rant

The Government Is Here To Help

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If you’re a Canadian photographer whose business has disappeared over the past ten months because of the pandemic, be assured that the federal government is here to help.

I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

– US senator Edmund Muskie (1976) but usually attributed to Ronald Reagan (1986)

If you log into your CRA account to apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit or the Canada Recovery Benefit, there are a few new things. First, the government wants a short essay describing how the pandemic has ruined your business. There’s also help to plan for a new career. I guess the government assumes your current career is a lost cause because, well, you’re applying for benefits.

Career Quiz

I took all six quizzes to find out what new occupation(s) might be a good fit for me.

The results said that I’m innovative, methodical and objective. I’m also picture smart, visual, good at form perception and good at noticing shapes, shadings and lines.
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Toronto Film Festival 2020 Review

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Most of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is being held online due to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. There are in-person screenings at a few temporary drive-ins in downtown Toronto and at the indoor theatres in the TIFF building.

I spent one day at the film festival yesterday and that was, according to TIFF, one day too many. No photographers or TV are allowed this year. Reporters are also not allowed at any location.

Opening Night with No Openings

If your organization or business was facing its worst year due to the pandemic, would you want free publicity to help mitigate the situation? If your event was open to the public, was funded by all three levels of government and was held at some government-owned properties, would you feel somewhat obligated to allow news coverage?

Not the Toronto Film Festival.
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Photo Gear Purchases 2019

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My annual look back at some of the photo purchases I made in 2019.

Think Tank Airport Security v3 roller

Think Tank Airport Security v3 roller. Earlier versions of this roller bag did not have a zippered laptop pocket. Photo from Think Tank Photo.

This is a well-made roller bag and most things about it are quite good except:
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Political Campaign Notes

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While photographing federal political leaders arriving for a debate in Gatineau, Quebec, on 11 October 2019, this was the view right behind the photo area. That’s a police boat on the Ottawa River.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

It was obvious while photographing some of the federal election campaigns over the past two weeks that news media turnout has drastically dropped over the past three federal elections.
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Voting For A Business Headshot

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Canada is currently in the middle of a federal election campaign. Let’s take a look at the business headshots of the party leaders and all the candidates. (Note that political party web sites change from time to time especially with regard to information about their leader.)

If you have a few minutes, click on the links to each party’s candidate page and browse the portraits. Which ones do you like, which ones do you ignore? Why? Is it the lighting, the smile (or lack of), the eyes (or lack of eye contact), the background, or maybe something else? Which ones get your vote based only on their business portrait?

 

Liberal Party

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s headshot was cropped from a five-year-old picture. It uses window light and some type of reflector to give it a natural look. The image on the Liberal site is low resolution and was upsampled to give it visible blur and jpeg artifacting. Why would they do this?

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Toronto Film Festival 2019 Review

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My very long, annual rant about the recent Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from a photographer’s point of view. If you’re not somehow involved with TIFF then you might be advised to skip this post.

The point of this is not only to vent my frustrations with the 44-year-old film festival but also to make suggestions to the folks that run TIFF. It seems that someone at the film festival reads this blog because some of my suggestions get implemented the following year. Thank you very much.

After the film festival, TIFF sends out a survey asking for journalists’ thoughts about the event. There’s no such questionnaire for photographers. This post provides my answers to a nonexistent questionnaire.

 

TL;DR: As always, some things got better, some got worse and a few things haven’t changed. You’d think that after four decades the event would be a smooth running, polished machine. But no.

 

The red carpet area at Roy Thomson Hall has seen several changes over the past few years. This was probably due to all the complaints from photographers like me :–)

Changes have included an actual red carpet, three sets of lights, blue gels for some of those lights, a clear roof on the media tent, white-only barricade covers and letting photographers wait under the tent before an event if it’s raining. All of these necessities were obvious to everyone except TIFF.

But the covered photo area is still too small and too narrow and there are no photo risers (at any venue).

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