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Ivy’s Favourite.

Okay, so I didn’t win in Monday’s 86’d Food Photography Awards, but I did place in Ivy’s Favourites! 

Ivy decided not to be a judge, but instead to select a set of her favourites from those not short-listed by the judges.  She picked 5 favourites from each of the 6 categories and my photo entitled Strained was one of her 5 favourites in the Things category!

And funnily enough it was the one I was most hesitant to enter.

Guess next year I’ll select more images including the 3 themes in the shortlisted images: humour, body parts and lol-birds. I.e. photos that tell stories.

Take The Blue Line

Take The Blue Line -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

A little photo play out in the cold with the TTC and the Olympus filters. I
should, of course, be a little more focused on crossing the street safely!

Longo’s: And The Winner of the Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular is….

With Rochelle campaigning HARD for her photo to win and her diligence paid off as she garnered over 300 votes!  She even incited people to go vote because it was a photo of her in her holiday lingerie.

Here’s how she described Festive Breakfast:

My flatmate snapped this photo of me cooking breakfast. We had rudely been awakened by our fire alarm at 5:30 so we thought we would make the best of it and eat breakfast together. Not sure if I'm my favourite holiday cook but it was captured in the moment.

Unfortunately, we don’t have prizes for 2nd place, but with over 180 votes Steven Da Local Chef Wilson showed very well too!

Steven described Prepping in The Garden as follows:

 

Prepping in The Garden was taken by my wife as I was preparing the  family lunch. It was such a beautiful day outside I couldn’t bear to stay inside, so I took my prep work outside.

Thank goodness for flatmates, wives and Gerry or we’d never have photos of our favourite cooks in action!!

Congratulations Rochelle!  I’ll email you with details on picking up your prize at Longo’s Maple Leaf Square tomorrow!

 

Thanks for all the great photos submitted by the talented: @tongueandcheek @DaLocalChef @andreat76 @rochlatinsky @ruyoung @Digiteyes @BetsyYeung @katesalter1 and a couple more.

Note: this post and this event were both part of my Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador series.  For more information on my relationship with Longo’s read about my Foodie Adventure: Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador! and my disclosure statement

Longo’s: Vote in the Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular

I need your help to pick the winner in the Longo’s Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular  Winner gets a New Year’s Eve Surf & Turf Spectacular Dinner from Longo’s.  That will include four steaks, bag of shrimp and lobster tails and a selection of other Longo’s goodies.

The Winner will be announced Dec 29th after 3pm based on the most votes received. So I need you to vote!

Please vote on your favourite(s) - up to 3.

Now it’s time to vote for your favourite photo of their favourite cook in action!

 

Photos submitted by the talented: @tongueandcheek @DaLocalChef @andreat76 @rochlatinsky @ruyoung @Digiteyes @BetsyYeung @katesalter1 and a couple more.

Note: this post and this event were both part of my Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador series.  For more information on my relationship with Longo’s read about my Foodie Adventure: Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador! and my disclosure statement

Dramatic Walkabout in Chinatown

I was recently given an Olympus Pen Lite (E-PL3) to test and evaluate (the white one on the bottom left).

And while I haven’t had much time lately to play with it due to the Pickle, HoHoTO and the holiday, I have been using it regularly.  It has actually become my go-to camera and I’ve and found myself reaching for it before my SLR because of it’s size.  It’s small and easy to carry around in my hand while I walk, which means I’m shooting more again even though I don’t have time to process all the images and play with all the features.

I have, however, fallen in love with the dramatic mode! (On the camera people!) It's an Art Mode (Art 6) that jacks up the contrast and saturation. And you can use it in manual setting shooting as well as the quick Art and Scene setting when you want the camera to do the thinking for you.  There are 5 other Art Modes, but this one gives the kind of intensity and boldness I like in many of my street shots. Without any post processing. 

And, as it turns out, makes shooting snow at night in Chinatown great fun! 

Photos all over my desk!

Photos all over my desk! -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

Our recent trip home resulted in a pile of beautiful photos of friends,
water, food, and family.
Since it's not really practical to share the digitally with dad, I've
decided to print some off for him. And maybe for inclusion in the day book.
I got carried away.

The Final Chapter in the My Camera is a Lemon Saga

And finally the continuing saga of the camera that was a lemon and the camera manufacturer who let me down.

