Every now and then, Kylo Ren made an appearance accompanied by two stormtroopers. Notwithstanding the park’s ban on guns—even toy guns—the stormtroopers carried blasters and swaggered, stiff-torsoed, like they were US Marines.
Tag: Travel
A Scottish Journal
My wife, Tamiko, and I spent a week in Glasgow to celebrate our friend’s appointment as minister of Glasgow Cathedral. Naturally, I came equipped with my camera. The following is drawn from notes I scrawled along the way:
Ride For A Cure
In September of 2017, my wife, Tamiko, and I joined the Linton family in the Republic of Ireland for a cycling adventure to help raise funds for the Sanfilippo Children’s Research Foundation.
Rome, 1978
While in Rome, we did as the Romans do, and lined up to file past the body as it lay in state. Although not Roman Catholic, it seemed necessary. After all, how often do you get to see a dead Pope? If I had closed my eyes and focused solely on the mood of the crowd, I would have sworn that I was standing in line for Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean.
Tintern Abbey, 1978
The first question that entered my head was: What happened to the roof? As a Canadian boy, I had no experience of medieval anything. My experience of sacred architecture was pretty much confined to churches built in the postwar suburban boom.
Speakers’ Corner 1978
It is arguable that in the summer of 1978 the whole world felt an innocent pause, a shining moment in time when people of the West could pretend there was nothing pressing at the doorstep. Saigon had fallen which meant American and Vietnamese kids weren’t getting killed anymore. A peanut farmer was President of the US of A. Canada’s leader was a playboy/media darling who seemed to swing the world by its tail.
Scottish Scenes
Some of these images are exercises in poor-weather photography. Overcast sky. Threat of rain. Absence of shadows. The last image stands as proof that the sun can indeed shine in Scotland, though not reliably. All these images, regardless of weather & lighting conditions, have at least one thing in common. They all break a basic “rule” of photography: don’t run the horizon line through the centre of your image; place it on one of the lines dividing the image into thirds.
Glasgow Street Photography
Over the past year, I’ve had the good fortune to find myself in some of the world’s best locales for street photography: Manhattan, Hong Kong, & Singapore. Although Glasgow is much smaller by comparison, it shares the vibe that makes these larger cities such great places to shoot.
Jellyfish
Last week, we stayed overnight at a beach south of Dunure on the west coast of Scotland. At low tide, we were able to walk along the sand to Culzean Castle. If we’d been more ambitious, we could have continued along to the village of Maidens where Donald Trump has lent his name to a luxury resort. If we’d been really ambitious, we would have duffed golf balls through the windows, but why waste perfectly good balls?
Long Shadows
The light is different in Thunder Bay. That’s someone from Toronto—a southerner—talking. I’m used to the moderate light of Toronto’s gentler seasonal variations. In Thunder Bay, during the summer, the evening light lingers and casts long shadows down to the lake.
Katherine Cove
When I drive up the eastern shore of Lake Superior, I usually pull into Old Woman Bay. With its wide vista stretching out into Superior, it’s a perennial favourite with the tourists. However, photographically speaking, she’s a bitch. Maybe not a bitch. She’d be interesting as a bitch. Mostly, she’s boring. It’s all very beautiful, scenic, expansive, colourful, etc. But so what? Far more interesting, to my mind, is Katherine Cove which lies a little to the south on the same shoreline.
Traffic in Hong Kong
When people ask me if I would ever consider living off the grid, I sometimes think they’re talking about traffic patterns. I’m used to living in a city where streets are laid out in straightforward north-south, east-west lines. It’s hard to get lost and traffic is predictable. But grid planning is contingent upon physical geography.
Hong Kong Street Photography pt. II
The title for this post implies that I shot these photos in Hong Kong. In fact, I shot them in Kowloon. I’m not sure if that matters. If I lived in Hong Kong, I suppose it would. Last week, I spoke to friends who grew up in Hong Kong. He grew up on the island; she grew up in Kowloon. They way they told it, you’d think he was going out with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks.
Hong Kong Street Photography pt. I
