Montreal Artists: Meags Fitzgerald

Here’s a brief intro in case you don’t already know Meags Fitzgerald. She’s an illustrator, designer, and comic book artist. Her beautiful work can be seen here. Her first graphic novel Photobooth: A Biography got her the Doug Wright Spotlight Award and she was featured as one of Cult Montreal’s “Best Cartoonists / Comic artists”. She has long red hair and soon, we’ll all have the chance to have Long Red Hair as well. She also does ambidextrous illustrations - check out this one she did for a (Dutch) T-Mobile commercial. And hey speaking of commercials is this post starting to sound too much like a Meags Fitzgerald commercial?

Needless to say I was thrilled to have an opportunity to photograph her working in her studio in the Mile-End. Her workspace is amazing - no wonder she’s productive and creating all this great work. There’s lots of window light, a little balcony, and the entire space is beautifully decorated in a way that reflects her artistry. It’s hard to explain but everything from her art to her studio and even her clothing fits together so congruently, yet effortlessly. She lives and breathes her art and I’m jealous. Even the color scheme in her bedroom matches the color palette of her graphic novel.

Speaking of which, I’m halfway through Photobooth: A Biography and it’s a captivating collection of personal stories mixed in with the history of the photobooth. Jonathan Goldstein from Wire Tap and This American Life even described it as a love story between Meags and photobooths. So what you should do is obvious. Go to Drawn and Quarterly, first, because it’s an amazing shop, and second, while you’re there, get yourself a copy of her graphic novel to support our local Montreal Artists.

As I’ll be finishing her book in the next few weeks, Meags will be touring with a comedy troupe called Quest For the Dragon King (yeah she also does improv, and teaches improv too). If you wanna try and keep up with Meags and her different quests in life, make sure to follow her blog.

Thanks for reading and click here to check out the gallery with the other Montreal Artists I've photographed!

Montreal Artists: Jacques Gallant

I photographed a blacksmith and somehow didn’t even have to travel back in time. Jacques Gallant is his name and he wears many metal hats, from blacksmith to welder, metal fabricator to bike frame builder. Jacques is the fourth in my Montreal Artists series, in which I'm documenting the creative process and workspaces of various artists, artisans, makers, and crafts(wo)men in Montreal. Many years ago there was a pickle factory on St-Laurent street in Montreal. An Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Jacques' metalwork shop have since taken over that space. It's a huge space with two big skylights. There’s a wall full of reclaimed wood, another one covered with his arsenal of hammers. There are massive sharpening, drilling, cutting, and sanding machines that I should probably avoid if I want to keep all of my fingers.

These are Jacques’ hands after a workday. Still has 10 fingers, he's a pro.

In the shop there’s also a forge and a welder, which can reach temperatures of a few thousand degrees (Celcius I think, but Celcius or Farenheit, it doesn’t matter - if you touch it you'll regret it). Jacques could actually describe how it feels like to get your skin burned at different temperatures, ranging from the sharp burns where you jerk your hand back immediately, to those where your skin becoming foamy and sticky. Didn’t seem like much fun, so I took a step back.

His work, like his workshop, is full of character. He custom-builds everything. The first time I met him (at the Smart Design fair), he had brought small furniture items that combined steel and wood beautifully. When I visited him this time, he was building something for the Dispatch coffee food truck and had been working on a few bike frames.

I asked Jacques what was the quintessential item that represents him and his work. He quickly grabbed a particular hammer. It’s simple, rugged but with smooth edges. He made it from scratch, starting with a big piece of wood and a big piece of metal.

If you have a project in mind and need something made drop him a message, he’s super friendly. Check out some of his work at Solutions Gallant. 

Click here to check out the gallery with the other Montreal Artists I've photographed!

Montreal Artists: Carolina Murillo-Morales

This is the lovely Carolina Murillo-Morales, yet another artist I met through the 100in1day Montreal community. I remember reading about her proposed phone booth project and making sure I was the one from the media team to document it. In both editions of the festival, I started the day off by seeing her transform phone booths in her Belle project.

(Despite matching the booth, that kid was not part of the installation)

Carolina doesn’t spend all of her time in phone booths though. I visited her art studio at The Long Haul in Montreal a few times. If you've never been in an art studio collective before, you should, they're fascinating. As you walk along the slim hallways, a suite of closed doors tease you and invite you to guess what hides behind. If you get a glimpse, it’s like peaking into someone’s brain. Each studio is an artist’s microcosm with its own chaos and personality.

Carolina shares her space, so you don't see her art right away (you likely first notice the hanging taxidermied squirrel floating above your head). She’s been working in another art studio all day and is now back at the Long Haul after all other artists have already left. The radio quietly plays in the background, and the kettle is on. I can see her past art installations packed against the wall. This is her workstation:

She uses beads, thread, and needle.

