photography

Kate Bush’s ‘Lily’

Photographer Gitte Morten has started a blog titled One Kiss In Apple Blossom. It features women who are Kate Bush fans describing their favourite Kate song, and Gitte’s photographic response to them and the song.

Being a major Kate Bush fan, as soon as I heard this idea, I was all over it. However, Gitte lives in Somerset, England, and I am in British Columbia, Canada. Being about 4500 miles away made a photo session a bit of a challenge. But thanks to FaceTime and Gitte’s willingness to experiment with photographing a computer screen, she made it happen – and it was a great deal of fun. Here are the results, and my thoughts on Kate’s song “Lily”.

Fiona: Lily (1993)

All About Work’s Summer 2017 Break

As I usually do around this time each year, I’m taking some time off. Here’s some pictures from lovely Colony Farm Regional Park, to show why it’s a good time to kick back and enjoy the warm weather. See you in a couple of weeks! (more…)

At the Mexico City Pride Parade

I spent last week in Mexico City at the 2017 International Meeting on Law and Society, and, as it happened, my visit there included the day of the annual Pride Parade. I had never attended a Pride Parade before – not because I had any objections to the idea, but simply because the one in my city was never held at a time when I could go.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of the Mexico City parade – how big it would be, how many people would show up. Well. I watched the first part of the parade, went off to do some other sightseeing, and then returned four hours later to find the parade still going on. According to the local media, 350,000 spectators showed up to the event – and I can testify that the Paseo de la Reforma was jammed full of all kinds of people, all having a great time. Here’s a few scenes from the parade. (more…)

Paris’ street-sweeping heroes

“A seemingly humble job often belies the richness of a man’s life.” Words and photos to remind us of the importance of work that is often undervalued or unnoticed, and the workers who take pride in doing that work.

Water

Writing a blog is rewarding in many ways. But for me, one of the great and unexpected benefits of blogging is being inspired – even unknowingly – by the work of other bloggers.

This spring, a blog that I’ve really been enjoying is The Perimeter by photographer Quintin Lake. Quintin has done several long-distance walks in the UK, but last year he embarked on an epic journey – a walk around 10,000 kilometres of Britain’s coastline. He’s doing the walk in sections, as time permits; he estimates he’ll get back to his starting point (St. Paul’s Cathedral in London) in April 2020.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had some unusual opportunities to take photos – including a round trip by seaplane from Vancouver to Nanaimo. I found that for some reason my eye kept being drawn to water: its textures, its movement, how the light made it change. And I ended up taking a lot of pictures of it. But it wasn’t until a few days ago, (more…)

Disrupting Gender Stereotypes in the Media

My friend Sam Ford does a lot of interesting things, and one of them is teaching in the Popular Culture Program at Western Kentucky University. Last year, at a research conference, Sam was on a panel with another WKU professor, Ted Hovet  – and during that panel, Ted made a provocative proposal: “We should never ask students to do anything again in which the professor is the only person who sees their work”. Sam took that idea to heart. And now, at the end of every semester, he sends out an email with links to students’ videos, presentations, and research articles from his classes.

I always like getting that email from Sam, because his students’ work is so enjoyable. But this past semester, there was a presentation so exceptional that I thought it deserved a wider audience. Sam kindly put me in touch with three of the four students who did that presentation, and the students agreed to share their project on this blog.

Shelby Bruce, Katie McLean, Kalee Chism, and Paige Medlin were students in POP 201 (Introduction to Popular Culture), and the topic they chose for their end-of-semester presentation was “women in the media”. The Prezi of the entire presentation is available here, but the part of the presentation that really caught my eye was (more…)

“Open for Business”

When I took an art history course about Modernism, one of the subjects that I most enjoyed learning about was the Modernist photographs of industry and urbanization in the 1920s and 1930s. The work of photographers such as Charles Sheeler, Paul Strand, and E. O. Hoppé showed the unexpected beauty and majesty of purely functional structures. And the work of photographers such as Lewis Hine showed the humanity of the workers whose contributions were often overlooked in celebrations of industrial and economic growth.

Open for Business, an exhibition that is currently touring the UK, contributes to this grand tradition of photography that explores industry and commerce. When I visited the UK in April, I was lucky enough to see this show – which I stumbled across entirely by chance, (more…)

My Boston, One Year Later

This past week marked the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. And it’s also nearly a year since I was in Boston, just after the bombings, in a bright sunny springtime.

One of the many posters and signs expressing support for Boston after the bombings - this one at the Boston Architectural College on Newbury Street.

One of the many posters and signs expressing support for Boston after the bombings – this one at the Boston Architectural College on Newbury Street, May 2013.

I don’t think I will ever forget (more…)

Reflecting on Glass: the Dale Chihuly Exhibition in Montreal

I’ve written before about different types of interactive displays at art museums, and the pros and cons of different ways museums get their visitors to think about and react to what’s on display. This past weekend, at the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, I had the chance to experience yet another type of art museum interaction: a show (more…)

My Boston

Boston is one of my absolute favourite cities. And so I was horrified, as we all were, at the bombing at the Boston Marathon and the chaos afterwards. When I’ve visited Boston, I’ve spent a lot of time in Cambridge, where the two alleged bombers grew up and where they escaped to after the bombs went off. It was surreal for me to watch TV and see police in full combat gear running down streets that I know very well and where I always feel very safe.

I’m posting a few pictures that I took in Boston today, to show why I love visiting here. It’s a beautiful and resilient city, (more…)