just Mike is fine's photostream

one of the most difficult things about wedding photography in particular, is avoiding complacency.

It'd be easy to approach every wedding in a formulaic way, to make your couples interchangeable, especially in a city like Ottawa, which is admittedly, quite small. The places to shoot here are all beautiful, but limited in number; and so I try to approach them each time with fresh eyes. I try not to duplicate photos with couples. I'll look for a new angle, a new perspective each time.

This way, couples get unique photographs, and I make sure that I continually challenge (and hopefully improve) myself.

Complacency means treating couples as interchangeable props and I die a little inside whenever I catch it creeping up on me.

On further reflection, it seems as though I've received a lot of bad advice from people who've no business giving advice.

That I was receptive to their words was not simply indicative of my headspace. I'm just like that: I'm willing to hear people out because I believe that, with few exceptions, people are very much entitled to their opinions.

But in this case, some people are just far too self-interested, too focused on the present that they can't see 10-feet in front of them. Something I'm not used to being; or at least have tried not to be.

soundtrack to my life
Kanye West - runaway
the Black Keys - Everlasting Light
Nicki Minaj - Blazin'

thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox / they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

because I needed to get away from everything.

Everything.

Knowing fully that it might all just be waiting for me when I got back, I told myself that the time away would do me some good anyway. There was just too much going on all at once, combined with all the other distractions that come with the daily grind.

shopping laundry work cooking cleaning driving busing company questions theories. worries.

When my 30th birthday rolled around, I was on a plane. I landed, took a few wrong turns out of the metro station, dropped off my stuff, and celebrated ("celebrated") in a cafe called 'Cafe M' with a glass of Bordeaux. I spent hours every day in Paris in chairs like these, at tables like these, with glasses of espresso or wine, just like this.

No distractions. Just a drink, a pen, a notebook, and people and thoughts passing through.
It worked - the trip did me a lot of good. Of that, there is no question.

I still have questions, which is a step ahead, and perhaps now I'm more ready for the answers.

soundtrack to my life
the Beatles - Across the Universe
John Legend - Show Me
Martin Solveig - Smash

It was my 30th birthday, so I went to Paris (and fell in love with a city).

soundtrack to my life
the random banter of Parisians

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors. Eugene O'Neill

soundtrack to my life
Metric - Help I'm alive
Deadmau5 - Sofi needs a ladder
Pink Floyd - Comfortably numb