(more relevant photos to be added later)
Yesterday I attended Career Day at the University of Alberta. It was the third or fourth such career fair that I've attended recently... this time of year being especially popular for employers and recruiters to host these type of events, all with varying levels of success. There's a bit of a misconception about the Alberta Job Market I think... despite everyone buzzing about the surplus of jobs in the province it is not necessarily any easier to find work in every field. One cannot simply walk into one of these job fairs, toss your resume to the winds, and then leave having been offered some spectacular job. Nor can you really leave one of these job fairs having made some spectacular contact that is going to get you an 'in' with some company.
Your typical job fair is not unlike the classic home and garden show or "trade show" with the exception of there being some yahoo with a Madonna mic who is trying to sell you some miracle shammy to clean out the inside of your microwave. Within Edmonton the fairs of the employment variety tend to be loud and cramped, with booths manned with representatives who seem to only speak very generally about the type of opportunities available with their company and love to hand you glossy brochures and then point to the careers website that is listed on the back.
As I walked around collecting information for my present and future clients, I noticed that larger than normal groups were clustering around the large industry reps. The hungry mob was a mix of unemployed professionals and eager university students with dollar signs in their eyes as they quietly calculated how much of their yearly tuition they could make working for the summer for one of these companies. What bothered me was that so many of the interested job seekers seemed to be there because of the appeal of salary alone. There were several instances were I overheard some individuals who clearly specialized in another field/industry altogether inquire about how much money could be made working for this particular company. At one booth, the company rep (who resembled a sleazy car salesman in his delivery) could be heard shouting, "There's not a lot of genetics in the oilfield... you know what I mean... I'm as smart as this pad here," (pointing to a pad of paper if you were so curious) "you know what I'm saying. You should stick to genetics."
How many people are fueled solely by money when they look for work? It's a question that I don't think I really want answered.
I suppose it's also fitting then that the 2005 feature photo includes Wade, during one of our many photo excursions in and around FSJ. Despite the limitations of our geography we really did manage to have a lot of fun. We had nothing to do but indulge in a little random spontaneity. This particular excursion is one of the most memorable... It was a cold, cold day... but we drove out to Beatton Park, Wade in one of his dad's old suits and me in my younger sister's prom dress (I was much skinnier then) and we each took turns in front of the camera (I should specify that we took turns in front of each other's camera, as by this time Wade also owned a digital SLR and the coveted 50mm lens).
These photos aren't the best overview of my photographic work, but they are an interesting way to highlight in my own mind my accomplishments and also the areas where I have failed to progress. And I'm not just speaking photographically.
Perhaps my mood yesterday evening was in some way dampened by the rather depressing sites I photographed on the way home. Although I admit to enhancing the grittiness and overall feeling of grunge in post, walking home on a dull afternoon through deserted downtown left me with the overall feeling of despair. The darkening of my spirit was more gradual... as I edited the photos, trying to bring out some of the layers of shadow and light I began to become more and more withdrawn. By the time I went to bed I was a fragment of my former vibrant self. I was a wilted flower... I was my own shadow.
enough with the melodramatics... I was just tired.
One more week until Toronto.
As I wandered home I paused every few blocks to take a photograph of deserted downtown. The emptiness of the streets seemed to exaggerate the feeling that I was shooting alone. I know a bunch of people in Vancouver who are part of the group Vandigicam. Although I enjoy taking pictures alone, I'm jealous of their photographic excursions... photographing posse style armed with cameras of different makes and models. There has been some attempts to start up a similar type group in Edmonton, but I haven't gone to any of the meetups mostly because I haven't been interested in any of them. I don't like to randomly meet up with strangers and I don't think any of the people who are part of the Edmonton Meet Up group are on my flickr contact list. Besides, if the weather of the first day of Autumn is any indication, it will be snowing soon and I'll prefer to remain indoors and experiment with studio lighting than freeze my hands outside.
