First post of the New Year! Sorry for being so distant from this blog.
A Few weeks ago I had the chance to sit down with my friends in The Acorn and record a short video of their new song Rapids (Mere de la Chaudiere). It was for the Herd Mag Sessions and as a perparation for their show tonight at the blacksheep inn. I’m still relatively new to the world of filmmaking, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out.
The Acorn – Herd Mag Sessions from Herd Magazine on Vimeo.
Afterwards I did a shoot with frontman Rolf Klausener for Ottawa Mag for an online feature they were doing on him. Here are a few photos from that shoot as well as couple from his feature in Herd Magazine issue 02 (out now!)
Herd Mag:
Ottawa Mag
Local Ottawa shop Top Of The World was recently featured on Transworld Business as one of the top shops in the country. I shot the photos for the feature and of the owners, Corey and Eric. I have developed a great friendship with these guys over the last few years and I couldn’t imagine better people to run this great shop.
Eric and I actually went to the same highschool in Timmins, only he’s a few years older than I am and graduated before I got there…ha.
I know I haven’t been updating this much. We’ve been working hard on Issue 02 of Herd Mag! Issue 01 was such an incredible success and everyone can check it out HERE.
Here are a couple of shots of Eric and Corey goofing off.
My good friends in A Tribe Called Red leave today for their first international tour! I’m so stoked for these guys and they totally deserve all the good that comes their way.
Their tour poster came out last week and to my pleasure one of my most recent photos of them was used!
I recently collaborated with local Ottawa shop Top Of The World to raise money for Breast Cancer research! I shot a series of 5 photos, 1 of them being of my good friend Justine who beat breast cancer and was willing to display the after effects.
I thought of the concept earlier with my friend KK, who also works at Top. We wanted to show that no matter your size, color, cup size, you can be affected by breast cancer. Pretty simple concept, so i wanted the images to stand out but also share the same simplicity. While I love how the 4 others images turned out, it was Justine’s that really resonated through me. I’ve had many friends who have been affected by breast cancer, good friends who no longer have a mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, because of it. I wanted to take a different route from the more upbeat organizations who are raising money and i wanted people to be shocked by it. I also wanted to show that people can overcome it.
The photos were printed on canvas (courtesy of CanvasPop) as well as on limited edition t-shirts and tank tops (printed by Skoser Clothing in Ottawa). The shirts are currently available at Top Of The World, and I might have the prints available online in the near future.
A big thank you to the girls who participated, to Top Of The World who helped it come to fruition and to Skoser for printing the tee. We look forward to making this an annual occurance.
Also, Herd Magazine is coming next week…yep.
A couple of weeks ago, my friends Protest The Hero played a little show just outside of Ottawa on their way back from Heavy MTL! I hadn’t seen them since tour in April, so I was looking forward to hanging out with them again.
Those of you who are big fans of PTH know how much they love Star Trek. So as a little surprise, George Thoms (promoter and pal) decided to play Star Trek Nemesis on the opposing wall from the stage for the guys to watch while they played. It was pretty funny and made for some interesting photos. I only snapped a couple, but i like how they turned out.
My lovely friends are all getting married! This is Clare and Cory, they’re fantastic and let me be a part of their special day.
This is one of the many things that has been keeping me quiet in the last little while, more stuff to come!
My good friend Steve St-Pierre drew this of me the other day. I love it and wanted to share!
Sorry I’ve been laying low on here, Herd Magazine’s first issue is almost finished!
Last week I got a call to shoot my friends from A Tribe Called Red for a new special collaboration with Robbie Lariviere from Fall Down Gallery. The following photos are of Robbie getting the special backdrop ready for the shoot.
If you don’t know who A Tribe Called Red are, you haven’t been listening. They were also named among the greatest musicians in the country by the great people at Polaris Music Prize. Their latest album (download here) has been making waves not only here in Canada, but around the world. Not only is their music unreal and impossible to not dance to, they are amazing people and always a blast to photograph.
I think now is a great time to post about the biggest project in my life right now.
When i first moved to Ottawa in 2009, i kept hearing from so many people how terrible the arts scene was or how weak the music scene was. And even today for some people in the city, it still may seem to be. However, I have been fortunate enough over the last 3 and a half years to meet some incredibly talented people who are there pushing the arts forward despite the challenge that lay before them. My goal has been to contribute to this thriving scene and help these people bring ottawa arts to more people in the city and outside of it.
This is what motivated myself, along with my friends Stephanie Vicente and Steve St-Pierre, to start Herd Magazine. Herd Magazine is Ottawa’s newest Arts&Culture magazine, providing the city with high quality and provocative content on a quarterly basis. Our publication is unique to the region as we value exceptionally progressive writing and design equally. We are proudly unconventional and naturally alternative. Herd Magazine aims to stimulate the young adults of our city with bold words and intrepid visuals. Content is developed to reflect and endorse the capital`s creative professionals. We are not superficial. We are about the intellectual and creative livestock that fabricate local culture. Our contributors are strictly Ottawa natives or Ottawa residents who are active in the arts and culture community. We’ve put bread and bones behind our magazine because we believe in the revival of quality printed press. Now we invite you to share this passion.
I am confident in Ottawa’s arts community. I believe we have some of the most talented individuals in the country and we want to provide them with the stage to display the art they want to create and not what they have to create for money (although we can still show that too if it’s rad as fuck).
We want to work with as many people as we possibly can. We are still really small and as of right now it is a labor of love to benefit Ottawa’s artistic and cultural roots. We are also currently accepting submissions here with all of our guidelines to doing so.
Still going through photos from tour. I’m working on a bunch of other stuff since I’ve been home too and i’ll be doing a separate post about that a little later. Until then, here’s a photo of my friend Moe Carlson from Protest The Hero during their show in Philadelphia, PA, the last day of tour!
