let's get lost, me and you

neglect and procrastination

2011-08-01T19:31:00.001-04:00

Hello fellow bloggers and gentle readers. (I've always wanted to say gentle readers!)

It has been quite some time since my attempt at a new post and even more since my last actual update! Life found me in a bit of a rut photographically, so there wasn't much to update about. I started a couple courses at George Brown College to go towards a Digital Photography Certificate during the months of March and April. They were a great diversion from the rut I was beginning to fall into in my small town and dead-end sports photography job.

My last attempted post, that is still sitting in my drafts and I may or may not revisit, was in regards to my Business of Photography course. I learned so much in that class. The best thing was, our final assignment was to hand in a branding package for our business. This included business cards, a logo for all letterheads and legal forms, etc. It really forced me to think about how I want to portray myself professionally... and also made me realize how difficult it is for me to come up with a simple, concise design that is in fact "me". That's why I probably won't publish that post, because I've decided I want to redo everything until I'm really happy with it.

Since then I was just bound and determined to get back to the big city and rejoin the life I had started to make for myself before university ended. I have so many friends and contacts here in Toronto; it seems silly to go anywhere else. I started looking for a better job and after a long, repetitive process of writing and rewriting cover letters, emails, going to interviews, not getting anywhere, despairing about not getting anywhere, etc... I finally found one!

I'm still quite surprised they took a chance on me, but I'm so glad they did. I love my job. I walk down the street to work every morning and the CN tower is right there! It makes me smile.

Coincidentally, the same day I started my new job, I started my first shooting course at George Brown. I took their Fashion Photography course and got to try out shooting in a studio with lights for the first time. The new job, adjusting to the schedule, the commute, my class (which took a large amount of energy and time outside of class to edit everything... which I'm still working on!), and searching for a place to live has left me pretty wiped out these past couple months.

I'm happy to say that I've found a place to live though! It's right downtown, just a block or two away from a few good friends. I'm hoping that once I move in mid-august that by September I can get back on track with my personal photography and start creating again. I've got quite a few art projects in the queue as well, so I'm hoping to find time for those, at least over the winter.

I really feel like I'm starting a new chapter in life. It feels so strange to finally have a great full-time job that I know I'll stay at for a long time and learn a lot with. I'll be living on my own for the first time (no roommates, eek!). I've also become a lot more confident with my work and photography now that I've gone out of my comfort zone and tested what I can do.

For future updates, I think because there was so much content, I will do class-by-class posts to update with my new work. If you follow my Flickr account or my vaguer Facebook page, you may have already seen some of the new stuff. I'll try to go about it a little differently here so it's not more of the same.

Thanks for reading! Here's to, hopefully, not letting the dust settle so much on this blog!

:)

aerial straps

2011-03-01T20:12:00.011-05:00

At the beginning of the month, I had the awesome opportunity to work with Abby again, but this time for her specialty dance talents. She does Aerial Dance with straps and a hoop (not photographed yet). She is amazing at it! If you want a unique act at your next event, or even a private lesson, ask me for her contact info!

I got to use a couple of my new "backdrops" for this shoot. By that I mean, I went to Fabricland and bought cheap material and sewed it together all make-shift style. The red and purple I bought are Rayon Twill... so they're probably going to be wrinkly a good lot of the time, but they look neat. The black is Valour, which makes me laugh, but it's actually pretty good for a backdrop.

I wanted the background in these shots to be flush with no folds or wrinkles, but the only way we could hang it resulted in a sort of theatrical curtain look. I don't hate it, so it's all good.

red curtain, originally uploaded by avalilly.

pointe, originally uploaded by avalilly.

half a heart, originally uploaded by avalilly.

extend, originally uploaded by avalilly.

impossible, originally uploaded by avalilly.

riley, originally uploaded by avalilly.

aerial, originally uploaded by avalilly.

We actually shot these in her garage. Her unheated garage. On a day where it was -30 C out. She was a great sport, as was her little cousin who came out as well. Abby teaches private lessons for children as well, if you happen to be interested! It's a really beautiful dance form. I can't imagine how much strength it takes though. I can't even touch my toes without bending my knees, so this is definitly not in the stars for me!

She does a routine with a partner on her hoop. I really hope I get a chance to shoot those photos! It sounds so awesome.

These photos really make me wish I had a good lighting kit though. We just used a common work/flood light and in some of them my external flash fired at the ceiling. It will suffice for now, but it really really makes me want to learn how to light properly.

(Also I did the makeup for these. Can you tell I had just seen Black Swan?)

dear purolator

2011-02-28T20:58:00.002-05:00

You are silly.

I woke up this morning to a couple packages being delivered to me. One was my new external harddrive, which I'm super excited about, and the other was a mysterious large box marked as a gift.

So there are the two boxes. The left one is my harddrive, which was packed nicely with enough room for the product and some paper padding. Overall, not a bad use of space:

So after opening that package, I couldn't really figure out what the mysterious large box could have in it. I didn't order anything else, but it said it was addressed to and sold to me by the same place that I purchased the harddrive from. So I open it up:

Lots of paper it seems. I wonder what could be in there...

Really, Purolator? Really. Did you run out of boxes or something? It's not even fragile! It's a carrying case for the external harddrive.

Hilarious packaging aside, I still didn't know why this was shipped to me. I thought maybe it was just some gift with purchase thing since I bought a featured item. Then I remarked at the fact that they got me one in red, which is always a great choice, so then I figured it had to have been someone I know who sent it.

As it turns out, my boyfriend is all thoughtful and awesome and got me this to go with my harddrive! It arrived a little sooner than he thought, since it was supposed to wait until my birthday, but I guess they just shipped them all at the same time for convenience. Or it was a coincidence. Who knows! Either way, awesome monday morning. =D

Maybe now Photoshop will stop yelling at me about my disc space.

abby and the old barley mill

2011-02-02T14:49:00.005-05:00

So I just realized I never actually uploaded the rest of the photos from this shoot to this blog. They've been on Flickr for a while, so if you follow that you may have already seen them. They're also now on my Facebook Page!

time, originally uploaded by avalilly.

lean, originally uploaded by avalilly.

weightless, originally uploaded by avalilly.

glow, originally uploaded by avalilly.

The levitation image (weightless) is probably my favourite photo to date involving Photoshop to achieve the desired image. It features two different photos to make up Abby's body, one for the gallery space, and two more to create the left, foremost pillar. I'll have to do a full before and after with the in between steps to fully explain it, but I'm happy with the results, so I hope it looks good!

You'll be seeing more of this lady in the future as she's hired me for her business portraits and aerial straps photos (which I shot last night with my new red backdrop!). I'll post more about those in future.

I may upload more photos to this post in the future. There's still a couple images that I want to work on from this shoot, so whenever they get done I'll just add them to the end of this post. :)

george brown and p.l.a.r.

2011-02-01T13:26:00.001-05:00

So last Thursday I went in for my portfolio assessment at George Brown. Now, this is a continuing education certificate that I'm going for, so one doesn't actually have to apply to take any of the courses. I just felt that the first couple courses would mostly be a waste of money for myself as I already know a good portion of what is covered in them. Because there are mandatory courses in order to achieve the certificate at the end, I had to be officially exempt from them, thus needing a portfolio assessment.

Anywho, I was given the final exam for that course at the interview and overall received an A for my assessment. I was granted exemption from the first course, so I'm super happy about that.

I took a digital photography course when I was at York University. It wasn't the most technically inclined course, but it assumed that you had a fair bit of knowledge to begin with, so I imagine that's why there weren't full on studio lectures explaining what curves and histograms are, etc. I figured that because I have my honours degree in Visual Arts, and that I had taken this course, that I'd be able to use it to exempt me from George Brown's second mandatory course in the certificate.

Apparently this was not the case. The director emailed me the course outline saying that they have a much more in depth study of Photoshop and that my 4 hours / 12 week course at York does not compare to their 3 hours / 7 week course. This is probably a fair assumption in the grand scheme of how much technical information is exchanged, however it's still all stuff that I already know.

So now I'm faced with the decision of: do I apply for another Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) appointment to fast track me to the next level, or do I just take the course and see if I actually do learn something?

I'm sure that I would learn some stuff. There seems to be a fair bit of study on colour management for predictable print results, which I could maybe brush up on... but is it worth the $375 price tag when I could just pay $100 for the PLAR and move on up to the next level where I know I'll be learning new things?

Ofcourse, there is the consideration that they use Mac computers in their labs and classrooms, so perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to just take it to get better aquainted with the operating system, so I'm not as slow at things once I get to the higher levels.

Oh, decisions.

learning to flash

2011-01-28T15:38:00.002-05:00

So, as I mentioned before, I bought myself one of these for christmas. I finally stopped procrastinating about it and just tried it out for a client shoot the other day.

I was happy to see that it's dedicated to my camera, so I didn't actually have to pretend to know how to use it and fiddle around until it did something. Basically you install it onto your camera's hotshoe and away you go. All I had to do was turn it on and it examined my camera settings and fired whenever I pressed the shutter button on the camera.

Now, as convenient as that is, I do still intend to learn how it works so I can use it for more complicated set ups, but for now I'm pretty pleased that I could be an idiot and still have it work for me.

I did a quick couple before/after shots to see what the difference was:

As you can see, a pretty decent difference in lighting. I still don't like the "flash shadow" that shows up, so I did my best to minimize that throughout the shoot. Because this flash can swivel around in all directions, I had it pointed at my reflector to the left of the camera. I tried it on the silver side first, but that was too much contrast for this particular kind of portrait, so I switched it over to the opaque white side to give a lighter diffusion. It's still a bit stark in some of them, but for the most part it did what I wanted it to.