What I love about Carolina’s art is the thought process and emotion that goes behind each piece. When I pointed out particular pieces, she wouldn’t just explain how she created them, she would describe what was happening in her life while she was creating it. Her work is very personal - each piece seems to have its story and reflects her thoughts and emotion during that time of her life.

I love the stories I hear with each artist I meet, there's always something to take away. I sometimes get advice on how to live a creative life. I hear about their artistic journey - some had a clear vision that was achieved through sheer determination, others went through many detours to arrive where they are now. I always leave these shoots inspired. After speaking with Carolina I realized that many photographers including me are lacking a personal connection to our work and it's definitely something I want to work on. Check out her work here and stay tuned for more!

Click here to check out the gallery with the other Montreal Artists I've photographed!

Montreal Artists: Ariel Harlap

This is the second of my recent series of Montreal artist portraits, where I’m documenting the work spaces and creative process of artists in Montreal. This one's about wood, wool, and lasers. Meet Ariel. Like Patsy, I met him through the 100in1day Montreal community. He was the resourceful jack-of-all-trades that you could always depend on whether you had a logistics, tech or creative problem. He gets credit for referring me to great podcasts including my favourite, 99% Invisible. He’s a maker and artist among other things. It barely surprised me when I learned that he created Zooratura. That’s not to say I wasn’t impressed! Inspired by the forms and symmetry found in nature, Ariel laser-cuts wood to create intricate lampshades and jewelry. His designs are based off of pre-20th century drawings of microscopic creatures. Some of his pieces are then meticulously painted with watercolour. In others, yarn is weaved in.

Now how does someone learn how to do this kind of stuff? For Ariel it was pretty simple. He bought a laser cutter and taught himself how to use it. I visited his home where he makes these pieces and had the chance to see him create one of his lampshades that he sells as a weave-it-yourself (WIY?) kit. After assembling the wood base, he delicately weaves the yarn through the notches in a fluid motion.

The result is a cool-looking kaleidoscopic lampshade. It’s designed so that you can weave it in different patterns and use different yarn colours when you want to change things up.

There’s no stopping Ariel’s creative brain, so of course he’s currently working on more projects. He’s currently experimenting with 3D printing and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

Click here to check out the gallery with the other Montreal Artists I've photographed!

Faces of Improv: A Collaboration with Montreal Improv

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a fun interactive photo project called Faces of Improv that I did in collaboration with Montreal Improv. 37 improvisers from the Montreal Improv house teams stepped in front of the camera, drew a random scene from a metaphorical hat to act out, and did what they do best as I took pictures of them. All portraits are going to be displayed in the theatre and the fun part comes when you, the viewer, have to associate the improviser with the correct scene. Some examples of the scenes they drew: a) You’ve just won the lottery. b) Someone just told you Santa isn’t real. c) The results are back. You're pregnant.

Like most of my ideas, this one came to me randomly in the shower, and a month later here we are. I had always wanted to photograph the improv community since they’re great subjects to work with as they can snap into character immediately and don’t take themselves seriously. And more importantly, they’re all hilarious and you can usually do more creative shoots (like in the shoot I did for Girl Talk as a scooter gang).

Monica and Katie (my former bio TA!) had approached me a few years ago for this shoot. You can’t be any more badass than this. Popeye cigarettes and scooters. And I had the chance to shoot with Tasha & Mariana again for Faces of Improv.

Below is a little preview of what’s to come, these are some promo posters I did.

I’ll eventually post them all on the website, but I really encourage you to come see the project in person! It’ll be displayed as of this Sunday (April 19th) at Montreal Improv. And support the improv community by coming out to watch one of their shows at the same time!

Thanks!

P.S. Hey les amis, le projet est bilingue! Il y a des improvisateurs de Montreal Improv et d’Impro Montréal et toutes les instructions et scènes pour le projet seront en Anglais/Français. N’oubliez pas qu’il y a des shows francophones et bilingues aussi.

Montreal Artists: Patsy Van Roost

If you live in the Mile-End you’ve probably heard of the artist Patsy Van Roost a.k.a. the Mile-End fairy. If not, there’s a fair chance you’ve unknowingly witnessed some of her magic somewhere in Montreal. She’s fun, down to earth, likes to laugh. She’s not your typical artist. Her medium is the Mile-End, and she creates some of the most thoughtful and inspiring art projects I’ve seen. Her workshop, located in the heart of the Mile-End, is filled with fragments from old and current art projects. I stopped by to photograph a project she was working on for Valentine’s Day.

