Analogue vs Digital

Today's blog post has nothing to do with my new life in Canada. Today is my brother's birthday and he and I are always arguing about the value of photography as an art form. This is for him...

 I've been sat looking at these two pictures for a while now, trying to decide which I think is the best.

For one of the photos I used my Diana camera which is a medium format film camera. This is a manual camera which meant that I had to choose the correct film for the conditions (in this case ISO 400) and estimate the light levels to get the correct exposure. I had to choose the aperture and shutter speed and manually focus the camera by guessing the distance to the subject. When I had finished the film I had to store the roll in my bag for a week before posting it off to get it developed and scanned.

I really love the finished photo, I think the colours are fantastic, the red coat really pops out and the grain on the film gives the picture some real texture. The red colour which you can see in the bottom of the picture is where the roll of film wasn't stored properly and some light has got into the finished roll and damaged the film. I personally think it really adds to the final picture, but it is a completely unintentional accident that its there.

The second photo was taken with my phone and put through an app which applies filters to give it an old-fashioned look. It adds the light leaks and the grain. It also adds the darkening effect around the edge of the picture, just like the film camera does.


So, one picture was easy to take and one took much more time and effort (not to mention money). Does that mean that one has more value than the other? Personally, I prefer the photo taken on film, I like the mistakes and the imperfections. I quite like that Meg's hair is in her face and I like the dreamy soft focus look. I like that I didn't know how the finished picture would look.
 But at the same time, I can see that the camera phone picture is technically a better picture. It has a better composition, Meg looks happier and everything is much sharper and in focus.

I can understand that the taking of the Diana picture itself has given it value to me personally, but I'm interested in which picture other people would prefer to look at. Just because the Diana picture has more personal value to me, it doesn't follow that it has any more value as an artistic object.
I feel that to create something of artistic value shouldn't be as easy as it is using a camera phone, but equally I also think that if I was to choose one of the above pictures objectively, without knowing anything about how they were created, I would probably prefer the phone picture.

Which leads me to the following conclusion, to fully appreciate a piece of art we need to know about how it was created. To appreciate it in purely aesthetic terms, in a bubble, is to only half appreciate it.




But I don't like that conclusion, so I refuse to believe it.
I'm interested in what you all think. Does one of the pictures above have more value than the other? Should creating art be difficult, or is it OK for it to be easy? Comment below, if you'd like.


 Here are some more pics for you to compare...

Hi Ho Hi Ho, it's off to work we go!

This week has seen me start a small part time job, only a couple of hours a week, but it provides me with some pocket money.

When I first arrived I sent out my resume to all the local private schools asking if they had any vacancies or cover teaching opportunities. (To teach in the state schools here, I would need to become certified with the Ontario College of Teachers, which is a faff, and even then there is a surplus of teachers.) The only response that I received was an offer from a Montessori primary school to start up a Science club as part of their after school program. I'm seeing two groups a week up till Christmas and there might be a chance of me doing some extra work with their older kids in normal school time, as the class teacher doesn't know much about science.

For those who don't know, Montessori schools are based on an educational method developed by Maria Montessori which emphasises student choice and freedom (within limits!) and a constructivist approach to learning. Many of these principles work particularly well in the frame-work of a science club, in particular having the opportunity to investigate and explore a particular experiment or phenomena. I find myself in agreement with the core principles, and in fact would suggest that many of these principles are in common practise across the British education system. Before I started, people warned me that the pupils would be un-disciplined and badly behaved, in reality I have found them no different (so far) from any other kids I've taught. The biggest challenge for me, is to be teaching 6 year olds up to 10 year olds. I hadn't quite realised how young some of them would be! I don't know how primary teachers manage. They're all so needy and energetic. Give me listless, bored 16 year olds any day. (I did like how one of them introduced himself and said how much he liked my French accent.)


Having worked for nearly 2 whole hours on the Thursday, I thought I deserved a day off on Friday and so decided to walk into the City to collect my photos from the Camera shop. (Last weekend I went out on a camera workshop/walking tour. I'm still experimenting with my Lubitel and so it was great to meet some people and explore together whilst wandering through Kensington Market).

So, instead of taking the subway, I walked all the way in and was able to see some of the different neighbourhoods on the way. I've put some photos of the walk below along with some of the shots from the workshop. (As you can see, I'm going through my "graffiti and urban decay" phase. Forgive me, big cities are still new and exciting to me)

The first thing I see when I leave our building.

A pedestrian crossing.

The Starving Artist Waffle house. Awesome place for brunch. In fact I want to go there right now!!