And I'll skip to the end for those of you who are end-readers, and/or have the attention span of a gnat.

I won. I have a brand new camera and was able to upgrade to one with some of the features my lemon had been lacking.

The deal?

Randy at Future Shop fixed it. Canon had nothing to do with it.

Canon Support Is Pissing Me OFF!

Testing My New Palm Pre -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

See that Canon camera in the photo? It went in for it's 4th servicing over 50 days ago. (Actually its 5th servicing but there was a mix up and I lost some of the paperwork, but that's another story.)

This story is about the camera I bought in January 2009 that went in for its 4th "official" servicing at the end of September 2010, and the extended warantee that said if the camera needed servicing 4 times it would be replaced. And after the last repair, Future Shop assured me if the camera required servicing again (!) it would be replaced immediately.

So I was a little surprised when I brought the camera in with problems and was told they had to send it in to Canon before replacing it. But I accepted it, with as much grace as I could muster.

However today I was OUTRAGED when I found out that Canon had sent the camera back saying it has only had 3 major repairs and 1 minor repair, and thus does not qualify for replacement.

Are you FUCKING kidding me?!?!?!

They are giving me this kind of shit about a camera that was in for repairs 3 times before I had owned it for 12 months. And each time it has been in for repair it has taken 50-60 days for me to get it back. EVERY TIME.

Is Canon trying to tell me now that a "minor repair" takes them 60 days? And to be explicit, no warantee discussion ever included a discussion of "4 major repairs"

So roughly Canon has had my camera for approximately 200 days in 20 months I have owned it. 200 DAYS!
And they are trying to tell me this camera doesn't need replacing. Who the hell are they kidding?!?

While I love my Canon cameras when they are working, they seem to spend more time in the shop than in my hands!!!

Randy at Future Shop who seems to have a head on his shoulders and is equally shocked by this crap told me that he will be working with his management to find a way to fix this problem for me tomorrow.

The saga continues tomorrow...
(hopefully with less swearing!)

potential @ camaraderie

Finally, I’ve got the photos from the reception up on Flickr and ready to share

The folks at Camaraderie, , Toronto's newest co-working space, invited me to hang a collection on their walls. I have selected the brightest, most vibrant of my photos in a collection called Potential @ Camaraderie  to reflect the vibrant folks who work in the space.

The slideshow below  shows the photos in the collection, photos of them being framed and hung. And of course the reception we held on August 3,2010 sponsored by the kind folks at Heineken and LittleKitchen.ca on August 3rd.  We had a great night with somewhere between 40-50 people drop by throughout the evening.

(if you are reading this in your RSS or on Facebook, you might have to click through to my blog to see the slidehow)

Once again, a big thanks to:

•  Camaraderie – Rachel & Wayne for hosting both the reception and my photos on their walls – they are there for another 3 weeks, so feel free to drop in and see them.
• Heineken– for the nice cold beer on a long hot night.
• Matt Kantor & LittleKitchen.ca – for all the great savoury snacks.
• CheapEats – for loaning me David and Gerry to get this all pulled together.
• And of course to everyone who came out, thank you.

Last Night’s Reception

Thank you all, old friends and new, for a wonderful evening at last night’s reception for my show at Camaraderie. 

We had almost 50 people come out, got some fantastic feedback and sold 3 pieces.

Big shout out to our sponsors for the night:

• Heineken for the cold refreshing beer, or as Hilton puts it “angels weeping on my tongue.”
• LittleKitchen.ca for the food, which as always was flavourful, beautiful and done with panache.
• and of course to Rachel and Wayne of Camaraderie for the opportunity, space and hospitality.

The photos will remain on the walls of Camaraderie until early September and Rachel & Wayne welcome anyone interested to drop by to see them. More details here: http://camaraderie.ca/

You can find out more information on Matt and his wonderful food here: http://www.LittleKitchen.ca

And about me - like you don't already know too much - here: http://www.alexaclark.com

If you are interested in owning any of the photos you saw they are available framed and unframed, and in various sizes.  Please feel free to contact me if you want more info.

Thank you all again, for a wonderful evening.

(slide show will go here when I’m not rushing about… including some “gifts” from Rannie who found my camera lying around and was kind enough to take some shots!)