For my Contact Photo weekend, I'd expected the Sunday to be the shorter of the two -- instead under the bright sun I was able to visit MOCCA, the remaining Queen Street galleries, the Gladstone, the Drake, drive across town to the Corkin, and still take a leisurely pace back to the airport.

Of the work I saw, there were only a few standouts, but they were well worth the trouble...

Contact Photo, Pt 2 — filed under PhotoRant

(By request of Ralph, a set of photos for the monthly SP salon)

SPS, May 2008 — filed under fStop

Spent most of the day running back and forth through the rain to see as much of Contact Photo as the rain would allow, and last night chasing around the Lanch Event. Tomorrow I'll hit the MOCCA portion before returning home. Fell asleep -- coffee in hand -- just as the early-evening weather outside my hotel room was surging past the drizzly form shown here into a real driving storm.

I also had the pleasure during the morning of driving across town to visit the Bob Carnie & Kevin Viner at Elevator Digital, where I got to see their big print line including their digital fiber-print mural-scale line, which they believe was the world's first. These are large-format images, printed on black & white traditional darkroom paper -- a good deal bgger than what the well-known Devere digital enlarger can produce.

I also got a glimpse at the results from the Canon imagePROGRAF iPF9100 60" printer, which delivered gorgeous B&W results straight our of the bx -- that is, on the supplied Canon profiles without tweaking.

To my surprise, when I awoke two hours after dozing away, the view was dazzlingly different: the towers lit by an orange sunset and framed by a deep blue sky. Surprising what a couple of hours can do if you'll just willing to stay put (sleeping helps).

What about the photographs? I'll write more about them in the next entry.

Toronto Contact Photo 2008 — filed under PhotoRant

As a departure from the usual photorant, today's entry is on the game EVE Online. Specifically, it's about how to play by going against the usual guidance for new players: instead of taking it slow and learning the ropes in the safety of the center Empire area, to move as quickly as possible into the lawless and higher-powered realms of 0.0 space.

I'm writing this for (new) EVE players, so I'm not really going to explain terms or basic game info, though I'll insert links along the way to wikis and so forth.

n00b 0.0 — filed under Nuke Em from Orbit