État D'Urgence Mani-Festival: Because The Homeless Should Have Their Own Festival

Alanah Heffez of Spacing Montreal and I made our way to the État D'Urgence Mani-Festival taking place at BERRI-Square in Montreal's downtown core. Some of the photos will be featured on Spacing Montreal's blog. It was rainy and quite cold, but about 100 attendees were present for food, fire dancers and a variety of musical acts.

All in all, a surprisingly friendly and forward environment. Folk were more then happy to find their way in front of my lens for some impromptu captures and chat me up thereafter. I shouldn't be surprised, but the number of street folk with Facebook pages did catch me off guard. I've made a few promises that I must keep with these shots.

One new friend was a very proud fellow by the name of DB with a great Toronto tattoo emblazoned across his forearm. Apparently it was a cover-up for a previous tattoo and had become its own project in development. I look forward to seeing the next phase of the piece.

I'll be honest, the cold and wet got to me after a good hour and a half and we soon found ourselves in the shelter of a nearby pub to watch the Canadiens lose to the Penguins. The luxury of such a shuffle is certainly not lost on me tonight. Nor is the bed less then 10 feet from my work station.

In the words of the festival organizers:

"État d’Urgence is the fruit of an impressive mobilization of several hundred people building an honest-to-goodness urban village and offering over five days, around the clock, a variety of services to homeless people. Its eclectic artistic programming serves as a catalyst for unprecedented social encounter. État d’Urgence promotes proper social hygiene because its participants deal face-to-face, help one another and discover one another. Art is the uniting principle here; it sheds light on the suffering, acknowledges it and offers strength and resilience!"

It's late and I have a shoot at 10am, so this will be brief. I'm terribly proud of this Roller Derby shot I took of Montreal hardcore Derby mistress Heidi Beater Pan-Tease Rubin and I wanted to show it off.

The kids are burning something in the kitchen...

Caboodle!


Megan Deere!


Zach!

I'm with Caboodle all weekend. The young theatre collective (it seems so strange writing that) from Belleville Ontario are spending the weekend in Montreal. My good friend Meghan Deere, the facilitator/creator/director of Theatre Caboodle decided a few months ago to bring the group to Montreal for a second shot at putting a few pieces the kids created and co-wrote on a small stage in the Mile End.

I've been declared co-producer as well as photographer (mainly because I keep tapping my network to build and audience) but I'm also hosting 3 of the 9 younguns at my place in NDG. For the eternal bachelor, feeding, putting to bed and making sure everyone is clean before we leave the house activities are quite the novelty and I have to say I'm enjoying the young company of the likes of Zach, Erin and Simon. The rest of the crew are staying in the Plateau... divided up between Meg and our colleague Kim's place.

The kids are performing tonight and tomorrow night. I'm right now drafting this post from Mainline Theatre while the kids watch a play (a real play at a real theatre!). More info about the show can be found here.

Here are some of the photos I took when they were in town this Summer.


Katie!


Clare!


Simon!

The Kitchen Project

Let's wax a little less poetic here and talk about some work and some photos I've had of late. It's been awhile (again) since my last post. This one marks my campaign to mount one blog post a week for the next year. I have slew of gigs to report on, but I'll start with the one that featured food. Food. Food.

2009-10-25 The Kitchen Project - Images by Tristan Brand

The next 5 years... And Evelyn Hofer's 87.

I'm trying to decide how to lead my life for the next few years. I'm coming to terms with the fact that it is difficult to make a living here in Montreal and that all the work I would like to be doing asks that I be more qualified. Some of that comes in the form of a degree, some of it pure work experience. So the age old question arises: is it time to dedicate myself to finding a photography job and less private work? While there seems to be no end to the things I can shoot here in Montreal, the need for me to shoot things seems limited. I made the decision to pursue humanitarian and NGOs efforts and lend them my skills, but the question of how to go about that remains just beyond my grasp right now.

More importantly, I just want to shoot more so I can get better at what I do. So I can see people better. I don't mean to sound self-deprecating; I know I am getting better at what I do with each new experience (yes, this is a race with myself, fuck). If anything, I want to sound positive here: there are a never ending stream of talented photographers and photojournalists in the world that inspire me to be better. One such person is Evelyn Hofer, who passed away on November 2nd.

I won't attempt to paraphrase the commentary I've read after her passing, nor will I try to deny becoming most familiar with her in the the time following her death (funny, that). The portrait photos she achieves are so much more inside her subject then anything I've ever attempted or anything I've seen in a long time. Apparently she favored very composed images (many of her images border on still life) and it says to me that her character must have been something to encounter if she was able to achieve the work she did. Was she boisterous and convincing? Was she quiet and commanding? Was she shy and did her subjects mold themselves in sympathy? Was she something else entirely?

Here is an exercise: browse her portraits and imagine being around her as she conversed with her subjects and went to work. What sort a person do you imagine? Do that before you read anything written or said about her and see what your imagination drafts and how close or near to the real thing you are.

And for some of her scene work, look here to New York Proclaimed.

Blackberry Sorbet in Toronto; the post Pop Montreal blog

I'm attempting to make one of my favorite things: blackberry sorbet. Tomorrow is thanksgiving and my good friends Kiran and Alexis, who have been kind enough to let me stay at their apartment, are prepping massive amounts of food for dinner tomorrow. I've always been a fan of Sorbets; this will be my first attempt to make it myself.

I'm in town for a little work, a little down time and to see some friends. I find TO has been good for the creative juices any time I flow through. I have some much-loved friends that call this place home and do wonderful things. Lisa Pijuan-Nomura (of Girl Can Create) is one of those folk. She and her husband Dave, his sister Catherine and the circle of creatives that surround them are responsible for great things here... and a typical Sunday in TO will find me at Forest View Dim Sum with them discussing our latest endeavours, geeking out over camera gear and wandering over to Kensington market for coffee at either Ideal Coffee or Moon Beam.

To report a little more on Pop Montreal and the goodness that was the 5 days of the fest;

I did not have the fortune of catching Tune_Yards, one of the most talked about shows at Pop, but I did get to catch filmmaker Vincent Moon speak at Espace Reunion. Monsieur Moon, with awkward and endearing flourish introduced us to film after film (running off his little Mac laptop) and the one that left me most inspired (as it happened early on and caught me completely offguard I suppose) was this little diddy featuring Merrill Garbus (that's Tune_Yards, folks) and a place I really, really want to find in Austin called Sam's Barbecue (BBQ!) and some flies. And some onlookers.

Hit play!

tUnE-YaRdS: SXSW 2009 from Dig For Fire on Vimeo.

Making me extra pleased with myself this week is the mention I got on Pop's web site, just below the Sufjan video. Thanks Pop; you made me feel all giddy inside.

Now I feel as though my photos might require a seperate blog post. Perhaps between turkey and desert I will finalize my Day 4 and 5 galleries and post them here in slideshow form.

Time to go skim the sorbet again one last time before bed. 8 hours til Dim Sum!

Pop Montreal Day 3

Alright, off to Dragonette (in 30 minutes!!!), but here are some more slideshow, including the Slew!


2009-10-02 The Slew - Images by Tristan Brand