After changing to a horizontal frame for some shots, I started bouncing it off the ceiling instead. My ceiling isn't necessarily the best for this since it's that textured kind with all the bumps on it, but I liked the result none the less.

The ceiling bounce offered a better version of the kind of light I was looking for. There's enough extra light to get a brighter picture, but without the flash sacrificing the natural light coming in from the window.

So, nothing terribly complicated at all. Just a matter of finding things to bounce it off of and hopefully avoiding the ghastly flash shadow that makes everything look like a cardboard cut out. In the future hopefully I'll be able to report on using the flash's manual settings and maybe try using it off the camera. It did come with a stand! For now though, I'm happy. Winter is so overcast around here, it's hard to get a good amount of natural light shining in through the windows.

Also, that's my kitty Noelle being her usual nosey self. I believe she was looking to have an affection attack, but we were kind of busy.

-----
Here are a couple of the final images:

business abby, originally uploaded by avalilly.

the facebook plunge

2011-01-21T11:34:00.001-05:00

Blogger, meet facebook.

I think you'll be great friends.

So yes, I have made myself a facebook fan page. I didn't think I'd want to, but one really can't ignore the usefulness of that platform - especially for the local connections who spend a lot of time on there and not a lot of time learning that you take photos by other means. Much of the stuff on there you've probably already seen if you follow this blog or my flickr, but there's a few that you won't have. I'm going to add a Photo Retouching gallery to show some before and afters of my photos. So atleast that will be new!

If you like, go ahead and "like" me on facebook if you have an account! I appreciate any support. As far as I know, fan pages don't assault your notification boxes like groups do. I'm still trying to figure it out. It's linked to my personal account, so I'm finding it difficult to navigate between the two. Maybe once there's more activity on it, it'll be easier to tell.

Anywho, I thought I'd pop in with that bit of news seeing as I've been a bit lazy about taking new photos lately. I have a shoot booked for tomorrow, so I'll atleast have that to post about. Lots of new ideas in the works too, I just have to get over this cold and the feeling that my bed is the only place to be when not at work!

I hope January has been treating you well!

portfolio help!

2011-01-08T14:16:00.002-05:00

portfolio help!, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Hello Bloggers!

I need some help putting a printed portfolio of my photographic work together in a fairly short amount of time. I have an interview with the college I'm doing a Digital Photography certificate with to get myself exempt from the first couple of mandatory courses, as I feel they don't offer much that I would learn from. To do this I have to prove that I can handle a camera already, so I have to bring in some work to show them and then do a small evaluation.

Since I have to be away working all weekend, I thought I'd ask for other people's opinions since the interview could be as early as Monday. If you'd like to help, please follow the photo link to my Flickr photostream where you can find more of my work. You can leave a link to a couple of images that you think I should include in the comments of this entry, or on the Flickr photo if you have an account. I greatly appreciate any input!

Thank you <3

a late seasons greetings

2011-01-06T15:08:00.007-05:00

Various things that denote the warmth of the holidays to me:

last year, originally uploaded by avalilly.

candied crystal, originally uploaded by avalilly.

the lounge, originally uploaded by avalilly.

warmth, originally uploaded by avalilly.

moment, originally uploaded by avalilly.

christmas bokeh book love, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I meant to do this sooner, but I really wanted to get that shot of the candy cane heart before I made this post. Silly me, I just got around to taking that photo yesterday. The rest are just a random selection of holiday-esque photos I've taken either this season or during the 2009/2010 transition. I love this time of year. I wish it had been more festive this year for us, but current circumstances aside, it was still nice.

The new year holds a lot of good things to come. I'm very much looking forward to it. I don't really have any resolutions, as I'm not very good at them. However, I have decided my mantra this year will be to "be bold". I can't just wait for life to happen on its own. I'm going to go after the things I want and hopefully my goals won't prove to be aiming too high. I'm ready to leave 2010 behind.

Happy New Year to you and your's! <3

happy birthday, camera

2010-12-29T13:47:00.000-05:00

My camera is now 2 years old. I purchased it on Boxing Day 2008, althought it didn't arrive until probably actually this same day two years ago haha. Last year I bought it a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II and I've had a lot of fun learning new things with that. This year I thought about it for a while and couldn't think of another lens (in my price range) that would be a useful enough addition to the repertoire, so I started looking into flashes.

This year I finally decided on a Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash. I haven't actually used one before so it's a bit of a weird move for me, but I'm really hoping I learn a lot and benefit from this piece of equipment. Winter is so dark anyways, so generally I go to work in the dark and come home just after the sun has set. It doesn't leave me much options for photography until I get a day off and usually my priorities are to relax a bit or travel to Toronto to visit various lovely people in my life.

To go with it, I grabbed a set of these as well: Sanyo Eneloop NiMH Rechargeable Batteries. I've been in desperate need of some good rechargeables for a long time now. My current ones hold a charge for about 5 hours, if that. I think they were originally purchased in the 90's though, so they've had a long life. I researched a bit and these Sanyo Eneloops seem like they'll be a good purchase. Since I don't have a camera phone, I want to keep my point and shoot Canon A590IS in my purse so I can still use it whenever I see something interesting. They sound like they keep a charge for a really long time even when not being used, so I'm excited to try them out and see how they go.

So yes. Happy birthday, camera! I hope you enjoy the copious amounts of money I spend on you...

sneak peak

2010-11-23T00:12:00.003-05:00

time, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Here's one of the first shots from my photoshoot with the lovely Abby from friday.

It's a shame I've been so busy, because I just want to come home and work on these! I'll have more up soon though.

Still in love with the location. <3

27/52

2010-11-19T01:01:00.002-05:00

au naturel, originally uploaded by avalilly.

27 of 52! I'm getting closer. So slowly, but surely.

Yes, square crop. Not excited about it, but it really was the best way to resolve it. I will probably play with this some more, maybe do a before after for ye all to see what it went through to get to here. It's been suggested to try making the texture wrap around my shoulders, which could be interesting! I'll have to get out my digital paint brush and see what I can do. Textures can only do so much on their own.

I may or may not have scrubbed a few layers of skin off in the shower trying to get the red and the spirit gum off my forehead. I forgot I had spirit gum remover. D'oh.

make-over

2010-11-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

So I gave the blog layout / template a make-over. Let me know what you think!

Before it was just the simple template with plain grey for the background. I apparently haven't changed it since blogger implemented their new design for customization, so I was pleasently surprised at how much easier it is now.

The only thing I'm definitely changing in the near future is the header image. It's not sitting right where it is now, so I'll either tweak that or make a new one entitrely.

Anywho, I feel a lot better about it now. After making my website and tumblr (which will probably get a new look soon too), I felt way too plain. This looks much better, I think.

I've got a photoshoot lined up for tomorrow that I'm really excited about, so hopefully I'll be able to show you photos from that soon!

Have a happy thursday~

RMGexposed

2010-11-16T16:59:00.002-05:00

Saturday, November 13th was the evening of the RMGexposed event at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. I had been working for the previous twelve hours, so I wasn't very much feeling the spirit of mingling and meeting new people. I just sort of made my way around the exhibition and took some quick photos of the set up and the crowd.

I loved their installation in the lobby. They had these giant balloons strung up and had photographs from their permanent collection randomly projected on to them.

This is my print that I donated for the silent auction after being a selected finalist in the juried competition. I didn't realize the starting bid would be $75, but then I noticed the first bid on mine was $110!! I was so surprised, but it felt pretty awesome! I should inquire to see how much it ended up going for.

Overall, I was quite impressed with the gallery and the turn out. There were SO MANY people who attended. I had no idea such a lovely place existed in downtown Oshawa, but I'm glad I know now. I'll have to go back more often.

Also, this awesome store donated a bunch of furniture for a lounge set up. I believe it was called Brush Strokes. They had some really nice stuff out. I took a photo of this lamp at the reception desk because I aspire to own it someday, I just need to track it down:

How cool is that? It's a cityscape on the metal face of the lamp. If you look at it from above, the shape of the lamp shade is: (). So fun. Definitely going to have to make a trip to that store and hopefully not have to cry about how much I can't afford beautiful things.

'Til next time~

30th annual juried art exhibition

2010-11-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

As promised, here are some photos from the group show I was recently a part of at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. The show ran from October 17 - November 7, 2010. I didn't take any photos at the opening reception as it was a bit crowded, so I just went back on another day when there were less people around to take these.

Room #1:

Room #2:

I was very excited to find out that the jury had selected my piece to be a part of the show. Then I found out they awarded it with the VAC Award of Encouragement! So much love.

I'm very happy to have been a part of it.

can anyone recommend me some new camera gear?

2010-11-10T16:34:00.001-05:00

My dslr is going to be 2 years old on Dec. 26. Last year I bought it a 50mm lens to keep it company. I was thinking maybe a new friend might be nice.

Unlike last year, I’m really not sure what I want to try though. I was thinking of looking around for maybe a nice flash, since lighting equipment seems a bit frivolous at this point considering I don’t have a definite space I shoot in. The Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash seems pretty radtacular, albeit a slight bit pricey for my poor ass…

Aside from my 18-55mm and 50mm I’ve only tried a couple 70-200mm lenses and I don't feel that I’d need them for my own work. I only use them for action/sports photography at work and it’s not really my thing personal work wise.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I’d put them on my christmas list, but I know it’s not something the fam would go for, and I like to work towards/make my own big purchases myself. Plus it’ll give me something to research! =D

Thanks pals~

26/52

2010-11-10T16:26:00.002-05:00

apprehensive, originally uploaded by avalilly.

So 26 of 52 is the half way mark. Considering I started this on the first week of 2010... lol.

