When you blink your eyes...

I have been a fan of Canada for some time but haven’t had the opportunity to go until this past weekend. The creativity specifically through music and comedy that has come from there has been an inspiration to me. With Montreal not being all that far of a drive from Boston, my buddy Justin and I had been planning a weekend trip up there for a few months and finally made it happen. I took the bus up to Boston and we made a road trip out of it.

On the way up we realized that Justin had forgotten his passport so we weren’t sure if we’d even be able to get across the border due to increased security in the past few years. However, he had a copy of the passport in his email and we were able to make it across with an explanation and a color printout of it. Montreal was about 60 miles or so past the Canadian border.

I was playing a mix of one of my favorite Montreal bands The Besnard Lakes and some old Arcade Fire. Justin and I had been lucky enough to see Arcade Fire very early in their career in Oklahoma City about 6 years ago. It seemed appropriate that we were now visiting their home city together.

The approach into Montreal over the Saint Lawrence River was quite beautiful, brilliant shades of blue shining through the icy water. I didn’t realize until now that Montreal is the 2nd largest city in Canada and the 6th largest in all of Canada and US at around 1.6 million. Montreal is the 2nd largest French speaking city next to Paris. I had started to learn French with Rosetta Stone last summer, but got side-tracked with some projects and didn’t give it my full attention after awhile. This is definitely the place to come practice this summer. Not only do most of the people speak French here, they also mostly all speak English so its a good place to get started. We did encounter a taxi driver who didn’t speak English at all, but for the most part all were able to speak at least some English.

We were able to get a good deal on a room at the Hyatt which was sort of in the eastern/center part of the city. When we got there we started walking west on Saint Catherine which seemed to be a main street with a lot going on. We checked out a few pubs in the Western part and started talking with a bartender, asking what we should do for our short trip and first visit to Montreal. She spoke English very well, and said she was an English speaker but was also fluent in French. She said the western part of the city was more English by default, while the western and southern part near the water was more French, the older part of the city. She recommended we try to get scalped tickets for the Candien’s hockey game that night. We aren’t really big into hockey but I’ve always enjoyed it and it sounded like a good event for Montreal.

We got to the area around the same time the game was starting, thinking that would be the best time to get a good price for tickets. However, all the scalpers were quoting at least 100 for tickets, one suggested we tried the box office just as we were about to give up. They were turning the last 2 people away, but the girl at our counter said 2 tickets just became available and they happened to be only $40 so we went for it. They let us know how lucky we were to get in as it was sold out. I was rooting for Montreal to win even though they were playing New York, I have worked by MSG for the past year and hadn’t been to a Rangers game, but I was now seeing them for the first time in Montreal. We got to our seats and it was packed in, the energy was outstanding there. The fans were really into it. Montreal just kept scoring and it was an unusually lop-sided score at the end with a 6 - 0 victory for Montreal. Everyone kept referring to them as “The Habs”, I had heard it before but never knew what it meant. I thought the H on their jersey just stood for Hockey. We later learned that it stood for Les Habitants, the habitants of Canada. I just read that the Candiens are one of the most successful major sporting teams in all of North America winning 26% of the Stanley Cups. Seeing the game was definitely the highlight of the short trip and we were fortunate to be able to get in to see it.

The trip definitely inspired me to become more dedicated about my French studies this year as I want to make a trip to Paris in the next year or 2 and hope to speak French well by that time. I hope to come back to Montreal in the summer as it is a beautiful city from what I could see of it in 24 hours. Although, rather cold in the winter as one would imagine. It was about 20 F or so which they said was actually quite warm for this time of year. I've always wondered if the extended coldness can be more inspiring for creativity.

I Just finished my civic duty of waiting around at the Manhattan courthouse for jury duty for the 4th day and it turned out the trial I was selected to was just settled this morning so we were all let go. I did enjoy going down to that part of the city for a change and walking around Tribeca afterwards. I decided to walk up to Pearl Paint on Canal for a sketchbook. Afterwards, I kept walking north through SoHo and saw Terry Richardson riding by on a bicycle on MacDougal St. It was especially interesting timing since I just subscribed to his photo blog last week. Also, combination of seeing him and the RZA inspired me to see if I could grow sideburns like their's recently. My facial hair grows in uneven but I may get lucky and have enough contiguous patches to pull it off, we'll see if I can go through with it or not. If I had a chance to talk to him then I would have told him I found his side-beard inspiring and how I always remembered him from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition video 10-12 years ago or so.

