How do you write a love letter to a country? It’s hard to believe this beautiful country, that I visited this past November, is now being effected by this major natural disaster.

When I was in Japan I quickly fell in love with it’s beauty, the people and culture. People were friendly and helpful and the atmosphere exquisite.

I will never forget the friendly deer on Miyajima Island, fulfilling my dream of being up close to my spirit animal.

Visiting the iconic Tokyo Tower and seeing Tokyo for miles on that beautiful day. It’s hard to imagine that many of the sights we saw from the tower have been serious damaged by the earthquake.

Seeing the Golden Temple, visited by thousands every year. I met many fabulous people there and really enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding parks and learning about their spiritual practices.

Seeing children dressed in their traditional clothing celebrating the 7-5-3 festival.

So thank you Japan for what was a life changing experience for me and giving me 3 weeks of happiness and joy – taking photos, meeting people and experiencing the food, culture and traditions.

Please consider support the relief efforts for the Japan earthquake and Asia Pacific tsunami. Currently I’m aware of the Red Cross’ work in Japan but if I discover other good charities I will post them. You can give to the Red Cross here.

When people think of Japan they often have the iconic image of the cherry trees in full bloom. I know that I have always wanted to go to Japan in May to be showered with cherry blossom petals as they fall to the ground. What a lot of people don’t know is that there is a second blossoming in November and we were fortunate enough to be there to see it. Not all the trees will blossom this second time but the ones that did were beautiful.

Shorting and editing my photos has been an on going process – mostly because I’ve got over 1200 still that I am considering to print but I really need to cut that down to about 500.

All that to say here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure…I have an idea that I’m working on about my trip to Japan and of course, some of my toy camera images will be in the next issue of Light Leaks magazine.

The Nagoya Aquarium was really nice our host, A, took us around. It was very interesting and had sea life from Japan and the artificial surroundings they’ve create for the sea life in the aquarium.

For those of us who live in Ottawa, we’ve probably all heard in the news about the apartment building fire in the Glebe. It was shocking and sad to hear about all the people who were displaced. Today I happened to be nearby and got to see the destruction.

It was shocking to see – what would I do if suddenly everything I owned was gone? I have no idea. Read the rest of this entry »

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Growing up I was surrounded by cameras and photographers. I joke sometimes that there is a picture for everyday of my life growing up – but really every important event in my life is recorded by photographs. My mum, more recently, has been making us special books of photos she has taken from the time we were born until now – birthdays, vacations, Christmas etc…they hold precious memories of our family, family members past and present and love.

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A few months ago I asked if any of my friends if they were interested in having pictures taken and my friend, GC, said he would be getting a tattoo done in June and would I like to photograph that. I said, “sure.” So last week I did my first tattoo shoot – it was really cool and I got some interesting shots of the tattoo process. Warning: some people may find tattoo photographs to be of a graphic nature. Read the rest of this entry »

For several years I have been frequenting a graffiti wall in Ottawa to document the wall and the amazing art that is there. The wall is located in a park at the corner of Bronson and Slater. Read the rest of this entry »