The moral of the story is, if you have a scheduled plan of sorts, stick to it. I missed one week because of my final finals of university and felt like I failed... and then I didn't take another self portrait until a month later. So it's definitely gotten casual. That's okay. I'll probably still keep going either 'til I get to 52 or until the end of the year just to see how much I did do.

I think I just don't like having to do things, so I enjoy it a lot more when I'm just taking photos because I want to. I do like the challenge though.

I'll try harder, I promise.

e-newspaper

2010-11-01T17:38:00.000-04:00

Random thing, but my cousin was in town briefly while travelling with her new job and so I met up with her. She is travelling with a couple of people across Canada to teach artistic robot making in schools. They got me to take a photo of them in front of their crazy robot beaver bus and now it's in the Milton news... online?

http://www.insidehalton.com/community/milton/article/894826

That's the article there.

So I guess I have a news photo credit to my name. Something like that! Sounds like a fun adventure.

25/52

2010-10-23T03:11:00.002-04:00

warmer climate, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Alexander McQueen designed a gorgeous monarch butterfly inspired dress for inclusion in his 2011 spring/summer collection. When I say inspired by, I mean it's entirely comprised of monarch butterfly wing patterns. It's awesome.

Thus, I had this terrible urge to own feather monarch butterflies. They're a little more cooperative than the real kind. I've actually been meaning to find some for various other reasons as well, but I guess that was just a good kick to go out and get them. It's strange how reminders show up like that.

They'll be a fun prop to play with for now until I get around to making something out of them.

more news!

2010-10-14T19:59:00.001-04:00

I guess I've had some good luck with galleries this week! I was just notified that I'm a selected finalist in the RMGexposed juried photo competition. I will be donating a print of this photo for their silent auction:

I'm not normal, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I don't think there is going to be an extended exhibition of the finalists work, but my print will be there on the evening of November 13th, 2010 at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery if you're interested in joining the festivities. There is a ticket purchase to get in, all proceeds going to benefit gallery educational and public programming.

Hope to see you there!

news!

2010-10-13T18:01:00.001-04:00

I recently entered a couple pieces into the 30th Annual Juried Exhibition at my local gallery. I found out yesterday that one of my pieces was chosen to be a part of the show! They chose Knitwit:

knitwit, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm really excited. I get to exhibit with a group of varied artists that I haven't met before (well, maybe some I've met)! It's nice, because most of the shows I've been a part of have been basically with a good number of classmates from university, so this is a nice step towards getting my work more exposure.

The show is at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington and it opens on October 17, 2010 with the reception from 2-4pm and it runs until November 7, 2010.

Please stop in if you're in the area! :)

24/52

2010-10-07T00:42:00.002-04:00

condolences, originally uploaded by avalilly.

That's me again, hanging out on the ceiling. I'm having fun with these. They are incredibly time consuming, what with getting the furniture to stick to the ceiling and all, but it's worth it in the end.

I may have to print these out soon and see how they look when they're all tangible. I guess with being digital and all, it's hard to tell if my computer screen is hiding anything I may have missed. Sooo many pixels.

scratch board fun

2010-09-23T00:57:00.003-04:00

knitwit, originally uploaded by avalilly.

So I found a book of illustrations by Virgil Finlay that reminded me how much I enjoyed playing with scratch board back in high school. I thought I'd give it another try and see what I could accomplish with it.

If it isn't hard to tell, this took a very long time. Scratch board is basically a thick paper (usually white) covered in china clay and india ink, which you scratch away to make the image. I use a tool with a tip like these:

I will be selling prints of this, probably in an edition of 50. My test print at the original size of 8.5" x 11" didn't yield enough detail, so I'll probably make them at 11"x14" instead. I just need to find the best place in which to sell them online and also how much to price them after printing costs.

Once that's figured out I'll throw a link up on here, if you happen to be a prospective buyer!

website

2010-09-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

So I've been looking to make somewhat of a portfolio website for a while now. I took a new media course in my second year of university that gave me a decent grasp of html, xhtml, and css... but not enough to feel comfortable coding an entire site or having someone else code it for me. I wanted to be able to update it easily whenever I wanted. I ended up coming across this one called 4ormat that's pretty nicely set up. It's still in beta, so it's a bit buggy in the user interface, but from what I can tell, the website is fine.

http://lauracrowell.4ormat.com/

I don't have my own domain name yet, but once I figure out how to do that, I think I can drop the 4ormat from my url. I've got 9 more invites to the site, if you happen to be interested in trying it out just let me know and I'll send you over an invite code.

Anyways, please let me know what you think. There's still a lot more content I'd like to put on it eventually, but I have to wait until they up the image caps. Everyone's on the basic plan until the beta is finished I think.

That's all for now. :)

23/52

2010-09-12T00:20:00.005-04:00

the colour noir, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Bit of an impromptu shot this week. While working on the website in the dining room, I noticed the lovely light/shadow combination on the floor happening from the blinds. I figured, why not try and use it somehow. It's probably the fastest shoot I've ever done. The above image is from near the end of the set and the below image is actually the first one I took.

here, originally uploaded by avalilly.

It's more of an outtake, but I kinda like it. The hair spilling through the frame is probably the reason. Sometimes it pays off to be spontainious with these things. I'm still horribly behind in this project, but this made me feel a little better about it. It's definitely more of a "52 portraits done whenever I felt like it sometime in 2010" thing.

Also, my cat parked on my stomach and lay there judging me for the entirety of this shoot.

tumblr

2010-09-11T14:13:00.001-04:00

I started a tumblr account: http://avalilly.tumblr.com/

Not terribly sure why... actually, it was mostly to participate in a photojojo pic of the day contest. It sort of required Tumblr usage, but then I decided it's kinda fun to use too since a lot of my flickr contacts use it quite regularly. I'll still use this blog, ofcourse, but I'll have other stuff on there too if you're interested or have an account of your own.

I'd love to add a nice black and white vintage pattern like that to the background of it, but at the moment my CSS knowledge is failing me. I guess I'll have to break out the ol' HTML/CSS book from my new media class years ago.

Also, I am finally on the way to having a nice portfolio website made up. I don't want to link to it just yet because I want to sort out the content a bit more first. It's partially live, so if you're a clever web stalker you may be able to sneak a peak at it, but for now it's secrettt! It's shaping up nicely though, so I'm quite excited for it!

22/52

2010-09-04T02:07:00.002-04:00

up, originally uploaded by avalilly.

This is the lovely overgrown garden I mentioned in the previous post that I found while on a bike ride. It looks like this on both sides of the sidewalk. It's fantastic. I'd like to shoot here again sometime, as I didn't try as much as I could have while I was there. The air was so incredibly humid it felt like I was swimming through it. It's uncomfortably difficult to want to shoot photos while MELTING and having the entire world stick to you.

However, I think the weather realized it's now September (WHAT!) and has cooled off substantially since then. I hope these flowers stick around. I'm not really sure what they are... coreopsis maybe? I've only seen yellow ones before. There were so many different colours!

I need to get myself a good photo buddy. I think it would make me much less timid to do outdoor shoots. Not sure if being known as that girl who runs around by herself with camera equipment all over town is a good thing!

Hope everyone is enjoying what's left of summer!

21/52

2010-08-28T00:58:00.004-04:00

a little light reading on the ceiling, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Finally got motivated to try another upsidedown, life on the ceiling, crazy editing fun times photo. Oddly enough, because I really wanted to go outside and take photos by this house I discovered on a bike ride the other day, but didn't leave the house to do so. I'm super hoping they don't change their garden anytime soon, because I'm going away for the weekend and would like to take photos there once I'm back and ready to!

Anywho... this photo. It is probably not finished. I think I'll tinker around with it some more until I feel like it's arty enough for my taste. I am excited to keep this going though. There's not much summer left and I must enjoy as much of it as I possibly can and shoot as many photos (to catch up!) before it disappears. Just because.

I do enjoy fall, I just also enjoy bare legs and summer dresses.

bananassassin / bananassassination

2010-08-22T00:08:00.002-04:00

bananassassin, originally uploaded by avalilly.

bananassassination, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Been slowly but surely getting older photos up onto my flickr account. This was done entirely because I was incredibly in love with the ivy wall on one of the buildings at my university. The only thing I had in mind that day was a bananassassination attempt. Thanks to the lovely Katie for playing along. <3

The gorgeous colours of fall are something I definitely start looking forward to around this time of year. Unfortunatley it also makes me a little anxious, because then I think of all things I still want to do that I haven't done yet this summer while the weather is still warm enough! Ahh!

pantalone family

2010-08-08T16:16:00.000-04:00

Over the civic weekend, I was given the wonderful opportunity of photographing the children of the Pantalone family. Caryne, the oldest of the kids, is a friend of mine that I met through Jameson about a year ago! She is a lovely person and everyone in her family is just like her; loud, fun, generous, and crazy! So many Pants! Anyways, it was an awesome weekend. I got to stay with them and tour around Ottawa and it was all just a really great time in a beautiful city. We shot their photos at the Ottawa Arboretum in the Experimental Farm. I'm still not really sure what that's all about, but the location was absolutely gorgeous. So many different types of trees - and they're HUGE!

The jumping photo was a lot of fun to try. It's kind of crazy how fit everyone in Ottawa seems to be. We had to stop every 30 seconds or so to let a crowd of bikers pass through. It seems like everyone in Ottawa bikes. I wish I could do that here, but it's so hilly that I get tired out just from a 10 minute ride in any which direction!

Anywho, it was a pleasure to photograph the kids of this family. We got so many good choices it was hard to narrow it down. I will definitly have to try and make it back to Ottawa again sometime. So many beautiful places to see. <3

abigail prebble-taylor

2010-08-06T12:09:00.019-04:00

Last week I had the lovely opportunity to work with Abby to do her new headshots. She is an absolute dream in front of the camera. Usually I have to give a bit of direction until the person is comfortable and understands what they're doing, what's working, what isn't, etc. She just did everything without me having to ask. It was so cool, made my job absolutely effortless. I just had to stand there and click the shutter.

abigail prebble-taylor, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Last one's not very headshot-y, but I liked it none the less.