Christie Pits park. When announced on the subway it sounds like Chrispy.

Honest Ed's is a huge bargain store. It's massive and a Toronto landmark.

I was trying to catch the basketball players behind the fence. I'm just not tall enough.

I don't even like spicy foods.

Experimenting with double exposures.

My camera workshop buddies!

Nuit Blanche

Part 1 (In which I am enchanted and confused in equal parts by art installations)

Nuit Blanche is a night in which Toronto is turned into an all night giant art exhibition. Free art installations fill the streets and people spend all night wandering the streets until 7am when they presumably go and discuss it in a coffee shop somewhere.
We started at the TIFF cinema where we saw a film called 101 zombie deaths which was a collection of zombie death scenes from scores of different zombie films from the 60s all the way up to the modern day. Whilst this was undeniably awesome, I did wonder where the border line between art and youtube fan film was drawn. I guess having a french title helps (cent une tueries de zombies), although that probably counts for less in a bilingual country.
The next piece of performance art confused me further; a selection of youtube videos played on the big screen with audience interaction via twitter and the two energetic and entusiastic hosts commentating on what we were seeing. The grand finale was a live performance by a youtube hit caberet act, again with the audience joining in. If any art historians are looking for a topic for a thesis I'm sure there is one in here somewhere.

Out on the streets was much less social media based. My fave bits were: the drunken lamp-posts, the space invaders that were invading King Street West and the graffiti artist using icing (or frosting).

Sweet Canadian graffiti

The life cycle of a lettuce. With a flaming pyramid.

Nuit Blanche translates as "bad night to choose to drive"

Ruthless in their predictability

Don't just stand there, run!

Don't know what this is.

"I'm fine to cycle home"

As we got further up Yonge St the crowds got busier and drunker and by the time we reached Dundas square we decided to jump on the subway and head home. Fortunately there was a disturbingly convincing Batman also catching the subway home, so at least we felt safe.







Part 2 (in which I don't buy a watch)

The Eaton centre is a mall in the centre of Toronto, mostly upmarket shops and designer stores. They have a flock of geese flying down through the central atrium, attempting to land just in front of Oakley. I assume they are of the Canadian variety, but I'm no expert.
I was killing time one afternoon and found myself wanting to look at watches in Fossil. Lately, I haven't been wearing a watch. I guess I missed it. In fact I had been regulalrly going into the Fossil shop in Cambridge to look at the watches there, no intention of buying one, but I liked to look at them.
Anyway, as soon as I was 2 paces in the door I was greeted by a young man working there. Not just greeted, he actually walked across the shop to talk to me personally. I could tell he was much cooler than I was, he was wearing a scarf indoors and I felt like I'd maybe made a mistake in coming into the shop in the first place. He could tell I didn't belong there. "I'm just browsing". Get that in there quick, be straight, no awkwardness further down the line. He can ignore me and I can look at the watches in peace. But he isn't going. He wants to have a conversation. Asks me where I'm from. Sheffield? Why does he want to talk to me? No, Cambridge, I reply. (It's only later that I think on how strange a guess Sheffield is. And not an outrageous suggestion either, certainly more accurate than Cambridge. He was probably quite proud of his ability to pick up on accents and now I've shattered his confidence. He won't dare try again. Well, I wouldn't. He's probably got far more self assurance than me.)

But why does he insist on having a conversation? I'm really not that interesting. He keeps picking out watches and forcing them into my hands. "I'm not on comission" he assures me. Then why do you care? What's going on here? Why is he so keen to show me watches?
"I'll be back" I tell him as I dash from the shop. I won't be. Far too stressful. Not that I blame him, I just find any sincere interest in me as a person as suspicious. I think I now understand why customer service in England is so rubbish; we just couldn't handle people being nice to us all the time.

Hello Toronto

I recommend that if you ever want to go and live in a foreign country you get Megan to sort it all out for you. It's worryingly easy so far, something's bound to go wrong soon!

Immigration was fun, I was funnelled off from everyone else and put into some sort of holding pen where all the special cases were waiting to put forward their case as to why they should be allowed into the country. I felt like a refugee or illegal immigrant. Fortunately, when it was my turn with the immigration officer (who was wearing body armour!) it was relatively painless. Although I was warned; "your work permit allows you to work in any profession, except the sex trade. No strip clubs or massage parlours." Well, on to plan B then.