Riding the train back, a black dude sat next to me talking about how he was ugly and black. He apologized for his ugly clothes and I said its fine. He said he wished he was white. I told him its not that great being white either. We he got off at times square I had a conversation for awhile with a black woman across from us who was really affected by this guy's comments, we agreed he was just ignorant and hoped he would figure it out someday. We also agreed it was much more important to think about the folks in Haiti and be thankful for what we have here, helping however we can.

I’ve been in Kinsale for almost 24 hours now. We decided to stay here until Sunday morning so we could relax a bit and see more of this city instead of rushing along to Dublin. The town seems a bit more affluent in general, there are many Porsche’s in the street and large yacht’s in the harbour.

We went on a walking tour this morning that was pretty interesting. Learned a bit of the history of this town and town and its place in the history of Ireland. The port is in an important location for shipping and the site of several wars over the years. The last Spanish armada of 30 or so boats came here to attempt to take this this port in hopes of later attacking England. They were met by English troops coming in and shortly after Northern Irish, all having different motives. It turned out the English beat the Irish here and that’s how northern Ireland is part of England. Basically it came down to the Irish Chieftain’s arguing and not being able to agree on the plan of attack, and that’s the reason they lost to the English who had fewer troops and less supplies at the time. The guide said if the battle would have ended with the Spanish winning that day, he may be speaking Spanish instead of English on the tour today.

It is fairly common to hear people speaking traditional Irish here and you can even hear it on the radio and television stations. I was surprised out how prevalent it was. Reminded me of the pride of the folks of Barcelona on holding on to Catalan as the official language vs. Castillion. I don’t know much about the language right now, but it sounds very old and different. More like latin and some French sounding words. I believe its Gaelic but the man giving the tour this morning just called it “speaking Irish”, I didn’t get a chance to ask him more about it but I’m curious to know.

Walked up to Charles castle/fort that was 1.5km outside of town, it was interesting but not worth 4EU they were asking for admission. The use of the restroom after a few Guinness prior to the walk was quite welcome and worth at least 1 or 2 EU by itself at the time. The fort had a beautiful view of the bay from above a great few of the open sea.

I want to watch the Liverpool match coming on in a few hours and have a few beers, they seem to be big Liverpool and Manchester fans here. I’m pulling for Liverpool to when the Premiereship this year myself. Took it a bit easy on the Guinness yesterday but we’re back on it again today. We noticed the excessive amount of Guinness’s seemed to give us bouts of the “trapped wind”. Hopefully that passes.

I am feeling good about the photos I’ve gotten on this trip, feeling I’m getting in more of a groove. This is the first time I have extensively used a wide angle lens and feel it definitely works for many of the scenes I’ve captured on this trip. Other times, it doesn’t work as well and I’m getting a feel for when I want to use the 50mm or 20mm, I taking away the ability to zoom in and out on this trip. I have a large number of photos of wide angle shots of the streets/roads I’ve come across in Ireland, looking forward to seeing how they turn out in a series. Also, I was very happy with the ones I took of shadows at a cemetery yesterday. I’m looking forward to continuing my artistic projects in general, continue improving my drawing skills and do more photo series’ and see what comes of it.

We’re driving to Dublin early in the morning and I have a flight out tomorrow afternoon. Even though this wasn’t a very long trip it was a good length for now and still a good getaway. Still 24 hours of it left to go anyway, so its not over.

Ireland has been quite enjoyable so far. I landed in Shannon on Thursday 5am Ireland time on a redeye flight from JFK. I took a quick nap then we drove around the town Justin had stayed in the previous night called Ennis. I had my first Guiness and we asked the bartender advice on where to go in southern Ireland.

He advised us to not take the route through Limerick and take the ferry across the bay. We decided on a destination of Dingle as this was agreed upon by all 3 locals in the bar as the place to go. They also recommended we go to Kinsale instead of Cork for the next night. Its not mandatory to tip a bartender unless the service is exceptionally good, so more often than not we were told not to feel obligated to tip anything. I gave 1EU tip to the bartender in Ennis who drew a map for us of how to get to Dingle and Kinsale and he seemed very appreciative.

We stopped in Tralee and I had a couple more Guiness’s at a pub there. We noticed more older men just sitting around watching horse racing or sports.