These were a lot of fun to shoot. We were down at the creek area and just above the valley is a park that the town happened to be holding their weekly Concert in the Park series. So, we had live jazz playing the whole time we were shooting. It was awesome!

20/52

2010-07-30T00:45:00.002-04:00

Oh blog, how I have neglected you.

Finally got around to pretending I'm still doing this project properly. Sigh. SOME DAY. PERSERVERENCE.

geisha, originally uploaded by avalilly.

This "week's" shot inspired by the shot below (also by me!):

heart shaped lipstick, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I was told it looked sort of like geisha makeup, which sounded kinda cool, so I thought why not give it a swing. My lovely friend Laurie bought me the parasol back in first year for secret santa. It's a lovely prop. I need to figure out how to display it proper. There's an alternate shot on my flickr photostream if you're interested.

My BenNye aqua cakes finally got their turn, very minimally, in the first shot. They're like putting water colour paint on your face. It's quite interesting how they work. I need to do something more elaborate in the future with them though. I enjoyed the small 'pop of red' for now though.

Anywho, I've got some new stuff to upload eventually. I did photos for my cousin's little boy's 5th birthday. He's adorable and hilarious. Got a few rounds of headshots in for some new people as well. Tried doing more theatre stills, didn't turn out quite as nice as the last one, but it was during a practice run so it wasn't lit the way it would be on stage. However, I got to get up close with the actors so the shots are more dynamic than last time!

This weekend I am off to Ottawa for another photo job. Can't wait, I haven't been there since my grade eight grad trip. Should be wonderful!

19/52

2010-07-16T00:57:00.002-04:00

sleep tight, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Hmmmmmmm. Yah, I still don't know how I feel about this one. I was happy about it until I started editing and then I just had mixed feelings. Ah well, it's something.

I have another for the 52 project in the works. It's just... there's so much editing involved when you decide to pretend you live on the ceiling (think week 15). It should be a fun mini-series though. I just... have to do it. Blahhh.

On the plus, I am nearly finished another large drawing. Soon, my pets. Soon.

mortal

2010-07-07T19:30:00.002-04:00

mortal, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I don't think I've posted this one yet. I finished it back in March, I guess I just haven't gotten around to documenting it. Yesterday I decided to photograph a bunch of drawings I've done this year. I posted them to flickr, so take a look if you wish (click on the image to take you there), most have already been posted here though. Detail photos are also contained in the comments of the images on flickr.

Feels like I haven't been doing much drawing lately. Or, well, anything but photography, really. Must motivate self...

18/52 - graduated!

2010-06-29T21:23:00.005-04:00

I graduated from York University's specialized honours BFA in Visual Arts program this year. The ceremony was June 14, 2010. Oh the excitement to be finished! It's nice to be able to work on whatever you want whenever you want... but I have to be a real person now, so it's kind of scary too!

cap and roses, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I decided to add this to my 52 weeks project. Seemed fitting as an important week and oh how behind I am in it... let's not talk about it.

Since then I've gotten a bunch of random photo jobs, which is awesome because I've almost completely covered the cost of my big ol' Canon Pixma Pro9000 mk II purchase from last month. I need to figure out a way of selling prints online now that I'm able to print everything myself. Once I do that, I'll pass along the info on how to order, if you're interested!

jay

2010-06-20T19:20:00.022-04:00

Last week I did a photoshoot for my cousin's little boy Jay. He's turning 5! He is a hilarious, adorable little guy. I've never worked with children before, so it was an interesting change. There's a lot more deal making that has be made in order to get a shot! For example, I had to play "rock". This involved throwing rocks into the river. Then he would smile for me to take the pictures! Haha.

jay: 5 years, originally uploaded by avalilly.

hat, originally uploaded by avalilly.

stone's throw, originally uploaded by avalilly.

walk on, originally uploaded by avalilly.

jay, originally uploaded by avalilly.

look what I can do, originally uploaded by avalilly.

It was a fun way to start the day, that's for sure! And yes, that is infact a custom t-shirt. Cute idea!

jameson and lysanne

2010-06-06T13:17:00.000-04:00

Jameson and Lys recently celebrated their 6th anniversary. He originally approached me to do these photos back in the winter, but I think it would have been too cold running around downtown toronto finding fun things to take photos near. This was my first try at any sort of relationship photos, so I'm happy with the turn out! Plus, they look so great together. Made my job easy!

I blinked to see polite ghosts fading quickly, originally uploaded by avalilly.

jameson and lysanne, originally uploaded by avalilly.

jameson and lysanne, originally uploaded by avalilly.

In case I happen to upload any more from this shoot, you can find them here: set!

lost things

2010-05-30T02:54:00.000-04:00

Stumbled across this earlier. I absolutely adore it. Had to post it, if not for the sake of never losing it! I would love to make something like this some day. <3

makeup monster birthday

2010-05-29T13:42:00.002-04:00

cereal and face, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Just wanted to dedicate a post to my favourite lil makeup artist, Katie Melanson. Today is her birfdayyy. She is far away in another land though, studying makeup artistry at Vancouver Film School. We all miss her muchly, especially me because who else would I randomly stick lucky charms on my face with, or make Astrea and Jamie come over so we can make them model for us, or dedicate copious amounts of our lives to being malmas.

Happy birthday, makeupmonstermelanson! Have a wonderful day... and then come back soon!

17/52

2010-05-29T13:31:00.002-04:00

printemps, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I should really shoot outdoors more often. So many more (easy!) pretty options. Get a little flower bokeh going and voila, a decent photo. Unfortunately, there's people outdoors. Most of the areas I've been interested in going to shoot at end up being somewhat popular for nature walks or whatever it is people like to do outside. I really don't like when there's other people around when I'm doing self portraits, everything ends up so terribly awkward!

This is just in my backyard though, so it wasn't too bad. Follow the flickr link to find two more crop options. I really hate having to crop. I like to have the composition made in camera, but sometimes when you're dealing with variables like, say, not being able to see the composition while you're in front of the camera, sometimes it's necessary.

Sqaure crops are a general pet peeve anyways. Unless you're shooting with a square format camera where you have to compose for a square frame, most people don't balance them right and it just bugs meeee!

16/52

2010-05-28T00:52:00.002-04:00

delicate, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Slowly but surely making up for past weeks. I had to be sneaky about this one, I highly doubt my mother would have approved of the fact that I was wearing her beautiful orchid flowers as a hat. 'Twas kinda fun though. Now I have a strange urge to seek out an orchid hair pin or whathaveyou.

Follow the flickr link for a couple more alternates.

behind!

2010-05-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

AHH.

I just had a horrible realization. I'm technically 7 weeks behind on my 52 weeks project. I started basically around new years, so week one was the first week of January. I just counted and it looks like this weekend should be when I'd be taking my 22nd self portrait. I believe I've only posted 15... I'm not going to post old ones that I haven't shown yet, I will continue to take new ones.

So this is mostly a reminder. I have 7 to catch up on in the next week, 8 if I stretch it over two weeks. IT WILL BE DONE!

You can always check my progress in the Flickr set: 52 weeks!

Coming soon: Jameson and Lysanne

miranda scott jewelery

2010-05-24T13:21:00.010-04:00

Back in mid April, I did a photoshoot for Miranda Scott. She's just finished the Jewelery program at George Brown this year and wanted to have some of her pieces photographed on a model. The lovely Astrea modelled for us and Katie Melanson did the makeup!

miranda scott jewelery, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Follow the Flickr links for more information.

Miranda Scott on Flickr
Miranda Scott's Website

15/52

2010-05-23T21:15:00.002-04:00

I'm not normal, originally uploaded by avalilly.

So behind. Should probably stop hanging out on the ceiling. It takes up too much of my time... time that could be spent getting caught up on this 52 weeks project! (This was a much longer edit than anticipated.)

Coming soon: a shoot with Astrea for Miranda Scott jewlery and my first set of couples photos for some lovely friends of mine (I'm really excited about these)!

14/52

2010-05-05T00:40:00.003-04:00

falling without knowing, originally uploaded by avalilly.

So, I'm a bit behind on my 52 weeks project. I should be able to catch up over the next week though.

I think this is my favourite one of the project so far. I've never tried anything like this before, so I'm happy that it [eventually] turned out! It was frustrating to shoot, but the photos are pretty neat.

There's something wrong with the autofocus on my camera I think. Both my 18-55 and 50mm seem to have trouble focusing, especially on something as simple as a figure infront of a plain background. I had to get a friend to stand in for me so I could manual focus on them and then I just tried to stay in one spot for the rest of this shoot.

Hopefully, it's just in a bad mood...

rouge: cecilia

2010-05-03T16:59:00.002-04:00

Here is a selection of the photos from Cecilia's set of the red lipstick series:

This girl is awesome. She hits so many poses and makes it look like there's a wind machine on her hair when there definitly isn't! Took me a while to narrow down her shots to a manageable amount, so many useable photos!

Photography and Post Processing: Laura Crowell

Makeup Artist: Katie Melanson

rouge: astrea

2010-05-02T16:20:00.034-04:00

Here is a selection of the photos from Astrea's set of the red lipstick series:

I always love working with Astrea. She looks good pretty much anywhere you put her infront of the camera. Makes my job so easy!

Photography and Post Processing: Laura Crowell

Makeup Artist: Katie Melanson

rouge: jamie

2010-05-01T15:02:00.001-04:00

Back in February, I did a photoshoot with three lovely ladies; Jamie, Astrea, and Cecilia. The theme is just red lipstick, I have no specific artistic direction from there. Whatever happens happens!