Something that I find mildly amusing about my current employment situation is that I work in a job search assistance program, and I help other people find work. So, really... I should not have any problems in looking for work since I should be able to detect any roadblocks in my job search and come up with effective solutions (my motto will become, Physician, heal thyself!) I meet my clients after they have left or lost their previous jobs and when we begin to discuss their job search I will sometimes ask them to describe their ideal job. It can be a helpful exercise for some people who would like to take the opportunity of this transition to choose to pursue another line of work. The issue becomes when and how to scale back from this ideal. Once my father told me that no job was too low. I argued with him, refusing to agree that just any job will do. I still don't agree with him but now I have a much better understanding that a job is not a career. I've learned to reconcile my dream job(s) with more realistic aspirations.
Following a suggestion from one of the blogs I read, I listened to a couple interesting documentaries on BBC today about the school system in Finland as well as the quality of education at Westminster School and Harvard University.
I'm in the process of figuring out my itinerary for the trip. Aryn's going to be busy with conference events for the majority of the day, and I'm going to be left to my own devices to explore the city with camera in hand. I last visited Toronto when I was 16 and I was downtown for all of an afternoon. It was a very overwhelming experience and I didn't particularly like it all that much. Mind you I did have a terrible cold (ironic since I had just returned from visiting my relatives in Trinidad) and the day was not a particularly pleasant one. I remember standing on the sidewalk outside of the Hospital for Sick Children and feeling pushed around by all of the pedestrians who were in a mad rush to get somewhere. Now that I'm a seasoned metropolitan traveler (and older and a photographer) I think my experience will be much different. Any former Torontonians who want to give me suggestions of what to see?
So far the only thing I have planned is going to see Beirut at the Danforth Music Hall. I came across Beirut on iTunes yesterday and I spent the entire evening listening to them. On a whim I decided to see if they might be coming to Edmonton and I discovered a Toronto tour date. What luck! My October will be full of rather eclectic and original music... mid way through the month I will also be going to see Final Fantasy. Somehow I've become a music hipster. The number of concerts I've attended is still pretty small though.
These photos are evidence of the somewhat varied performances I've attended since moving to Edmonton. One could say that I somewhat regularly participate in the 'music scene.' I don't have photographical evidence of all the performances though, much to my dismay. I find it a little ridiculous that cameras are seen as such a threat by some venues. I can understand banning the use of flash photography, but sans flash what harm can a camera really bring to a performer? I phoned ahead to the Music Hall in Toronto and I discovered that they don't have a house policy about cameras (yeah!) and with the exception of flash photography and professionals (I think SLRs are a grey area... I think the issue is more about the size of your lens) cameras are permitted. This information excites me... because as much as I enjoy the live performances I also love being able to indulge in a little rocktography.
There are times at work when I find myself completely underwhelmed by my conversational contributions. The small talk we generally make with our coworkers is often about safe and generally boring topics. It's a relief when you are finally able to hit on a topic of conversation that all parties are interested in as you do not have to feel that you are making conversation simply to fill the silence. Yesterday I chanced upon such a topic of conversation. As fall has been approaching the morning weather (safe topic) has become progressively colder. Yesterday morning I found myself buttoning my jacket up tighter and I realized that soon I would need to start wearing a scarf. The thought of scarves immediately inspires me to think of new knitting projects... and the one which was on the forefront of my mind was a scarf that I promised to make for my chum Wade I don't usually work from patterns for scarves... but this particular scarf is a unique double knit pattern (check out knitty.com for the free pattern) and I've never tried double knitting before. I happened to remember that one of my coworkers also knits... and we spent the first part of the morning excitedly discussing different yarn stores in the area and trying to find some nice knitting books. Usually we bore each other with talk about the weather. It was a happy change.
Following my inspiring conversation about knitting, later in the day I ended up at a big box book store (Indigo) with Aryn and Wade and I came across one of the knitting books I was interested in purchasing. I had checked the price online before heading out... and I was very disappointed to discover that the book in store was ten dollars more expensive. When I asked about it the salesgirl gave me some rigmarole about overhead costs. Aryn was also looking another book in the store which was significantly more expensive than online. We both left without buying anything. It was such a disappointing experience. I want to walk out the store with a book in hand... especially when I've traveled across the city to see it (side note: visiting the bookstore was not our express purpose for being in that part of the city, we were visiting some other stores in the area.) After leaving the big box I had several options. I could order from the company website (but only get the inexpensive price if I was a paying member of their discount club), order from Amazon or go to the independent book store two blocks from my house and get them to order it for me. In the end ordering from Amazon won out as it was inexpensive and should have quick turnaround.
