Dress Rehearsal Photos from BMT's "Guys & Dolls"!

The dress rehearsal photos are up!  Photographer extraordinaire Paul Roy was kind enough to donate some time to us - and add work to his most excellent portfolio - by snapping our dress rehearsal performance.  Oh my goodness, if I weren't in this show, I would want to see it based on this work!  Our opening night is tonight, so feast your eyes on the excitement that you're bound to witness with BMT's Guys and Dolls at the Rose Theatre in Brampton!

What great photos - and what an exciting show!  After you check out Paul's website here, go over to the Rose Theatre website to get your tickets - remember, opening night is TONIGHT!

Photo Shoot for The Black Umbrella Studio's Anti-Abuse Campaign, "Wife Beater"

I had a photo shoot a couple of weeks ago with my friend Yoko from The Black Umbrella, a photography studio based out of Toronto, Ontario.  The studio currently has an anti-abuse awareness initiative called "Wife Beater," featuring local musicans, actors and other artistic personalities wearing the infamous 'wife beater' tank top in various environments.  Here's a statement from the studio's Facebook page about the campaign:

"Domestic abuse can exist in many forms, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse.  This cultural phenomenon is visible in every single nation, race, sex and class that resides on this planet.  Wife Beater is a series intent on raising an awareness and healthy discussion based on the concept/reality of domestic abuse."

There is a train bridge behind my apartment building that used to be covered in gang tags and foul language.  Garbage was strewn everywhere, it was rather filthy.  Across the bridge is a local public school; families use the bridge quite often to get to and from school.  I would imagine looking at swear words painted on cement just outside the playground can make children rather curious in unnecessary ways, so it was wonderful to see the transformation.  The city of Brampton had started a 'neighbourhood beautification' initiative of sorts and commissioned local artists to turn seedy-looking environments like this bridge and cover it with inspirational art. 

I had sent a few quick shots to Yoko to give him an idea of the place.  It's great to see that someone saw potential in something that seemed so broken.  I guess that's why I chose this spot. 

You'll see behind Ali there (far right) there's a sunset painted on the inner panel.  That's the background for the shot above.  Yoko had centered my head with the sun, asked me to put my back against the wall and 'take two steps forward'.  We had a few more shots with the Love graffiti as well as long shots on the bridge.  And yes, it was cold.  Jeeeeeesus, was it cold, but I played into it.  I wanted to feel a certain kind of physical uncomfortableness that I could channel into an intense presence.  I had my coat ready to throw on in between shots, and we didn't spend too long outside - I'll suffer for art, but I've got limits. 

But I'm just the latest model in a beautiful series of moody shots of artists making a stand against domestic abuse, a few of them friends and acquaintances.  You can visit The Black Umbrella on Tumblr and on Facebook and learn more about their anti-abuse campaign. 

Thank you again, Yoko, for having me in this campaign!

Toronto Zombie Walk 2011: Working the Camera for blogTO.com

To any photographers that got in my face, I'd like to give a little apology from the actor-in-charge, so to speak - zombie Cassandra doesn't like lingering cameras, so if I started screaming and/or was incredibly violent to you, I'm so sorry, it was all in good fun!  I did find a couple of really awesome shots from some folk who have been kind enough to forward links - check these out!

Photo by Chris Cheung

Photo by Konstantina Photography

Photo by Chris Cheung

Photo by Jeff Currey

There was a particular memorable moment with a few handsome zombies and their tripod-and-camera setup.  They had the camera pointed at me, looking at the viewscreen while I was sitting on the ground, 'shackled' to Nick, trying to rip open my brain-and-Jell-O package.  I had noticed the camera focused on me and figure I'd have a little fun.  I had mentioned earlier that zombie Cassandra doesn't enjoy lingering cameras, and this one lingered for quite some time.  I had built up the zombie frustration to a point where I threw the brain aside and began to scream like a maniac at the camera, telling them in my best zombie-speak to F@#! OFF AND GET THAT CAMERA OUTTA MY FACE!!!  My message was lost in translation because handsome zombie man and friends started to applaud my 'demonstration' while Nick 'dragged' me away.  Nick had later discovered they were a couple of bloggers from blogTO.com, capturing images from this year's Zombie Walk - and they had included my zombie tantrum in their short video!  You can check it out here, it's a really impressive video - you'll find me and Nick's big gun at the 1:08 mark. 

Thanks to everyone who's been forwarding me links and pictures they snapped of me at the Zombie Walk!  Lemme know if you happen to come across any more!

'GunCam' Photos: Toronto Zombie Walk 2011

Nick had some fun taking pictures from his gun's point of view, and we had some awesome people playing along with the zombie-slaying madness.  Here are a few shots we had taken from about 5 pm and later, just in case you're looking for a time frame to see if you might be here!  You'll potentially recognize the moment by remembering a black cassette tape with a red stripe pointed at you - that's Nick's iPhone cover.  (We've seen a few versions floating around - I especially enjoyed the off-white with blue stripes we were shown by another fellow zombie!)

Enjoy!

SHOUT! Performance Photos by Linden Photography

The performance pictures are up from our dress rehearsal for Shout! The Mod Musical - and boy, do we look great!!  Lindsay Dewar of Linden Photography is one talented - and busy! - lady.  She's just offered her services for dance photography, and she's done quite a fantastic job showcasing us in these photographs!  Thank you so much, Lindsay, for all of your work.

Have a look-see for yourself here in slideshow format on her site just how groovy this show is!

SHOUT! Rehearsal Pictures

The 'Mod Rainbow'!

Wigs!  Go go boots!  Union Jack dresses!  Oh, man - this was fun!

Dan Pelton from the Orangeville Citizen is very good to us; he wants to keep us in the press and opted for another photo shoot - in costume!  The Mad Hatter Pub in Orangeville has an old-school British telephone box we were hoping to climb into like a bunch of college coeds - alas, it was bolted shut.  The weather certainly did cooperate for our 'London shoot' (rain!), so we pulled out our Union Jack umbrellas and mugged for the camera.  Lookit those colours - we felt like the rainbow in that storm! 

(I had a little fun with Picnik.com to give them a vintage '60s feel, and a little text flair.  Like?)

from left: Abi Adekoya, Samantha Russell, me!, Justine Christie, Elizabeth Glenday

"Face" Test, no. 1

I never really know what my face is doing on camera.  I think I know, but when I see the picture, it's not what I thought I was doing.  So, I thought I'd be all 'camera-in-the-bathroom'-like with my bedroom mirror and try a few weird test shots with some over-exaggerated faces.

It's not a project out of vanity, per say, just more of a 'face preparation'.  I had done something similar with singing techniques, watching myself sing in the mirror.  My face seems to contort, my mouth and eyes widen, eyebrows arched waaaaaaay up, my teeth bared and lips forward; I really look like a cartoon.  Betcha lots of your favourite singers tend to look a little silly when they're singing at their best, too!   The 'faces' help shape the mouth and throat to hit proper notes, to sound out certain vowels and consonants, even for emotional expression in vocals.  Getting past how stupid I look to how much better I sounded when using my 'tools' properly, I feel a little more comfortable in my own skin ... and with my own face, I guess.  I'd like to get more involved as a photography subject, I'm hella too short to be a model, unfortunately - at 5'2, but I'm taller than I actually appear - but I have lots of ideas for interesting artsy photo shoots and 'test shots'.  I've been fortunate to be captured on film by some fantastic photographers, and hope to return to some more projects with them soon.