just out of bizarre superstition, i kept my wisdom teeth. they're in a pretty wooden box in my living room. i photographed the ordeal.

the drugs they gave me were disappointingly unwoozy.

photography is, like any other art form, an exercise in narcissism. it stands to reason that i should photograph myself as much as i do if you consider that, in a sense, every photograph i take is a self-portrait. that is to say, it is a reflection of my state of mind, or of a story i want to tell, or a sentiment i want to express. every time i press the shutter i make a choice. i choose to photograph this thing and not a thing several centimetres to the left or right, this moment and not the moment that preceded or followed it. such can be said for any photographer. any semblance of objectivity in photography is deceptive and illusory. the true subject of any photograph is the photographer. this is not a new observation by any means, but one that, i feel, benefits from being restated from time to time.

it turns out that you can't visit the englands without visiting the seaside. so i did. and took pictures. check 'em.

so i recently found out that i've been having problems with my email account, and emails have been disappearing into the ether, never to be seen again, and definitely never arriving in my inbox. the problem has been resolved and email is working perfectly once again.

i just thought i should let you know, in the event that you sent me an email and wondered why you never got a response. i still love you!

the sami kelsh nonacademic world tour 2009 is go! the world tour will be hitting the glorious nation of the englands in july. many photographs will likely be taken. i still can't quite decide which cameras to bring.

regardless, pictures forthcoming.

i have no idea. i've tried to discern some overriding theme or feeling that pervades my work, and i've come up empty-handed.

i just do whatever the hell i feel like.

"Desire... is the desire for nothing nameable... Being comes into existence as an exact function of this lack. Being attains a sense of self in relation to being as a function of this lack, in the experience of desire."

- Jacques Lacan

seriously. it smells old and bits of it are looking pretty ratty, but i am head over heels in love with my seagull. when it arrived, i gave it a once-over to ensure that all was in working order, and much to my dismay, i discovered that the aperture leaves had become disconnected from the sliding lever which is supposed to be used to adjust the aperture opening. as such, the aperture remained stuck on what i would guess to have been somewhere between f16 and f22. i was able to perform some minor surgery by removing the glass piece covering the aperture and shutter from the inside, and as such was able to manually widen the aperture to somewhere in the area of f2 to f3.5, which, while still remaining in a fixed position (and from this point no longer being adjustable in the other direction) will, i hope, allow for a greater latitude of photo-taking opportunities, as well as the shallow depth-of-field i am so fond of.

(a few months ago, i had my eyes tested and found out that i am, in fact, a wee bit nearsighted. i never really realized it until recently, but it turns out that everything further away from me than about a metre is constantly out-of-focus. isn't it a good thing i usually photograph things that aren't very far away?)

i've put up some shots from my colorsplash.

i have a hard time typing the word colorsplash. that's the name of the camera, but i grew up living and spelling in canada, and it just feels like i should be typing coloUrsplash. that U is an important part of my national identity.

but, U or no U, i love my colorsplash all the same.

my seagull 4a TLR is in the mail. i am all kinds of excited.