On the weekend I visited the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield Quebec. Paul Symes does a fantastic job of bringing in rising talent. Some fun developed:

Friday night we went to watch Polaris Prize nominee – Basia Bulat.

I was a patron that night, not a working photographer. The venue is small and beautifully lit but does not have the bright lights of large venue. I checked with Paul and Basia and shot for ten minutes with some very simple equipment – camera body and an 85mm f1.8 lens. I shot with available light in a photojournalistic style.

If you are shooting in such a venue please beware how your camera works! In low light many point and shoot cameras will emit a red ‘laser’ to assist the camera’s focus. Twice Basia was interrupted by the red laser – not me – Paul was not very happy!

‘Twas a fantastic show – and great to watch from the fun that is the Black Sheep Inn.

Remember the work I did for Ottawa Magazine on Malcolm Isaacs’ Passivhaus inspired house near Wakefield Quebec? Malcolm is presenting his innovative work in house design in Chelsea, Quebec this week.

As a reminder – Malcolm was tired hearing how fantastic current Canadian houses are being built. Compared to developments in Europe we are behind the times!

Malcolm Isaacs is a civil engineer who has worked as a specialist in residential energy analysis and low-energy construction since 1987. He has studied extensively in Europe and in 2005/6 he designed and built the first house in Canada based on PassivHaus ideas. He is now a Certified Passive House Designer, and an advocate and trainer in low energy construction techniques, thermal analysis and energy modeling.

Malcolm researched, designed and built this attractive three bedroom home. His home uses only 25% the energy of a new and normal Canadian home. That means four of Malcolm’s houses could be heated from the energy of one ‘well designed’ modern, Canadian house. His secret – appropriate and ample use of insulation.

Malcolm is presenting his work at the United Church in Chelsea:

7:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Chelsea United Church, Mill Road, Chelsea, QC

Worth a visit.

Harry

I often read the weekly e-news from Photo District News.

This week they posted a story about the more prevalent use of bystander’s photos being used in the media assisted by social media outlets!

See photos here:

US Airways Hudson River emergency landing is great news about the development of news stories!

Not the emergency landing! See the PDN story for the coverage!

I recently went to a presentation of photographer, Louis Helbig‘s, aerial photo work of, arguably, the largest construction project on earth – the Alberta Tar Sands. Helbig spent part of last summer shooting the vastly changed landscape of northern Alberta in western Canada from his airplane.

He has one of the biggest and finest collections of accessible aerial footage of this mega project. Some photos, posted with permission:

Louis: “The machinery photo shows some of the world’s largest shovels, dump trucks and bulldozers.  Extraction through open pit mining takes place to depth of about 100 metres. From the air, northern Alberta’s tar sands look like a dirty sandbox with children’s toys crawling hither and thither.”

Louis: “The abstract image details oily tar floating on Suncor’s most recently created tar pond (lake).  Each day, as a byproduct of bitumen extraction, about 1.8 million litres of toxic effluent are produced. This is piped into manmade tar lakes that cover 130 square kms and contain about 5.5 trillion litres. This tar lake is the visual gateway to the tar sands operations in northern Alberta, western Canada.”

See more of Louis’ Alberta Tar Sands photos at egamiimage.ca