On Wednesday Megan had organised a whole day of errands; bank account, social security number and mobile phone. She had researched all the different options, found shops which were all close together, and even planned a route for how to get between them. It was all so easy it only took us a few hours to get everything sorted out. My bank account is with a super market chain called President's Choice. They had a strange alcove set into the wall by the checkouts which had one guy at a desk with a computer and printer. Canadian banking is very different to British banking. It's very unusual to get a no fee bank account, most of them have a monthly fee. On top of this you can only use the ATMs of that particular bank. If you use another banks ATM you get charged. Strangest of all, many accounts have a limited number of transactions that you can make a month. If you use your card more than your allocated transactions you get charged per transaction. I hadn't realised how free and flexible our banking is. The account I've got is free but only has a very limited debit card. No online purchases for me.

On Thursday I went wandering around Toronto. I really like it a lot, it's a big city but it doesn't feel too busy or crowded. There's a sort of laid back feel to it. I might change my mind when it's cold and covered in snow, but for now I'm a definite fan. It's really easy to get around, the subway is dead simple and so far hasn't been too busy and its easy to transfer onto a bus or street car. Which is probably my favourite part of the city, the streetcars are awesome. There's something remakably good fun about running into the middle of the street and jumping onto the street car, it feels quite old fashioned. In fact quite a lot of Toronto has a slightly old fashioned feel, lots of red brick buildings and old churches mixed in amongst the skyscrapers.I spent ages just wandering around the streets, drinking Tim Hortons coffee (the locals like to order it as a "double-double", that's 2 creams and 2 sugars) and browsing in all the cool hipster shops. (Toronto is full of hipsters; today Meg and I had breakfast at a Waffle place called "The Starving Artist", they had paintings based on comic books for sale up on the wall, had a large TV showing The Life Aquatic and the clientel had more tattoos and large black rimmed glasses than I've ever seen in one place).

Next time: - Nuit Blanche and customer service...

Goodbye Cambridge

“I am a passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city's a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight”

I took the train to catch the plane this morning. I don’t like early morning train travel, the hordes of commuters with their early morning rituals are strangely depressing figures, and I really don’t like airports. I tend to sit and people watch and it’s not long before I’m judging those around me, usually in a not very positive way.

But today I’m going to take inspiration from my old physics teacher, Alan Davies. He was an enthusiast. He was an expert physicist, an renowned authority on the pre-Raphaelites, a computer game designer, an incredible Bob Dylan fan and impersonator, and no mean songwriter in his own right. It’s very easy (and remarkably good fun) to be cynical, cool and aloof about life and those around you, but AD was always positive, enthusiastic and curious about everything around him.

In that spirit, I’m not going to let the airport, and its incredibly annoying choice of background music, get me down. The last few weeks have been great fun and I’m sure the next few are going to be just as exciting, even if they are likely to be somewhat stressful.

 It started off with Sonya and Rob’s wedding which was held in beautiful surroundings with lots of good friends. Ice cream, croquet, home-made gin, Sparkling Pemberlinis, a parade of sparklers and loads of funk made for a great weekend. Then Meg and I went to Harry Potter studios tour which was very impressive; the sets were incredibly detailed and it’s surprising what they have kept from 10 years of movies. My last Superhall was the usual mix of weird food (“Tastes of chocolate and beetroot” for dessert) and inappropriate conversation and then a slightly less grand dinner at my place with a great mix of Sawston and college friends. I went to see Dredd with Luke, Ben and Kelly which was surprisingly violent but remarkably good fun and then watched The Long Good Friday with Alan where I managed to blow a smoke ring of raspberry tobacco from his Shisha (total fluke).

However, the highlight has to be Friday night. After dinner and drinks I ended up in ‘spoons and got a hug from the guy who owns Nanna Mexico. When you are greeted so enthusiastically by the owner of a local fast food restaurant then you know it’s time to move on.

I promise to be less sickeningly nostalgic and positive about everything in my next blog post (well, it will be about Toronto) but I’m genuinely sad to be leaving Cambridge. It’s been a great 4 years and I’ve been very lucky with the friends I’ve made and the experiences I’ve had. With all this unbridled sentimentalism in mind, please excuse the following video. I had no job and nothing to do for two weeks!

Quality of life

After living in the northern wilds of Cambridge I'm heading south to sunny Toronto. My work visa for Canadia came through yesterday which means that for the next year I'll be living and working in Toronto. I'll be honest, I was getting quite nervous because I had to quit my job and start the process of renting out my flat before I knew that Canadia wanted me in their country.  So I'm pretty relieved.

There's a lot to do before now and the end of September but I'm getting excited, particularly about the prawns...