James Dean inspired shoot

As i mentioned in my Marylin post, I had decided I would do a series on young, dead celebrities. I can't say I came up with the idea to do that because, really, it's been done before but these people were such an inspiration to now so many generations of people that of course it has all been done. One of my favourite quotes which I have hanging on my mirror at home is 'Art is either evolution or revolution'. When searching for models to do these shoots with I headed over to trusty Model Mayhem, a lot of people talk about having bad experiences with models, or from the other side with photographers, but I have only had one time when a model didn't turn up for a shoot and I put this down to choosing the models wisely and keeping up a good amount of contact.

My James Dean is a London model who has been photographed by some amazing photographers both in Canada and in Italy where he spent some time modelling so I felt very privileged when he said he would help me out with my little project. He definitely was the perfect one for the job and after doing the plain backdrop James Dean inspired shots we snapped a few extras influenced by high fashion looks.

Marylin Monroe shoot

Around Marylin Monroe's birthday this year I saw a slideshow of photos taken by Magnum photographers of when she was on set at some of her movies and more kind of documentary style photos of her which I loved and was really inspired to so some photos inspired by her. I found the perfect model in Elisa, beauty spot and all, and we hit the park a few weeks ago to have some fun in my Marylin dress and pin up style bathing suit. This shoot is the start to my series that I will be starting to do, inspired by young dead celebrities. Stay tuned this week for London, Ontario's James Dean.

Winter Wanderings

I can now safely say that winter is over. I haven't put my winter coat on since before we left for Halifax and my winter hat has only come out of its hidy hole once, for a crazy hat party. It was one hell of a long winter, everyone who hears my accent comments that it was the worst winter to have been living in London that they can remember and with that 'snowapocalypse' that we had in December and the following snow storms I can definitely see what they meant. When II say that I'll be returning home for this winter therefore our summer people ask if i will miss the cold during the next year and a half of me chasing the summer around the globe? Nope. Will I miss how pretty the snow makes everything when it's freshly fallen? Yes.

A few months ago I showed you a series I had taken during fall with some Impossible project film. I've now started a spring series and will do a summer series before leaving London at the end of August.

Chicago visit to see Vivian Maier

I was talking about the visit to Chicago awhile ago on the blog and on Facebook and I have been really slow with getting these photos up, even on my Lomography page. The reason? Most of these Lomographs are a little blurry on my part, I should have taken a faster film because of the overcast weather and shooting inside, but the lab I took them to, which wasn't my normal lab must have had problems with their machine and I have scratches, dust, spots and development splotches all over the negatives, which in most cases makes them look like they have another layer of blurriness over them but some I think it helps them to look even more like they were taken in the 60's when Vivian Maier was taking photos in Chicago, which was the reason we were going to Chicago to see her first exhibition and why I decided to not take a digital camera. Even though some of them aren't great, this is the kind of photography I love, going to a place I haven't been before and shooting a series.

Taking a photo of my road trip buddy Tyler through one of Vivian Maiers viewfinders.

Check out the development splotches in the photo above!

Have you ever had a roll of film ruined by a lab?