Here are a few from Jamie's set:

(Taylor stopped by too!)

Jamie is so fun to work with. Her giant eyeballs catch the light so well!

Photography and Post Processing: Laura Crowell
Makeup Artist: Katie Melanson

Astrea and Cecilia's shots coming soon!

update!

2010-04-22T16:15:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone,

It feels like it's been a while since I uploaded anything new, but it's just because I've been reorganizing this blog. I decided to change the dates on some of my entries to make them closer to the dates in which things actually happened. I'll continue updating like that until I get caught up on what I've done and been shooting this year. I've still got a couple whole series of images to post on the photography and drawing fronts, so check back soon for those.

In the meanwhile, check out these new posts (that have been put in their proper place in time):

marat/sade: photos of Laurie Merredew's lighting design for Theatre @ York's most recent show.

open house: York University's Visual Arts open house! So much to see.

drawing area exhibition: an art gallery show I participated in with two of my most recent works.

bonds: a short film by Janice Lee that I did Production Design for.

barbell boy: a short film by Taylor Bateman that I did Production Design for. (Got to build my first film set too!)

astrea campbell-cobb: headshots!

In other news, I am now a graduate of York University's specialized honours BFA for Visual Arts program. It's so weird to be done school and have to face the real world and be a real person (and pay off my student loan...). I have a couple job possibilities on the horizon, so hopefully that'll pan out soon so I don't have to worry about the job hunt portion of this new life. I'm quite behind on uploading for my 52 weeks project as well, so now that I have time I can get back into that.

So, even though I'm done school I still have lots to do. Check back soon for more arting and adventures by me!

13/52

2010-03-31T00:20:00.002-04:00

unbearable lightness of being, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm not generally a big fan of overexposure, mostly because it seems anytime someone gets access to photoshop or the like for the first time they just find the brightness/contrast tool and go to town with it. I attempted to achieve this look as best I could in the camera, so there wasn't that much editing to be done.

At the last minute, while about to pack up the camera, I noticed a couple decorative hair pieces sitting on the ledge by the door, so I popped one on and managed to get this in just a few frames. I always find it strange when that happens, but I've made it a rule that once I think I've got the shot I want in the camera - take a few more just for safety. You never know!

I may make this one of my business cards.

marat/sade

2010-03-30T14:58:00.038-04:00

A friend of mine is in the Theatre Production program at York University. She contacted me about taking photos of her lighting design for the play Marat/Sade. Here is the university's press release about the play if you're interested in reading more about it.

I took photos of basically every lighting change, so I'll just post a few of my favourite shots:

I sat in on a dress rehearsal, so these aren't shots from any of the real show times. It was a really good play! The lighting design was done by the lovely Laurie Merredew (of whom I have done headshots for in the past)! I love getting to see the kind of fun stuff my friends get to dedicate their talents to.

12/52

2010-03-24T14:44:00.003-04:00

secret heart, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Follow the Flickr link and the original shot is in the comments. I cropped it down since it seemed more coy without the eyes in the frame. I also need to fix the smudgier one of the kisses...

This week is going to be a mad dash to the finish it would seem. I thought classes were ending sometime around the first week of april. It would appear I was mistaken... everything is due at the beginning of next week! Argh.

On the plus side, I am feeling more confident with my drawing series (I actually HAVE a series!!), so I'll hopefully be able to show them all together soon. It feels so strange, but I'm going to be done school soon... anything I work on now is going to be because I want to...

open house

2010-03-18T23:23:00.053-04:00

Yesterday was York University's Visual Arts Open House. The entire Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts was transformed into an exhibition space for all students of 3rd, 4th, and 5th year standing to show their work. I just showed a few of my drawings in the drawing area, as the only other studio I'm taking at York right now is a historical painting techniques course and my painting isn't that far along yet. There was a lot of really great work being shown, so I ran around with my camera taking photos of my favourites:

As you can see, I kind of stuck more so to the drawing and painting areas. The sculpture work was scattered throughout the building and had some really good pieces, but I just don't think my photos did them any justice. I didn't take any photos in the photography area, mostly because there were so many people in it and also a lot of the work is smaller so you wouldn't have been able to see it very well unless I posted like 100 close ups of each work. There was also some time based art and printmaking areas showing work too.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is, go to York University's open house next year. There is so much to see and it encompasses so many different styles of art. We installed our work in the morning and the show went from noon until 8pm! If you have a chance to see it sometime, I definitly recommend going. It's one day only~

11/52

2010-03-16T01:25:00.004-04:00

olde, originally uploaded by avalilly.

ingenue, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm not really sure which one to make my official weekly shot. I like them both. The boy-type preferred the second one, I like it a lot too mostly because I generally reject photos of me from that angle. There's less awkward shadowing in the first one though.

PS: that's a new hair colour! Finally tried a real dye... if you consider semi-permanent real. It'll wash out in about a month or so, but I like it. Looks very red under sunlight. I think I still prefer my natural shade though.

drawing area exhibition

2010-03-14T22:36:00.042-04:00

Over the past week (March 3-12, 2010), some of my work was shown in York University's Drawing Area Exhibition in the Gales Gallery. Basically any work done in any of the drawing classes could be shown. I selected two of my most recent drawings. It's strange in these photos, it looks like I'm one of the only people utilizing bright colours, so they stand out a bit even though they're in the background.

The blue ones are mine!

By far one of the coolest drawing installations I've ever seen. She had some faint lights coming from various points around it. The actual paper is so fragile! I can't imagine how much patience is needed to pull this off.

The two portraits on the far left and far right were done with ink stamps, which I thought looked really neat. One girl used a butterfly stamp, one used stars, and the way they stamped them created the portraits. It was really neat to see up close and then from far away.

Overall I was quite impressed with the work and how the show was set up. The drawings were done by everyone between 1st and 5th year, so it was interesting to see all the different strengths and styles beside eachother.

bonds

2010-03-10T14:49:00.013-05:00

I did the production design for Bonds; a film written and directed by Janice Lee. If anyone remembers the show Ready or Not, the woman who played Busy is the star of this film.

Unfortunately due to massive need to be in classes, I could only be on set for a couple of the days, but the wonderful Crystal Basaez took care of the on set art tasks while I was away.

Here's some stills from the two main locations:

It will be screening on the evening of April 20, 2010 at the Price Family Cinema at York University. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

10/52

2010-03-10T12:46:00.002-05:00

pale, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I just noticed all I've really been uploading here is my 52 week project as of late. I think I'm a bit more back on my feet as of this week in terms of having time to focus on me again though, so I'll try and get some more variety up in here. I have a couple art show related things to post, another film, some headshots, and work from my red lipstick photoshoots!

Life gets a bit crazy sometimes though.

9/52

2010-03-02T13:53:00.002-05:00

sequin wave, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Didn't really have a plan for this week's portrait, so I decided to just play and see what would happen.

I really don't want to be in school anymore. I want it to be over so I can just work on what I want to work on... but I know even that won't happen, because I have to go be a real person and get a job and then that'll be getting in my way. Maybe I'm just craving a change.

My birthday is tomorrow!

8/52

2010-02-23T12:56:00.003-05:00

it won't do, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Since I was busytimes last weekend, I didn't have time to do a valentine's day-esque photo, so I just did it this week instead! I sort of wanted the cinnamon heart to be a little bit more prominent, but I think I kind of like how small it is. It's like a secret heart. While processing, all I could think of was this song:

<3

barbell boy

2010-02-22T00:16:00.000-05:00

As previously mentioned HERE, I worked on a film written and directed by Taylor Bateman in February as the Production Designer. I got to design and build my first set in the film studio at York University. It's meant to be an imaginative/creative teenage boy's bedroom. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun to build! I was sooo happy to see it once it had been properly dressed and the actors and crew came in to shoot.

Here's some random stills from the production:

I haven't seen a finished version of the film yet, but it'll be screening sometime near the end of this month. Can't wait to see it! :)

7/52

2010-02-21T22:12:00.002-05:00

production designer habitat, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Last week's photo. I was busybusy times on set, so I just snapped this really quick at lunch time since I didn't have time to do a planned photoshoot of any kind.

'Tis the set I designed and built in the sound stage at York! I now want tinfoil stars and christmas lights everywhere in my life.

I'll upload a selection of production stills once I catch up on all the work I've been neglecting to do in liu of this film~

6/52

2010-02-09T00:23:00.002-05:00

persephone, originally uploaded by avalilly.

This week's image. Didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but I atleast got the pose as close as I could, so there's that.

I'm not terribly fussy on the texture, but the photo needed something else seeing as my reflector skillz didn't work out so well this time. Overall, I'm happy with it, but there's always something I wish I spent more time on.

I'm building my first film set this week! Super hoping everything works out with it and that it's magical~

astrea campbell-cobb

2010-02-07T15:53:00.019-05:00

The lovely Astrea recently asked me to do some headshots for her. She needed to update her photos as she shaved off her long locks back in Novemeber 2009 as a part of a really brave project for school dealing with trying something new that scares you. And what do you know, she still looks amazing!

She's so much fun to work with! I'm putting together a series of red lipstick photos that she also participated in, so keep an eye out for that in the future.

5/52

2010-02-02T00:51:00.002-05:00

google this, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Googly eyes! (Please follow the image link to Flickr to see 3 more photos from this shoot.)

I couldn't really decide which one I wanted to make my official submission for my 52 weeks project, but this one had the sharpest focus overall. The one with the silly face is much more fitting for the makeup though. Ah well!