I initially met Patsy while photographing one of the workshops for 100in1day Montreal. The project she had contributed was Ici, un souvenir. Participants were invited to write a significant memory of theirs that happened in the Mile-End or Plateau and were asked to include the address or intersection where it had occurred.

Weeks of collecting memories passed. Then, overnight, she displayed over 400 of these hand-written memories all over the neighbourhood at the location where they had happened, effectively transforming the streets into a giant crowd-sourced storybook.

Over Christmas, I had the pleasure of photographing another one of her projects, Un Dessin à la Fenêtre. In collaboration with other artists, she created an advent calendar, in which an address, rather than chocolate, was hidden behind each day of December. If you were to go to that address, you’d find a fragment of a love story, lit throughout the night, hanging in the window. Each day, as you would open up the next tab and find the next address, you’d find yourself walking alongside your neighbours, merging together to the window where the next piece of the story would be discovered. Day after day, a new window would light up the neighbourhood. When all windows were revealed, Patsy hosted a little tour throughout the neighbourhood, hopping from one house to the next on a cold January night.

Patsy thanked me for photographing this cold adventure by mailing me a card. PHYSICAL MAIL! It made my day. And “card” is probably a conservative term here for what she creates, check out her boutique for hand-made letters, invitations, cards, etc., at papernurse.com).

Receiving this thank you card, seeing her workshop filled with hand-made letters, and experiencing her community-driven projects inspired me to do a little personal project. I’ve been diving into photo archives and printing out photographs to reconnect with people using physical mail rather than Facebook messages.

I’ve also been re-discovering the joys of licking envelopes and stamps.

Merci Patsy!

Click here to check out the gallery with the other Montreal Artists I've photographed!

Portrait of a Foodie

As a photographer freelancing for McGill News magazine, I get to meet interesting people. If you live in Montreal and you like food, check out Round Table Food Tours founded by Mélissa Simard. She leads several expeditions where you get to learn about Montreal’s rich culinary history, taste delicious food, and discover places you’ve never seen before.

I tagged along her Iberian food tour, for a Tapas Circuit. Knowing I’d be taking pictures of people happily eating in front of me, I made sure to stuff myself before going. Don’t photograph on an empty stomach. Your photography turns out cranky.

We explored Spanish and Portuguese cuisine in Montreal by visiting restaurants, specialty grocery stores, a dépanneur-looking chorizo-making place (or a dépanneur making chorizos? I’m not sure) among other things. We also saw Leonard Cohen’s house! I had no idea it was that close to downtown Montreal.

When I was there, concierges of hotels were taking the tour as part of a team-building activity. I think the tours would also be great for a group of foodie friends who want to try out a different experience. (One tour that looks particularly interesting is the Eat and Ride tour, where you bike around Montreal and eat local products.) My favourite part was seeing how the store and restaurant owners were so close to Mélissa. She seemed to be friends with everyone, knocking on windows, waving hello as we passed in front of a restaurant not even part of the tour. I thought I’d just stay to take a quick portrait, but I ended staying for much more, and did not complain. The perks of being a photographer!

It was a lovely spring day. You know that feeling after a long Montreal winter when it hits 0 degrees and you can just walk around outside in a t-shirt? Since that day of course we've had a few extra days of winter.

I sneaked in a few portraits of Mélissa between locations and also in action. It’s always easy when you have someone who smiles constantly!

Portrait & Headshot of a Moose

Chocolate Moose. Not Chocolate Mousse. Chocolate Moose. The animal. If you Google that (and scroll past Martha Stewart’s chocolate mousse recipe), you’ll find the Chocolate Moose Theatre Company. They’re a fairly new theatre company based in Montreal ‘seeking to produce accessible, affordable, quality theatre’. I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with them a few times and seeing them perform at the Mainline Theatre. I took a few portraits and headshots for promo material, and also got the chance to photograph them behind the scenes prior to one of their shows. Ever wondered what actors do behind the scenes to warm up before a performance? For these guys, it involved a short pep talk, some breathing exercises, a bit of line reciting, and then, my favourite, yelling the words sphincter and hippopotamus at the top of their lungs. That’s the secret behind a great performance, folks.

Andrew Cameron, co-founder of Chocolate Moose, in the process of transforming into Dr. Faustus.

Nothing gets you going like a bit of screaming and making animal sounds. 

This is Emily Murphy, co-founder of Chocolate Moose. I met her years ago as the friend of the sister of a friend. She’s now blonde and studying theatre at Columbia University.

I also took a few headshots of them and made some promo material for their shows The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine and Richard III. Actors are great subjects to work with as a photographer since they take direction well and can immediately go in character if prompted.

