Thursday, April 28, 2011

for the divas and dreams self-portrait contest

this past month i've been excitedly thinking about ideas for the 'diva's and dreams' self portrait contest: me and my camera.  finally i have my photograph, with my grandfathers' 35mm zenith.  check out christina's blog if you haven't heard of it before, i've been following it for a while and have picked up some great tips from there as well as seeing so many amazing pictures from other followers.  here's a link to the competition:
http://divasanddreams.blogspot.com/2011/04/photo-contest-me-and-my-camera.html

just found out i'm in the finals :) i'm so excited, so its up to you who the winner is, if you have two minutes please vote for me by leaving a comment saying 'no. 8' on this link, thanks!!



Tuesday, April 26, 2011

my ceramic rabbit


model: daniel evans
photos: louise canton 
director: david evans

daniel evans, lead singer of my ceramic rabbit, a band from the rhondda valleys, wales.  and a good friend of dai's.   well it was supposed to be a shoot of the whole band, but the rest of the band were doing bandish things so instead it became a shoot of dan.  it also happens to be his birthday today, so happy birthday.  more pics to come...

Monday, April 18, 2011

i love london

last saturday i took the train went to london for the day to meet up with good friends from uni.  back in uni style there was definitely a few drinks involved.  my good friend and photographer darren took this pic of me in the park by underexposing the background and firing a flash at a slight side angle in bright daylight (no post processing).  love the effect and i want a flash now too! you can check his photography out here.  photo by darren woolridge.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

we eat babies...

and other things that the activists living in this squat definitely do NOT do.  i had arranged to meet up with a very good school friend in an english city not long ago.  when she said that she knew somewhere i could stay i kinda guessed it was going to be a squat.  so this is where i have spent the last two days.  it was a lot to take in.  this warehouse had been empty for about 3 years, the current residents (about 15) entered about a year ago.

 now my previous knowledge of squatters was pretty limited,  i had a pretty low opinion of them.  thinking they that they were, to sum it up simply, house thieves.  these past two days certainly gave me a new idea.
 since the residents moved in, they have built, a function room, an art room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, bedrooms, a guest bedroom and a social centre.  everything inside the building was found somewhere or taken from skips and built by evertyone.  so much for dossing around.  tuesday night was community dinner night so we all helped prepare a vegan meal for what we thought was 40 homeless people/squatters though at least 70 turned up:
 the function room

the art room
 the guest room.

so money doesn't make the world go round.

there was plenty of food in the kitchen and all of it obtained by 'skipping'.  this involves going to skips outside food shops late at night and taking the unwanted leftover food from the skips.  apparently 30% of food is damaged before it even gets to the shelves so you can imagine how much food is wasted in the uk.  fresh fruit and veg were donated market leftovers received once a week.

most of the residents were pretty friendly to me when i was introduced.  it was definitely quite a shock and i was continuously asking them questions which they were quite happy to answer.

i won't pretend to know more than i do about squatting, i was only there for two days but i did want to know how they felt about the owners of the buildings.   buildings are mostly very thoroughly researched before they enter, they don't usually go for privately owned buildings but for repossessed houses/buildings or those owned by big corporations.  these will have usually been empty for at least a year.  the building i stayed in was a listed building that the bank that had repossessed and it wanted to demolish.  the people living there were trying to make it into a positive space open to the community:

obviously this is not the same for all squats.  but this community seemed to be making a positive difference.  there was even a squatted 'free shop' not far away which people gave all there old unwanted stuff to and and then others could take stuff for free.  real recycling.  i know there are a lot of bad stories about squatters, i hope this has presented you with a different one.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

filling in....


 southsea seafront, portsmouth


the gower peninsular, south wales


more gower...   and then dai in the rhonda valley, south wales
and me feeling sorry for myself just after my fainting episode and before my black eye developed.

since arriving in london nearly 4 weeks ago now, i've been running around england and wales catching up with friends and family and living out of a bag in my car boot.  i started in portsmouth, to winchester to wiltshire to farnborough to the rhonda valley to devon to wiltshire again, to cardiff to portsmouth and repeat etc.  i'm still just about going though last weekend i ended up fainting (from a bit too much partying the night before and not eating the next day), knocking my self out on my friends nasty bathroom sink and ending up in a & e.  and to keep things interesting, today, my car exhaust decided to drop right off.   apart from those small set backs, i'll hopefully continue on to see many more friends and family in the next couple of weeks until we're off again.  (touch wood)