The best part was shaking my head and hearing all the googly parts google around. :'D

the original decision daisy series

2010-01-29T18:10:00.005-05:00

he loves me?, originally uploaded by avalilly.

maybe, originally uploaded by avalilly.

decision daisy, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I shot these photos way back in June of last year, but I wasn't quite satisfied with them, so I reshot the idea later on (you can view them in this entry). Last night I was in another edit-photos-mood while watching a movie, so I started fiddling with the colour balance on these and found a new love for them!

In the summer I bought a bunch of blank cards/envelopes for the purposes of selling as original artist cards. I still haven't figured out what exactly to put on them. I'm not sure what'll look better, printing directly onto the cardstock or gluing photo prints onto them... so perhaps when I have some more time on my hands I'll start figuring that stuff out and maybe open an etsy shop.

There's so many little project ideas I have. I also have blank bookmarks I can print on and sooo many tiny canvases. I think maybe I'll make a check list of things I could be doing with my time and maybe that way I'll actually get them done haha.

4/52 ♥

2010-01-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

♥, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Another for the heart series!

I'm not 100% satisfied with this. The shots with perfect focus had ugly feet positions happening and this one was my favourite in terms of composition so I couldn't say no to it. I actually really dislike feet, so I'm not sure why I took this, but it was a lazy lazy sunday afternoon and all I wanted to do was lounge around and be warm and watch tv and not have to deal with my face in front of the camera.

I'll do something more elaborate next week. I bought myself a 12 pack of Ben Nye MagiCake Aqua Paints back in november, so I have some very good colourful options to try out, I just need to figure out what to do exactly.

I'm going to be a tad busy over the next month or so. I'm Production Designing two films, the first of which I get to design and build my first studio set for! You have no idea how excited I am for this. It's going to be such a cool room, I can't wait.

!!!

3/52

2010-01-18T20:37:00.003-05:00

kaleidoscope eye(s), originally uploaded by avalilly.

The third week image of my 52 weeks project. Everything looked really weird after this photoshoot, since I spent most of it looking at multiples of my camera through the gem.

I'm really enjoying how wonderful the 50mm lens is for portrait photography (the bokeh is AMAZING), although I've discovered it's not necessarily the best all purpose lens if you happen to be in a small room. It takes great lowlight photos, but I really do love the wide angle capabilities of my 18-55. I know it's just a kit lens, but there's a lot more freedom for me with on-set photos and gallery shots if I can just adjust the zoom on the fly with the lens rather than run back or forward to get the shot.

Speaking of galleries, I'm in a show this week with a new piece. I'll upload that very soon with more info, once I get the photos all ready to go.

Check back soon~

24 hour workshop

2010-01-18T18:54:00.000-05:00

Over this past weekend I participated in a 24 hour workshop organized by the Visual Arts Student Association. Essentially, participants would start, finish, and then hang their work in the Special Projects Gallery in under 24 hours. We are displaying our work all this week (January 18-22), the gallery is in the Goldfarb Center for Fine Arts at York University next to the Curry's.

Facelift (Laura Crowell 2010) 22"x30" conte on paper

(I'm not 100% done with this, but it'll do for now.)

These two drawings were done by Michelle Mackinnon. I believe they're 6'x3.5'. I can't believe she finished the one on the right in less than 24 hours. Amazing!

A paper sculpture by Billy Garland.

Print media!

Awesome mixed media work by Diana VanderMeulen.

Unfortunately, I don't have the names of all the artists. I'll try and get them and then update this later on, but go check out the show and find out for yourself in the mean time!

reflections of a skyline

2010-01-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

Stumbled across this little film earlier. I'm not really sure what to say about it, but I think it's worth a watch (or two, or three).

The dialogue is apparently an excerpt from Sarah Kane's one act play Crave.

I kinda like it.

2/52

2010-01-10T12:11:00.005-05:00

teardrop on the fire, originally uploaded by avalilly.

fearless on my breath, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Images from this week's shoot for my 52 weeks project. I chose the first one to represent this week, but I really like how the hair was captured in the second one too. I've got a few more outtakes I'd like to edit, so I'll probably post those up soon as well.

Recently I've been really digging Massive Attack, particularly these two songs:

Teardrop (the video is a little creepy, but the song is great. You'll recognize it if you watch House.)

Joy Luck Club -lovelovelove-

Anywho, is it just my browser that appears to be cutting the images off a bit on the right, or is that just a blogger-not-being-fat-enough thing?

the beginning 1/52

2010-01-04T23:44:00.004-05:00

the beginning, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Hello everyone! Happy New Year to you~

So I made the impulsive decision to start a 52 weeks project as a new year's resolution. I really don't feel I'm ready to commit to the 365 project, where you do a portrait everyday for a year, so I'll just be doing one per week instead. It's not unreasonable for me, plus I have a lot of ideas I'd like to try anyways, so this should be a good thing!

The image above is my first of the series. Click it to follow the link to my Flickr and there'll be more info there.

2010 brings some new funsies I'll be able to try out on the photography front: I bought myself a new lens! I got the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 (would have rathered the f1.4, but it was too expensive, unfortunately). Very excited to try that out with portraits. My uncle also got me an Opteka 5-in-1 reflector! I may actually start needing an assistant of sorts.

Anywho, I'm hoping this project will unfold nicely and I learn lots along the way. We'll see if I'm actually able to keep up with it...

merry christmas!

2009-12-24T21:20:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to say a quick merry christmas and happy holidays to everyone! Thought I'd throw in some fun holiday-esque imagery too. I love this season, specifically for all the lights~

Anywho, that's all from me for now. Wishing everyone a great new year too! I feel a new lens will be added to the roster soon... we'll see!

last.fm

2009-12-19T13:33:00.001-05:00

So, my friend ~~made me~~ highly recommended I make a last.fm user account.

http://www.last.fm/user/lauracrowell

Unfortunately, someone had the name avalilly already, so I just went with that.

If you also have an account, feel free to add me! Or if you don't, you can still go and judge my taste in music and general listening habits. Trust me, they're weird. Or make yourself an account! It's kinda fun. You can compare your taste in music with your friends and such.

Anywho, I am finally free of my crazy second-last semester of university. I can't believe I'll be graduating after the next one. I'll have to be a real person soon. Scary!

the silent witness project

2009-12-07T14:05:00.000-05:00

December 6 of this year marked the 20th "anniversary" since the Montreal Massacre in 1989. The human resources centre at York University approached the faculty of fine arts to do a free public exhibition in one of our central buildings on campus to commemorate the lives of the victims and to raise awareness about violence against women. Myself as well as ten other students created 14 silhouettes of female figures that represented each of the thirteen female students and one female teacher that lost their lives twenty years ago.

York's press release:
http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=13823

Our exhibition was held on Monday, December 7, 2009 in Vari Hall, York University. Here's a few photos I took while passing through between classes:

Barbara Daigneault

Age: 22

Artist: Laura Crowell

-Mechanical engineering student.

-Teaching assistant to her father, Pierre Daigneault, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

I think these two were my favourite of the bunch.

It was really neat to see all the students passing through on their way to classes and then stop to take a look at each one of the figures. They all had a small bio about the victim on the reverse side and some had an artist statement explaining the imagery on the front. They may end up being exhibited each year for this memorial, or in various other violence against women awareness related events put on by the university in the future.

I'm glad I got to be apart of it!

deviantart

2009-12-04T16:14:00.001-05:00

I revived my deviantArt account a couple days ago. Not entirely sure why, but I figured it might be nice to have another venue in which to display my art. It's sort of a weird community, bountiful in 'cutesy' art, but there are a lot of really good artists and photographers that continue to post there, so I figured no harm in indulging for now.

http://avalilly.deviantart.com/

Feel free to add me or say hi if you're also a member!

Perhaps I should start focusing more upon making an official website instead of posting on a variety of web communities. I really don't know where to begin with something like that though. I have several different ways I'd like to go in terms of the design, I just don't know which is manageable enough for me to try coding myself or what represents me the most... I suppose I'll start looking into that sort of stuff more in depth over the christmas break when I have some time.

If anyone has any tips they'd like to throw my way, I'd greatly appreciate it~

fear

2009-11-24T23:23:00.000-05:00

I Art Directed another 4th year York University film recently; written and directed by the fabulous Shannon Fewster (cutester!). It shot from November 19-23, 2009 on many locations with many characters! I only have snaps from a couple of the days though; the classroom and the car scenes. The actual classroom was very bare bones, so we needed to make it fun and math-y looking. The car scene was pretty light for my department, but I got to wrangle some raindrops and how often can you say you've done that~

This still kills me. I know it's so she can see the monitor better, but it still looks like a lunch bag to me.

Check my raindrop skills.

The film won't be completed until the end of the school year, same with Boycatt, so unfortunately I won't know how either of them turned out until I get to see them at the end of year screenings.

Fortunately, I was recently contacted by my director for It's Raining and he's sending me the completed copy of the film. Can't wait to see it! I may be working with him again on his next project, so perhaps you'll be seeing more updates from me on that front.

And now, back to my many remaining final projects for the semester...

chantilly lace

2009-11-10T22:35:00.003-05:00

Recently, I was given (very short) notice that I would be participating in a group exhibition in the Gales gallery at York University. It was to feature works by five talented young female artists (Jess Thalmann, Jiallin Ji, Jo Fallack, Lili Huston-Herterich, and myself). Unfortunately, due to time contraints (ie. practically no notice and it being the busiest part of the semester), there was no way to really plan a show that would have a lot of cohesion between all the different work. So, we figured we would all just put in whatever work we could and that would be that.

Another unfortunate piece of business was that the artists who utilized the gallery space right before us were given the wrong shade of white paint to restore with and our walls ended up having very noticeable darker blocks of paint across them. Already being frustrated with the show and everyone being so busy, there wasn't any time to go out and buy the right paint and fix it. We decided to just roll with it and we installed our work over top and named the exhibition Chantilly Lace after the shade of paint that wasn't meant to be there.

