Shooting from the inside out, Montreal's 2014 Zombie Walk

Excellent picture of me at the 2014 Montreal Zombie walk by the very talented Josée Massicotte.

I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy mastering the basics of photography. I'm pretty good on the technical side of things and I've been busy at the more philosophical side of photography. I've also been studying older processes but that's for another post.

I've been wanting to do the Montreal Zombie Walk for a while but this year was the first time I had a chance to attend. The fact that this event is high in colour, the low number of Police personnel and the total absence of the riot squad guaranteed a high number of pro and amateur photographers to cover the event. I had to find another angle to get different shots than everybody else.

This is the reaction when being photographed by a zombie!

So I decided to join the walk as a Zombie myself. Not just slapping some make up on my face and walk around with my gear. I went all out with a full outfit, actually walked and growled like a bonafide living dead. I had a working film point and shoot around my neck and carried my Sony a230 in my hand during the walk. The DSLR was pulled up for a shot at the last minute while growling to people on the sidelines.

Being inside the parade makes for some great shots as well. Especially when you are one of the zombies! People react differently, or lack any reaction, when you are one of them. People rarely pose the same compared when confronted by a gear laden photographer(My observation anyway). As a practitioner of candid street photography, this is gold for me.

Hope you enjoyed as much as I have.

Until next time, grrrooooaaaarrrr!

Gerry :)

Pushing film in Downtown Montreal.

I set myself a challenge to shoot only film for a week, no digital. Last evening I was setting out for a walk downtown with my buddy and realized that this would be a challenge.

I didn't want to use a flash so I decided to use a Kodak 400TX film and push it to 800 ISO. What you do is load with 400 ISO, set the camera to 800 ISO and add 20% more time when processing the film later on. These would be shot in the fashion of Daido Moriyama. I've been wanting to do this for some time after doing it with a digital camera and this was the perfect occasion.

I'm very happy with the result. 15 pictures from a roll of 24 came out to my liking. This was my first time shooting with this Ricoh 35ZF which I got for $5 at a thrift store. Not a bad buy.

Metro Cowboy

In his own universe

Waiting and texting

Place d'Armes Metro station

Chinatown walkers

St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine

Vacuuming after closing time on Ste-Catherine 

Being photographed, twice!

Young Ladies on a night out

McDonald's, "Can I take your order please?"

Shelter from the rain on Ste-Catherine

Walking by the photo exhibit

1970's photo exhibit of Montreal

Sex Shop on Ste-Catherine

Montreal PD on St-Laurent

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

St-Patricks Day Parade in Montreal

I went out last Sunday to attend the annual Montreal St-Patrick's Day parade bit my interest was not with the parade itself but more the people attending it.

I felt it was a perfect occasion to practice some great street photography and since the crowd would be mostly cooperative while in a party mood, I decided to challenge myself. I left the digital camera at home and only brought 2 film cameras with me. The 1939 Voigtlander Brillant TLR and a 1974 Olympus Trip 35. I used a roll of 36 shots in the trip and one roll of 12 shots in the Brillant.

Here are some of the shots that I took that day. First the Brillant.

And the Olympus

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Friday evening in Montreal.

Friday evenings are always special in Montreal. This is even more true when we start getting out of the deep freeze season.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Montreal street shots

Last week end I went out in the cold and got some nice street shots in downtown Montreal.

I learned that dogs don't like to stay put.

She had a great smile but was clearly affected by me taking her picture even though she was OK with it.

Yes it was that cold.

She was flagging someone but I have no idea who.

Having a fun discussion.

Far from a perfect shot but I still like the fact that they were fiddling around with their camera.

Parking attendants are people too.

One thing I learned that day was to wait for the camera to thaw before rewinding 36 frames. I ripped the film in the camera and I had to unload it in the darkroom. Lost 6 frames in the process! Sad part is they were nice shots too. Oh well, live and learn.

All  shots were taken with a Minolta X570 on Ilford Delta 400 film.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Gerry :)