The drive to Dingle was beautiful and hard to describe in words alone. The ferry was 18EU and definitely worth it if not for the convenience just the experience of riding across the bay. They said it is not uncommon to see dolphins swimming but we didn’t see any that day. However, the wind and spray in the crisp air was quite refreshing. We made the winding drive through the hills along the ocean to Dingle. The views were breathtaking and it rained off and on most of the time. I got some decent photos I think, however, I felt better about the results of the next day much better.

There was a particular spot we drove through in the mountains that was especially breathtaking, it was raining lightly and extremely windy. I got out to take some photos and felt like I was going to fall over several times, trudged up the hill to see if I could get a better view and place to take a leak where the wind wouldn’t blow it back on me, I fortunately succeeded on both accounts.

Dingle was a pretty little town, seemed quite touristy though. We were told there were 52 licensed pubs there which seemed like a huge amount for such a small town. We asked a waitress which pubs to go to and she wrote down a list of 3 places. One was a hardware store / bar that turned out to be good, another was a “jazz” bar that had mainly American speaking folks in it with not-so-great wine, another was a larger place that we went back to at the end of the night. I ended up with about 8 Guiness or so by the end of the night, didn’t go to crazy which my body thanked me for the next day. Had several interesting conversations with old Irish fellows.

Got around and had breakfast at the B&B we were staying at in Dingle which was quite nice for 35EU. I wanted to do the 30km drive around the peninsula which we were told was worth taking. This is were I started to feel better about the wide angle photos I was taking, started to get more of a rhythmn and had Justin stop frequently as I saw something that caught my eye. Curious to see how they turn out.

The drive to Kinsale turned out to be just a few hours drive and I like it even more than Dingle so far. The sunny weather here is also coloring my impression possibly, a lovely day on the southern coast of Ireland. When driving outside of Kinsale we noticed a small castle/tower which turned out to be a graveyard up on a hill above the bay. We stopped in and walked around and I took some more photos here, some of which I liked quite a bit.

We have a room at B&B in Kinsale which is in a good location within walking distance of downtown and the water. Thinking of staying here another night and just driving to Dublin early on Sunday. They are shutting down the internet cafe here so I have to finish this off for now, will write more later.

I'm leaving in a few hours to go for a short trip to Ireland. Its been awhile since I've been out of the country and I'm anxious to get away and see something different. I went to St. Patrick's day in South Boston this year with some proud Irish-American folks and curious to see the contrast between those in the mother land. Its supposed to rain most of the time as expected but I'm hoping for at least a few hours of sunlight while I'm there, however, I don't mind the rain. I'm most looking forward to seeing what I've heard is beautiful country. I plan on taking many photos of cliffs, trees, rocks, water and buildings. Maybe some people as well.

I enjoy reading something pertaining to the trip just before I go. When I went to England I read Oscar Wilde, when I went to Spain I read The Sun Also Rises. I decided to read some William Butler Yeats poems on the way there. I was going to go to the bookstore and find a book but I checked amazon and realized I could read the kindle books on my iphone. I found a large collections of W B Yeats works for $9, we'll see if its worth it. I did also find a drawing book on there that seems pretty good so far for 0.99.

I've also been starting to learn French lately so for some reason I'm thinking of the The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and wondering how the Irish/French connection came about there.

Everything is packed and ready to go, even got the tripod in the suitcase. Hopefully its not over the weight limit. I just got a replacement battery so my black macbook so I'm bringing it along, hopefully I can get a chance to write some updates here while I'm away.

This weekend I was messing around to see if I could get any usable results from scanning a negative in my regular flat-bed scanner. I never did quite get anything great with making a custom backlight as I couldn't turn off the reflective light on my scanner without taking it a part. However, I did come across this website where Mike Golembewski had made a custom camera using a flatbed scanner. It got me to thinking about what I could do with just simply moving around images on the scanner while it was in the process of scanning. I had several magazines laying around that I have been planning to use to make a collage and began to like the results of my tests.

I liked how you have a fixed amount of time to move the image around and its always a bit of a surprise at the end to see what comes out. I began to find ways where I had more control over the outcome of the image, especially when I could see through the paper to see what part of the image was currently being scanned. Here are some of the results I produced after playing around with the process for a few hours this weekend. The distortion is all done by hand with the scanner without photoshop.