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!!

my ceramic rabbit

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...

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.

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.

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)

"this is not the end.  it is not even the beginning of the end.  but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning"

winston churchill

model: courtney palmer

make up and styling: raffaella boulding

photos: L

1,683 km across vietnam...kon klor II

we've done it! we explored vietnam by motorbike, (mine was a scooter). though we were short on time so dai and i had to cheat a little and catch the train for the last part of our trip.  it was beautiful.

one of the most interesting parts of vietnam was in kon tum, which is about halfway up vietnam, inland.  there are apparently six orphanages there, so dai, myself and three more westerners went looking for one of them: 

kon klor II, kon tum.  the kids were so excited to see us, we bought them loads of sweets and cakes.  shyly, one by one, they'd come and get a sweet from us, but they would never take more than one except a small boy who grabbed three or four.  he was quickly told off by one of the older children (aged about 11) and he ran up and returned the sweets.  it is the older children who looked after the young ones.  the children sang for us, played games and gave us drawings they had made.  

teresa is the lady who runs the orphanage, she showed us around.  it's really sad, there are about 70 children there, about 60% girls because boys are more wanted by poorer families to help work.  most of the parents of the children have died, but some are just too ill or too poor to look after them.  the children have barely any belongings, they share all their clothes and there are not enough beds for them all so some of the younger children have to sleep on the floor.  it was so sad to see what little they had though they all looked after one another and seemed very happy.

teresa has a plan.  a kindergarten school on the grounds will cost $750 to build.  the school will educate not just the orphans but the kids from the surrounding areas who currently have to accompany their parents to work in the fields.

these orphanages are not funded by the government, or by charities, they run only off donations.  we gave them all that dai and i had on us, which was only about $50, although that goes a long way in vietnam.  it costs about $15/month to look after one child.  after our trip we will donate some more.  if you would like to donate any money please email me: louisecanton@yahoo.co.uk.  and i will pass on the details of teresa.  or if you are visiting vietnam, i can give you the details if you'd like to visit.

long thanh

so dai and i are travelling asia for a couple of months which is why my posts have been a little slow coming.   a week ago we both hired scooters from ho chi minh city, vietnam, so we could travel all the way from the south to the north (hanoi).  we do on average 180km/day, which takes a while since at least one of us has been breaking down every day, our record is four break downs in one day!  but it's also been amazing, the vietnamese are very friendly, and the kids have been running up to us in the smaller mountain villages shouting 'white, white!' and poking us which is quite amusing.

we've spent the last two nights in nha trang, which was quite touristy, first time we've seen other westerners in about four days.  and this morning i persuaded dai with his horrible hangover to take me to see long thanh's gallery.  long thanh is vietnam's most famous photographer, his work was beautiful and we were lucky enough to see him there so dai showed him my blog.  it was great to have some constructive criticism and he gave me a few tips, like making sure i burn the edges of the picture (make darker), to draw the eye in,  and to try more black and white pictures, so i will desaturate my travelling pictures and put some up soon.  dai also bought me a print of his for a late valentine's day present, i can't wait to put it up when we finally find our next home, here it is:

photograph by Long Thanh

it's another world

model: raffaella
styling: raffaella
photos: L

and some...

models: courtney, raffaella and pam
styling: raffaella
photos: L

filmic

ok i'm cheating, these are digital photos with some playing on photoshop, if you wanna try making your photos look filmic then here's the blog where i found it. hope you have fun with it.

oh and the model is my good friend pam, styling by raffaella, photo's by L.

dancing in the sunlight

short but sweet....

it's been a while but everything's changing.  we've up't and left australia for out asian adventure so this is a rare moment of having internet on my laptop.  before i left i went to springbrook falls with my friends, pam,  courtney, raffaella, marcia and abby for a goodbye adventure and photoshoot.  missing australia already but been having loads of fun in bali, gilly islands and now phuket.  this is just a sampler, more to come as soon as i can manage...

 pam looking scary

 court,

and raf

photos by L

raffaella

eventually i have found some time to finish playing with raffaella's pictures on hamilton island and upload them for you all to see.  now if only this torrential gold cost rain would leave me for my last week here so i can get out and take some more photographs.  so much for the sunny coast, i may as well be back in ol'blighty.  any suggestions on ways to spend rainy days would be very welcome...