Portrait of Andrew Cameron as Ernest.

Portrait of Alina Gotcherian as Ernestine.

Headshot of Alina Gotcherian.

Headshot of Andrew Cameron.

Promo material. This is Martin Law, co-founder of Chocolate Moose Theatre, as Richard III.

Martin sat under my studio lights and channeled his inner sinisterness (that’s a word) as we shot multiple variations on this portrait. It’s remarkable how minute movements of the eyebrows and mouth completely changed the shot. We went through dozens of pictures before settling for this one.

I like this one. I turned on my camera and lights and took this test shot before adjusting any settings. He looks pensive, but he’s actually just figuring out this Rubik’s cube-like puzzle.

You can visit their Facebook page to stay updated on their upcoming shows.

You think Martin's III doesn't fit his hairstyle, you have any questions, or you want to discuss potential projects? Write to me!

I'm still alive!

I haven’t updated this website in about 6 months. Fortunately I’m not dead. I’ve been super busy with grad school applications. So it turns out I’ll still be sticking around at McGill for my M.Sc. for the next two years. Not in Montreal however, I’ll be heading back to Panama to do my research there and go hang out with toucans. Definitely expect some pictures when that time comes. Anyway, although I’ve been slacking off on the blog, I was still taking pictures during the year. Here’s a little overview of the few assignments I’ve been doing. First, I’ve had a few assignments from McGill News. My relationship with them started back when they asked to use a few pictures of my field course in Mont St-Hilaire including this shot of a Red-backed Salamander.

We caught this little guy under a rock. When they feel threatened, they have a really cool defense mechanism where they will just drop their tail and run away while the tail, detached from the body, squirms around like crazy. Crazy diversion tactic. The human equivalent would be something along the lines of cutting our own hand off when surrounded by a street gang and then running away while the dismantled hand is flipping off the very confused enemies.

Okay back to McGill News. For this one they ran a story on the McGill Daily and asked me to get a shot of Joan Moses, the coordinating editor of the Daily. One of the images from this story ended up making the front page of the McGill website which was pretty cool.

These next shots were part of a story where professors and students of McGill picked their “favorite spots” on campus. Professor Watson (top), an economics professor, chose the Faculty Club restaurant, which is this ridiculously fancy looking restaurant hidden right on campus. Chandeliers and tuxedo-wearing waiters in an old mansion. Or maybe my memory is just over-glorifying this. I’ll try to sneak back in there one day. Then there was Professor Friedman, in architecture, who chose the Redpath museum as his favorite location, notably because he appreciated the arching windows in the back.

I also had an assignment with McGill Faculty of Science Alumni Newsletter on our Bio lounge, but the story never went through, so I can’t show you the picture now. Maybe next time. Aside from these assignments I’ve also had a few regular people/portrait shoots in Montreal, just like with Devin & Michela.

And a maternity shoot (this is Melanie, you may recognize her as the bride from one of my weddings!).

And then these guys, Architek Percussion, a cool all-percussionists band.

 See? So I haven’t been that lazy. I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule. So come back for more!

Artist Portrait: Bryan Holt

Bryan Holt is a cellist who contacted me a few weeks ago to get some artist promo shots. The photoshoot was simple enough, it just involved us walking around downtown Montreal and on McGill campus, and me asking him to play at different locations. Since I went to McGill, I knew some good locations around the area. I am constantly looking for shoot locations when I'm outside, I even have a little list on my phone of all potential shoot locations.

The shot below was taken in a little recessed corner on a quite busy street that I often passed by. You might miss it, or even think it's ugly as you quickly walk past it, but isolated from the surrounding clutter, it makes a nice clean background. For artist promo shots I always take a mix of wide environmental portraits and close-ups, detail shots, etc. In the wide shots I tend to leave a lot of negative space, since those images are sometimes used with text as posters.

We walked around, and upon encountering a nice location, we'd start setting up. He had his chair and cello. I had my lightstand and softbox. The pictures were taken in the middle of the day, so I added an additional light to darken the whole scene. A bit counter intuitive right? Essentially I adjust my camera settings to produce a dark image, then I add in my own light. I have more control over the direction of it, so it can create an isolated dramatic portrait like the one above.

I love the colours, detail in the cello scroll and the out of focus background in this next one.  The background was achieved by using a large aperture and more importantly, choosing an angle where the background distance to Bryan was much larger than the distance between me and him.

We then randomly figured out somehow that he is my neighbor. I'm secretly hoping to get some free shows sometimes.

If you're a musician, artist or band interested in having some promotional material made, or needing a few headshots / portraits (with or without instrument), write to me! I'd love to hear from you and start brainstorming with you.