These are the drawings that I installed in the show:

Outspoken (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

Untitled (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

La Scapigliata (Laura Crowell 2009) 22"x30" conte on paper

The show will be running until November 13, 2009.

Interesting experience, to say the least. I am a little sad that we were given such crappy notice about it though. I've wanted to show work in that gallery since I found out undergrads were allowed to apply, so it's unfortunate there wasn't enough time for me to produce new work for it.

Outspoken is my most recent piece. I'm hoping to continue with a series of drawings in a similar style. The hands drawing has already been shown at Whippersnapper gallery earlier in March of this year in the Play/Pause show. La Scapigliata is sort of just a drawing for the sake of drawing something. There's not a terribly big meaning behind it, so I felt a little silly including it.

Ah well, there was space on the wall, so why not!

headshots

2009-11-02T14:47:00.000-05:00

So I got to try my hand at some more headshots on Sunday. My friend Laurie is in theatre production and needed some headshots for the show she is stage managing so she asked me to do them, which was awesome because I need more practice! She was great and brought along another lovely girl, Emily, who is also in production. The more the merrier~

These ladies were a lot of fun to work with and were super fabulous because they set up the lights for me! We used the theatre lighting studio, so unfortunately I have no idea how to handle the type of lights that were available to us. They weren't the most ideal lights for headshot purposes, but I think they turned out quite nice all the same.

Thank you Laurie and Emily!

boycatt

2009-10-30T20:43:00.002-04:00

I worked on another film over this past weekend. It was directed by my ol' roommate Tess Marie Garneau. It shot from October 22-26 for a 4th year York University student film production in quite a variety of locations. Unfortunately I was too busy to take stills in a few of the places, but for the park day I had some spare time to run around with a camera.

The majority of these photos will be from the outdoor pet show scene. We shot in Trinity Bellwoods dog park and it was a gorgeous fall day!

Our AD taking a break under a tree at lunch.

Is this not the dog from the Sand Lot?

This is 'Lole', he's a little down on his luck.

Our Production Manager doing a little dance.

I had to make a giant cheque for our pet show winner.

Cinematographer.

The pet show set.

The make up team.

The evil encyclopedia salesmen mafia.

Our lovely director... being lovely.

The main cast, sans Milo the cat.

It was an interesting five days. I learned a lot, had some fun, and worked with some pretty rad people (for the most part).

My roommate will be editing it, so when he gets around to sorting out the footage I'll see if he can provide me with some stills from the film to show ye alls. The colours in this movie are going to be beautiful, I can't wait to see the final product.

elephant love medley

2009-09-23T17:59:00.001-04:00

So, been sick for the past couple days so I've just been watching movies here and there to help with the healing process. Today, it was Moulin Rouge. I always forget how much I absolutely love this film, sometimes it's just overwhelming how much it amazes me. I'm a huuuge sucker for incredibly beautiful visuals and this film is chalk full of them.

This is one of my favourite sequences. It's not as powerful as the El Tango de Roxanne sequence, but this one always gives me the warm fuzzy goosebumps.

AGH. So good. Especially love the part with the exploding heart effect. This whole film is just a really great marriage of over the top embellishments, great acting, incredible art direction, really good editing, etc. Definitely one of my all time favourites.

Anywho, gushing over. I need to upload my new photos, there's quite a few, but I'm always hesitant since I often want to have them part of a 'series' or small group, but then never get around to finishing said 'series' or group. Ah well. I'll get to them eventually. Need to redo my flickr account too. I've sort of reached my 200 photos already, but I'm not certain I like all of them. Might just have to get myself a pro account so I don't have to worry about the cap.

'Til next time~

decision daisy

2009-08-27T16:17:00.001-04:00

I am aware that the flowers in question are actually blackeyed susans, but originally I tried this idea out with daisies and liked the title so I kept it. The daisies were much smaller, so writing on the petals was much more difficult than it was with the susans and would have required way more photoshopping than necessary. Fortunately, my mum had a nice crop of these flowers growing in the backyard during the summer and they didn't seem to mind the black marker as much, so WIN.

decision daisy, originally uploaded by avalilly.

all yellow, originally uploaded by avalilly.

handful, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm not sure if I want/need any more images to go with these. Might just leave it as a triptych, since it seems okay the way it is.

The leaves are already changing colours here. I love autumn, but I had so many summer-requiring ideas, I guess I'll just have to wait 'til next year to do them.

make-over

2009-08-25T20:34:00.000-04:00

So, this year I decided I should actually get a desk for school instead of just using my laptop on my bed all the time. I happened upon the Salvation Army store in my town getting rid of everything for super cheap so they could move locations or something. I found this desk in there for $30. It's small, cute, and fits perfectly in my new room.

I decided the dark forest green wasn't really working for me though. I have this thing for red, white, and black, so ofcourse that needed to happen in the new paint job. Picked up some marine oil paint 'sample' cans from the paint place, sanded it down and painted away!

Before!

After!

Unfortunately, the stripes didn't come out perfectly straight. The tape I used sort of allowed for some paint to seap under it, but it's nothing terribly noticeable. I'll probably just fix it with a small brush if I'm in a tedious mood sometime. I have some small circular mirror accents I'm debating putting on the drawers too, but I think I like it the way it is.

hearts

2009-07-18T22:46:00.001-04:00

heart petals, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love colour, originally uploaded by avalilly.

heart shaped lipstick, originally uploaded by avalilly.

colour love, originally uploaded by avalilly.

tilted love, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love tea, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love bokeh, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I don't know why, but one day I woke up and decided I'd like to start a photo series of hearts. I know it's been done a million ways already, but I like it. It's just a silly side project I'll keep ongoing, if I think of something or come across something that'll work I'll add it to the set.

It might eventually amalgamate into some sort of "love is" series, but I'll have to think about it. Well, maybe not, but I'll need the assistance of other people so it doesn't get stale. I'd like to do more people portraits anyways, so it's a definite possibility.

PS why does blogspot horribly compress the images in the thumbnails into grotsky quality? Sadface.

it's raining

2009-06-29T13:15:00.000-04:00

This film was shot on June 21, 2009. It was written and directed by Will Murphy and is special to me because it was my very first non-student production. It was a simple set up, just a bedroom and a bathroom, but the director trusted me with creative freedom to just bring in whatever and dress it how I felt. That was awesome, because the character who the room belonged to was pretty much in the exact demographic as I am, so a lot of my own things ended up being in the shots.

Worked out pretty well, the end budget for art department was only $4.52, which was spent on pregnancy tests from the dollar store for props. I still find it hilarious that you can buy pregnancy tests at the dollar store. They were perfect though because they were label free.

You can find more stills from the day here in my Flickr set, but here's a few favourites:

realization, originally uploaded by avalilly.

connection, originally uploaded by avalilly.

camera, originally uploaded by avalilly.

blanket, originally uploaded by avalilly.

lil hammer, big hammer, originally uploaded by avalilly.

makeup tears, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Overall it was pretty much the best experience I've had on set to date. There were a handful of industry professionals on the crew that graciously donated their time to help make this film. It was a really interesting change from working on student productions. Everything went by much quicker with a lot less downtime and everyone stuck to their own job, etc. I thought it might be more difficult to work with strangers, but it was a surprisingly lovely experience!

The film is not yet completed last I heard, but I can't wait to see the finished product!

money honeys

2009-06-18T17:21:00.001-04:00

This is precisely why I need to find summer employment... immediately.

Song: "Money Honey" by Lady Gaga

(Hopefully they won't get mad and make me take it down. Facebook wouldn't even let me upload it, so it'll go here for a little bit anyways...)

In other news, I'll be Art Directing a film on sunday, so look forward to seeing some production stills from that soon!

photoshoot fun

2009-05-31T12:30:00.000-04:00

So Katie and I had a fun little photoshoot last weekend. She wanted to do some makeup on a couple friends of ours to start building up a bit of a makeup portfolio, so I agreed to do the photography for her.

The following are of the lovely Jamie! Those lashes were so huge that the wind was actually blowing them around on her eyelids. She rocked them though!

Photography: Laura Crowell

Make-up: Katie Melanson

Model: Jamie Miller

Editting: Laura Crowell

The next batch are of Astrea. We ran into a bit of a time issue, as she had to get to a meeting, so it was a quick process with makeup and then a quick photoshoot, but they still turned out nice! Admittedly, not the most spectacular creative makeup in the world, but we were in a hurry. What can you do. She worked it though~

Photography: Laura Crowell
Make-up: Katie Melanson
Model: Astrea Campbell-Cobb
Editting: Laura Crowell

All in all, a fun little photoshoot. Hopefully with some more thought and time in the future, we can come up with some more elaborate ideas. I had a lot of fun working with these ladies, so hopefully they'll be up for it in the future!

monotomy

2009-05-20T21:08:00.001-04:00

Been a little busy as of late trying to finish up this lonnnng school year. I'm finally finished all of my course work, I just have a couple exams to take care of next week.

For my digital photography class, our final project had to do with stop motion or slide show narratives. I wasn't too crazy about the narrative part. When I heard 'stop motion' I had really hoped we could just compile sequences of images and not really have them mean anything. I just wanted to play! But alas, being at university everything must have a meaning and some kind of intellectual persuit. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but seriously sometimes you just want to make something pretty without having it be... SOMETHING.

I animated the ants all on my own. There's 130 different frames rendered into a loopable clip. It honestly took me a good eight hours or so to get it up and running. I wanted to toy with the idea of people with monotonous ant-like behaviour. As students, we are constantly working towards a piece of paper that proves what we've done. This being the longest school year ever due to the strike, it feels like the work and the routine never ends.