Yes, I could also go to the library... but I like to keep these sort of books.
I started to take photos with my digital SLR around the same time as I started this blog so I feel somewhat obligated to maintain some sort of balance between the words on images on this revamped blog.
I managed to add something that resembles a menu bar to my template (piecing together code from this site). What I ended up with is not perfect but it's functional. Surely someone out of my limited audience will make note of how my makeshift menu bar highlights certain sections a little differently. The original code is set up so that when your mouse hovers over the link it becomes highlighted in blue. Two of my menu selections do not like to another page but have a dropdown selection for my blog archives or my rarely used post labels (a new feature introduced by Blogger Beta). Anyhow, while I could get those selections to highlight the same way as the rest, I could not get the "v" that showed up behind them to go away unless I got rid of the line breaks used to separate the different menu selections. I'm sure it must have been some bit of a extraneous code, but I couldn't figure out what it was. If someone wants to try to figure it out for me they are more than welcome.
Those of you who subscribe to this blog through RSS (all seven of you) may want to pop by to check out the changes I made and give me a little feedback. In addition to the new menu bar I've also changed the header image, expanded the main body post, redirected my Atom feed to feedburner and set up my publishing settings so only my post recent post is displayed on the front page. I'm trying to move towards posting at least once a day. I may switch back to the last seven posts to the front page but we'll wait and see how this works out. The single post format works better if I succeed at creating a more of a photoblog but I'm always a little heavy on the unrelated text.
Aryn made the comment this morning that I have turned my photostream into a blog of sorts, as I've been posting photos with detailed descriptions or stories that are inspired by the photos. I always toyed with establishing a sort of photo-a-day blog, but have never successfully run with the idea. I think that I'm going to try it now. I recently added a new lens to my collection (selling some of my old equipment in order to afford it) and I'm trying to take my camera with me everyday so I can never complain about not having a camera around to take photos.
My new lens is the ultra-wide EF-S 10-22mm (equivalent to a 16-35) and I've been using it exclusively for the past week. I thought it would come in handy for my upcoming trip to Toronto to take in wide angle landscape shots of downtown Toronto and cool distorted images of the CN tower and other such Toronto landmarks. This lens isn't just useful for architectural and landscape shots... I've experimented with it as a portrait lens and I've found the odd perspective that this lens creates to be quite pleasing.
Here are a few of the shots I took yesterday while on my walk with Aryn and Wade. Click through on my photostream to see what else I've been up to recently.
I've been self censoring my blog for months now and I don't know how to overcome it. I'm all too aware of my public presence (not that anyone really reads this blog) and I've been worrying about how what I write might be construed by curious coworkers or facebook lurkers who stumble upon my blog. It's interesting... when I first started this blog I really wanted to increase my audience, but I still wanted my audience to be anonymous. I toyed with the idea of starting up a blog that is not linked to my public profile... but I think that I should be accountable for what I put online.
I enjoy working through issues by talking or writing... one of my biggest challenges that I face when dealing with self-censorship is that I feel stifled. Instead of being able to work through things that are bothering me (in writing which I often find to be most cathartic) I end up stewing over things endlessly in my head. How to overcome this I am unsure. It will work itself out eventually.
I deliberately didn't read about the 40D when it was released. However, I couldn't help but be sucked in when I started researching other camera equipment recently. Now I'm in lust for this new and improved Canon. It's more than a little out of my reach though... Instead I'm debating about buying a small camera that I can carry with me everywhere, or getting the 10-22mm. I must think about this more... and read some more reviews.
I realize that I love photography most of all when I'm taking pictures for myself... So I'm going to sell off some of my camera equipment and invest in a little camera that I can carry around with me everywhere. I won't be selling my 30D and my more recent lenses... but my second SLR body with the kit lens, 50mm and probably the 28-135mm which I love, but don't use nearly as much as I used to. All of my equipment is in excellent condition...
Is anyone interested?
