shopping for shoes, of all things, because my beloved old Sperry Top-Siders decided to wear out somewhere between London and Montreal. We're wandering through the top floor of The Bay - think old-style retail that's been around, I kid you not, for 340 years. As I pass a window display, I notice the silhouetted mannequins and make a mental note to return, because the aesthetic speaks to me.

Before long, we're done here, so we turn to leave. I remember the scene and ask my mom to follow me while we make a slight detour. I reach into my camera bag and pull out...my wife's camera. I sweep into the general area only to be confronted by a well-coiffed saleslady who masks the cigarette wrinkles on her face with too much makeup and burned-red dyed hair. She asks if she can help me. I flash a shopping bag from the Bay, identify myself as a journalist, and in rapid-fire Quebecois-joual French, tell her I'm taking a picture.

It's more a statement than anything else. I don't ask for permission and I don't wait for a response. I just sprawl down on my stomach - I figure a low angle works best - and quickly compose. People stop and stare. One less observant soul, the man on the left of this shot, wanders into the shot, apparently unaware that I'm shooting (and probably about to get my sorry tail kicked out of the store.)

But I don't want to be here very long in case the mall-rent-a-cops have been summoned. So I trip the shutter anyway. He wanders away before I shoot the second and third shots, but a quick check of the screen to ensure I've got something to justify this insane stunt confirms that the first shot is the keeper. I bubble about it with my mom as I get into the car, and indeed for the entire drive home. It's my favorite picture from the trip, and I hope you enjoy it, too.

Your turn: This week's theme, candid, is all about capturing people when they may not be aware you're doing so. It's about telling stories of people as they are, not as they're trying to be. It can take any form - remember, photography has nothing to do with right and wrong - and I know you'll have fun with it. As we've done in previous weeks, I'd like add a slight twist this week by encouraging each of you to bring along a friend for the photographic ride. This thing becomes even more fun the bigger it gets, no?

One more thing: I think I may have inadvertently teased this week's theme as sepia. Apologies for the confusion. I'll queue sepia up for next week.

Another view of the non-electric chair

Perspectives
London, ON, October 2010

Remember this shot? I used it to launch last week's Thematic, and at the time I promised I'd share the story behind it. In actuality, it's a simple one:

We were at a local restaurant for dinner and as we waited for our server to bring the kids something or other, I found myself wandering around the edge of the unusually quiet eatery. I tend to do that when things slow down. I'm not restless by nature, but quiet moments seem to give me time to think about my surroundings. And that inevitably leads to impromptu photography if I can avoid ticking off my very understanding wife in the process.

On this night, I had free rein, so I slowly moved around the space while the kids bantered with each other. All was right with the world, and I felt like the proverbial fly on the wall, observing unobtrusively from a distance, enjoying the simple act of being there.

Of course, nothing's ever perfectly simple with me. I almost tripped over this chair, tucked into temporary storage beside a wall and as I collected myself, realized it was just the kind of solid, peaceful scene that would forever remind me of this moment. I shot it in both black and white and color, and from different angles. Because perspective is all about how you choose to position yourself, and how you choose to view the world around you.

You just have to remember to take the time.

Your turn: How do you grab onto moments that matter?

One more thing: Thematic launches in less than two hours with its new theme: candid.