Holy hannibal, shit is getting real.  Earlier this year when I started taking photos again I never dreamed several things would happen.  

1. The collecting of many film cameras I thought I would never shoot with let alone be able to call my very own. 
2. Having an experienced, established and acclaimed photographer mentor me. 
3. People contacting me asking to do photographic work for them.
4. Being contacted to show my work.
5. Having a photo book with my name on it.

2017 was a pretty wild year, leaving my world behind in the west coast and moving to Toronto.  Having some extra time which I never really had the luxury of before.  A man named Rex who I respect deeply instilled unto me the importance of having something tangible to work on.  My primary profession is of a technical nature, that means I can spend 10’s of to 100’s of hours staring at a computer screen and never seeing a tangible result from that effort.  Rex explained this kind of behaviour could drive a person to the brink of madness.  To prevent this madness he stressed the importance of finding a tangible outlet.  Something a person can work on and see a direct result from which would make that person feel good about that effort.  I applied this new found time towards photography, finding a used Nikon D300 and using an old lens from my D70 I set out to capture Toronto.  In the initial days a lot of time was spent in Kensington Market.  Its a fascinating place that changes daily, there’s always new stickers or graffiti to check out.  My friend Derek suggested I check out some other photographers on line and challenged me to shoot more than random stickers.  While I was exploring these other photographers I found some documentaries on Jason Lee.  His love of instant photography immediately appealed to me.  I wanted to do 8x10 polaroids too, holy shit balls is that stuff expensive as heck.  So next best thing I started picking up old Polaroid cameras to play with.  Now that shit isn’t cheap to shoot with either, at 30+ tax for 8 frames you can’t just be shooting random crap willy nilly, I’m not that rich.

Armed with these old Polaroids a new mindfulness developed and I noticed my interest in subjects changed and my shooting style evolved.  Thru this Polaroid phase I met Sabu and ultimately was introduced to medium format via the Bronica SQAI which is one of my most beloved cameras.  Slowly less images were caught on digital as a massive shift took place to film.  Film is such a beautiful fucking thing, it has life, it has rarity, it requires mindfulness and I love it so goddamn much.  I could go ape shit for hours about why I love film and what’s attractive and blah blah but I’ve already digressed so much from my original point of this post.

I am riddled with excitement and anxiety at the moment, just super jazzed but could also probably shit myself and barf all over the place.  With the help of one of my good solid friends, I have a book coming out.  Its all shots of Toronto and will be part of a larger series if this first one goes well.  I also am having my very first showing, that is exciting and terrifying.  Hence Anxiement!  2018 you’re looking interesting so far…

-MDB