I have been quite invisible on dA for some time now. A lot of changes in my life, for the last two years actually. First, find a girlfriend. Second, she moves in (real fast!). Do some reno. Then you think about buying a house in the suburbs (gulp!) because she works so far and anyway you kind of need more space. Visit suburbs. Visit houses. Buy a house. Sell the condo. Move in. Do some reno. Manage to keep balanced in all this. Start commuting! Change job... Ooops, wait, no!!! Keep the job: new projects coming, new challenges... Get use to this new life while still taking pics, or may be still taking pics while getting used to this new life! ... Well after all, all of this went quite well... It's time to sort all these pics!!! Time to post them too. Time to share more, to get inspiration from others.

Web 2.0 Activity

I am currently at the end of a trial period on SmugMug. I will probably get a subscription there because my personnal website (hosted on my server in the basement!), tends to go offline too often now as my Internet provider changes my IP more frequently than before. I will keep posting here on dA for new pics and maintain a more polished gallery on SM. Not sure if I will buy a new subscription on dA though...

Taking Pics

Friends and friends' friends have started asking me to take pics of their children, or whole family. At first I was a bit skeptical as I have never taken portraits except spontaneous ones. But overall it went quite well. I mixed that rather spontaneous approach with ultrabasic setups (white or black sheets, natural light) and the results were quite satisfying. Actually the first request come from a friend who has a fertile imagination and that helped get me started!

Otherwise I took a lot of pictures during vacations or shorter escapes (US east coast, Ottawa, Quebec City) and business travels (Newport Beach, CA and Paris) and some in my new neighborhood... deviations to come.

Contests

It is the third consecutive year I participate in ObjectifPlateau contest, a local contest in Montreal. I have not been selected in the finalist this year and was not surprised about this... I submitted that photo. Last year I submitted Siamese, and the year before, October (finalist).

I want to participate to contests more often as I believe the challenge is good for stimulating my creativity. The next one I am considering is Image International (deadline very soon though). I have created a Google Agenda to keep track of contests and deadlines, if you're interested (additions welcome as long as they apply to Canada!).

Exhibitions

In July I saw Richard Misrach at Washington DC's National Gal. of Art. Check this out if you don't know him... quite hot.

Yesterday I saw an ehibition from 8 graduated students of College Marsan (photo and multimedia school). Honestly, I expected better pictures. Among them, I would say two were interesting. Of course this is personnal, but in some way I like to know that being a self-taught photographer doesn't automatically puts me in an inferior category! :-D Anyway these guys are future professionnals, but some are still beginners, so I shouln't be too demanding!

This afternoon I will see this year's release of World Press Photo. These are real pros! Another expo is on display at the same location, 400 photos (!) from the CAPIC members.

I created another agenda for exhibitions in my area (Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, etc.), for those interested! Other calendars with more details: PhotoService and PhotoSolution.ca.

That's it for now. I hope I won't wait another two years before posting again! Thanks for reading, and take care!

Rémi