About Me
like a bearded jekyll and hyde
“The way to succeed is to double your error rate”
— Thomas J. Watson
Creative Merlin
Fluffy stuff
Bored with life on space stations, retired astronaut Merlin Boissonneault set his sights on more earthly pursuits, particularly photography.
Since someone else is writing this for him, a third-person narrative isn't pretentious. He likes Oreo™ ice cream, Hip-Hop & Punk music, Nikon, Polaroid, Bronica and Canon cameras. After time away from photography, inspiration returned by way of the works of Jason Lee and his obsession with instant film.
Diving right back into his passion, Merlin has acquired a virtual museum's worth of outdated film camera technology with which he uses to capture his distinct urban images. Reflecting a sense of place and also offering a nod to the persistence of modern architecture, Merlin's photography places these scenes in a new context, reminding viewers of the artistic value within the everyday.
Merlin grew up in Western Canada, born in Calgary before being transplanted into various B.C. cities and recently becoming maladjusted in Toronto.
Did you know that it's hard to take a piss on an orbiting international space station? Astronaut retirement reason #241.
-Chris Koehn
@arsphotographica
Photo by Dave Rollins
@cinedar
My Loves
I love experimenting with different cameras and film. I originally started shooting with a Canon PowerShot A40 and graduated to a Nikon D70 in the early 2000's, also experimented a little with my mothers Canon AE-1 which she has passed down to me. Lately I have been feeling analog, shooting mostly medium format or instant films and have started experimenting with large format cameras.
Current collection:
Digital:
FujiFilm X-Pro2
FujiFilm X-T2
Nikon D1H
Kodak DCS 760
Canon G9X
Film:
Wista 4x5
Nikon F5
Nikon F80
Nikon F100
Bronica SQ-AI
Rollei XF35
Canon AE-1
Mamiya C33
FujiFilm GW690
Polaroid 195
Polaroid SLR680
Polaroid SX-70
Polaroid SX-70 Sonar
Polaroid Spectra First Edition
Polaroid NiteCam 600
Polaroid OneStep+
Impossible Project I-1
Minolta InstantPro
Minolta Hi-Matic AF2
Leica Sofort
Lomography Instant Square
Do work
Have an upcoming project? Maybe you have a wacky idea that you're afraid to share with other possibly more judgmental humans? I'd love to collaborate with you! Seriously though I've probably thought of weirder things than you, so don't be shy.
Get in touch using my contact form and lets discuss what you have in mind.
Professional Merlin
Hey kid, I'm a computer
Hello friendo, to the people who have met me it's no surprise that I'm a bit of a nerd. But we're new friends so I'll give you a brief history on who I am. My parents hooked me up with my first computer when I was two, it was a Commodore Vic 20 with a tape drive and I thought it was pretty badass. From there we moved on up to an 8088, 286, multiple 386's and 486's and then into the wild world of Pentiums. Needless to say my young adulthood was vacant of romantic adventures, however a solid foundation to earn a decent paycheck was cemented by my parents forward thinking.
Fast forward a few decades and a whole bunch of jobs later here we are, but whoa I lets rewind a bit cause how did we get here. In the early 2000's I had my first taste of Technical Evangelism and boy was it good. I saw these cats from Microsoft on a stage talking about awesome tech and I was like holy shit thats a job, these people get paid to do this, I WANT TO DO THIS!!! So I started to research how these people became Evangelists and the one thing they all had in common was a breadth of experience in their technical field. I began my quest for knowledge and experience, working both in the private and public sectors. Working as a consultant and administrator, learning everything I could about tech and business.
After years of grinding and public servitude I was rewarded with my first job that would allow me to do some Technical Evangelism. I became a Senior Systems Engineer for a Silicon Valley based startup and what a ride that was. I covered a massive geographic territory and assumed life between taxis, airports, hotels, offices and sometimes home. This career has afforded me the opportunity to travel across North America to different events and customers, to speak to collectively thousands of people while I did my best to make PowerPoint fun and to also meet so many amazing people that I feel privileged to be friends with. I'm no longer with that company but I'm onto a new adventure that I have no doubt will be just as interesting.
It would be rude of me to leave out my time with the VMware User Group (VMUG). I spent several years there as a leader and also as a member of the Global Community and Leadership Development Committee. My experience with VMUG helped me gain the confidence and skills to speak in front of large groups of people and afforded me the networking opportunity to find my first job as an SE. I also have to give a big shout out to VMware itself! Specializing in their technology and focusing on it for years in my career lead me to my roles with VMUG and changed my career direction forever. Thank you VMware and VMUG.
So there you are, now you know about Merlin at work.
Specialites
Evangelism
Pre-sales
Architecture
Virtualization
Networking
Storage
Administration
VMware vExpert 2014-2019
VMware VCA
Microsoft MCP