All in all, time consuming, but an interesting project. I'd like to try more things like this in the future. Perhaps without any time constraints I can come up with something a little more deep than "people vs ants".

headshot fundraiser

2009-05-10T18:10:00.000-04:00

As mentioned in a previous entry; "material goods", I offered to do headshots as a fundraising event for a friend so that I could in turn get some headshot photography experience. It was an interesting project to take on during the school year. I had obviously never attempted them before, but a couple friends from the film department rented me out some lights to use (thankyousomuch), so it turned out fairly well for a first try.

I didn't get terribly creative with any of these as it was my first go at headshottin' so I wanted to keep it simple, but here's some of my favourites from the edited batch of lovely peoples!

I think I learned more in the editing process than I did during the shooting. First, I'm still verrry much a beginner, but I can still see improvement happening since these were taken, so it's all good. Second, $30 is too cheap (even though I technically did them for free). The amount of time spent processing the photos kind of puts in perspective why a lot of photographers can get away with charging $300/hour. It was for a fundraiser though and we hoped to get a lot more people interested, so it was a fair deal!

All in all, I'm super glad I had the opportunity to do these. I now feel a little more comfortable being behind the camera and being able to interact with the model. Also, I definitly feel like I'd be able to take on more creative stuff for future headshot/portrait possibilities. I play around with that camera equipment of mine pretty much everyday and for only having it for a few months it's starting to get easier and easier to try new things with.

stay gold

2009-05-10T14:13:00.001-04:00

Here are some more production stills, this time from Stay Gold; a third year student film production @ York University 2009 written and directed by Alexandra Byers. My roommate was doing the makeup and asked for some help from me to do the strange designs on top of the purple skin.

sans purple, originally uploaded by avalilly.

little big shoes, originally uploaded by avalilly.

facing yourself, originally uploaded by avalilly.

habitat, originally uploaded by avalilly.

alien, originally uploaded by avalilly.

More can be found in my Flickr set!

It was a very pretty idea for film. Super fun for anyone who loves art direction, costumes, and makeup. Unfortunately, I believe I had two or three essays to write that same weekend, so I could only stop in to do the designs with makeup in the morning. Naturally, I stayed long enough to take some photos though.

Lovely film.

henry

2009-04-28T12:46:00.000-04:00

Here are some random snaps I took on the set of Henry; a third year student film production @ York University 2009 written and directed by Howard Shefman.

scene crop, originally uploaded by avalilly.

crew powwow, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I was called in pretty last minute (which I don't think I'll be doing in the future) to do set dressing for the apartment scenes. It was fun, I pretty much just had to make an eclectic apartment appear more sophisticated with what was available in front of me. I enjoy playing around with stuff like that. It was a bit of a tight space to work in, but the final product looked quite nice. My production stills aren't that great - I didn't want to get in the way too much while everyone was moving lights and pondering the frame so I just sort of captured what I could from the corners.

results

2009-04-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

So these are a couple of the results of my Janieta Eyre inspired photo project. I didn't get nearly as many good shots as I wanted, as it's super awkward to model for yourself. I had to get a roommate to operate the shutter for me, since I don't have a remote yet. The first one doesn't work as well for her style as I had hoped. I might need to make it black and white to do so, but the ridiculous dresses are my favourite part so I'd like to keep them in all their glorious colourfulness.

The second one I feel works well for her style. I wish I had a better idea of what the frame looked like though, I wanted the stuff on the wall to stand out. Ah well, 'twas a good learning experience; both photography and planning-wise. I'll have to remember not to rely too much on other people unfortunately. I couldn't do this project on my own without a remote and the people who were supposed to help me bailed. Thank god my roommate was home to help though!

I may still try a few more if I have time. I think I'll be printing the second image to be handed in though. It works the best and all the me's are in focus, which is always nice haha. Now all I have to do is figure out how to talk about the original photographer for 10 minutes. Always fun being a student, I guess.

janieta eyre

2009-04-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

I'm in a digital photography course this semester and we're heading in on the third project now. The theme this time around is to shoot a series of images in a sort of homage to a contemporary Canadian photographer. We were given a list of names to choose from and I searched out a few and came across the work of Janieta Eyre. She's got a really interesting body of work that you can check out on her website:

http://www.janietaeyre.com/index2.htm

I especially love her Incarnations series. The dual self portrait will be what I try to explore in this third project. 'Tis a shame my friend moved out of her apartment. It would have been perfect to shoot in, but I've found a way to make my own place work, so I'll be working on that all weekend! Hopefully it won't be too awkward doing a bunch of portraits of myself around the house.

Super excited for it though! I hope I can translate my ideas well enough into photos. They look so good in my head. :(

Check back soon for the results of this shoot! I'll try and post them as soon as I'm done editting~

starstruck

2009-03-29T21:01:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I helped out my friend on a film. She was in charge of make-up and needed someone to help do hair. It was quite a bit of fun, actually. Normally I help with the art direction and set dec, but I got to curl a bunch of hair and style it so it could atleast pass for the 1930's which is probably one of my favourite style eras, so I enjoyed it muchly.

Some snaps:

You can find more in my starstruck set on Flickr!

I'm looking into getting an EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. Found one on amazon for pretty cheap, so I may just have to pick one up. From what I've seen, it takes beautiful photos of people and is a generally great lens for multipurpose photography. Shame it feels so flimsy though. Ah well, it's not like I can afford anything too fancy! Yet, anyways. ;)

material goods

2009-03-23T12:06:00.000-04:00

The other day I got bored and decided it was time for a trip to Yorkdale and the general Orfus Road area near by (awesome outlet stores, holla). As I was passing by the Blacks Photography store near the subway entrance of the mall, I noticed they had a spring sale sign in their window and figured I'd go in and see if any cool lenses were on for less.

I didn't find any good sale lenses, but I found myself a lovely Soligor T170 heavy duty tripod for $29.99! It was marked down from $80, so I was quite happy about my discovery.

Afterwards, I ventured over to Fabricland on Orfus Road and found some amazingly cheap fabric for backdrops ($2/meter!), so I am now fairly well equipped for doing headshots and portrait type things. I picked up a nice light grey/off-white and a good deep/dark grey. Can't wait to try them out!

I'm going to meet up with a girl I met through Frosh Week soon to set something up. She's trying to raise money for her Up With People (http://www.upwithpeople.org/) trip, so I offered to do headshots for people and the money collected can go towards her fundraising. This way, I'll get some experience and she'll have more funds for her trip. Everybody wins!

I imagine I should probably get my business card printed soon. May indeed come in handy! Just need to find a place that'll do it for cheap.

special projects gallery

2009-03-19T16:25:00.001-04:00

I'm in a fourth year drawing class, since the third year class of essentially the exact same design was full. We were given the opportunity to showcase some of our work in one of the university's galleries. I had three pieces shown. It ran from March 2nd-6th.

jaded
Originally uploaded by avalilly

girl with a swirl earring
Originally uploaded by avalilly

bikini of venus
Originally uploaded by avalilly

It's just a small space to show in, but any experience for the CV is good, right? I'm sure it's nicer for the work to be hanging in a gallery than rotting away in my $5 cardboard portfolio anyways.

I'm looking into getting a couple solo shows going. I want to expand on my modernized famous portraits series enough so I can atleast pair up with one or two other artists. Basically, I want to take famous portraits from way back when and apply modern day beauty/fashion trends to them as a lighthearted comment upon the frivolousness of our many ideas of feminin beauty ideals. Or something like that. Also, I have a thing for crazy squiggly light photos, so I'll probably give that a try as well. I'll elaborate on that another day...

play/pause

2009-03-18T21:32:00.004-04:00

PLAY/PAUSE was a York University Undergraduate Visual Arts Students Association (VASA) juried art show. We ran it at Whippersnapper gallery in downtown Toronto from March 2nd-13th, 2009. My piece, "Untitled" (hands) made it in. The reception was held on March 6th, 2009 to much succcess. The place was packed! Here's some photos from the exhibition:

Overall, it was a wonderful show and a really good experience. I'm looking forward to doing this more often (talent and opportunities permitted)!

For more photos from this event, check out my Flickr set: Play/Pause!

birthday bouquet

2009-03-10T19:38:00.000-04:00

birthday bouquet, originally uploaded by avalilly.

blue rose, originally uploaded by avalilly.

bluem, originally uploaded by avalilly.

The boy got me lovely blue roses for my birthday. I took so many pictures of them, but alas they never really opened more than this. Probably the combination of the cold air and the dye shortened their life span. They've dried nicely since then so I still have them. Such a gorgeous colour. ♥

I may make this into a triptych print for sale some day. People like flowers. Especially ones that don't need watering!

For more flower images, check out my Flickr set!

start

2009-03-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

Hello Internet,

So I've finally been sucked into this little world of blog. I figure it'll take me a little while to build my online portfolio/webpage for my art, so a blog will have to do in the meantime. I'll probably use this as a place to dump some random highlights about my life, my artistic endevours, some progress pieces or simply things that I find inspiring.

Like music for instance!

For those of you who are fans of Damien Rice, you'll be familiar with Lisa Hannigan. She accompanies him in some of his studio songs, as well as on the road in many live performances. Anywho, it was recently brought to my attention, through The Colbert Report no less, that she has her own album now. It is magnificent. I highly recommend it. I'm so in love with it right now it's all I've been listening to.

You can check her out on her website: http://www.lisahannigan.ie/ or her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/lisahannigan if ye be interested. Oh, the Irish~

Anywho, check back whenever. I'll be updating with photos from recent exhibitions and whatnot. Also be sure to check out my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avalilly/ for what is sure to be more recent updates, atleast on the photography front.

Til next time~