The New Big Island Coming 2012

Women's fashion. It's all about the shoes. (Dean Oros Photo + Design)

Whether we admit it or not, we notice people’s footwear. Sexy shoes catches our eye. Toronto is so taken with footwear the city has a shoe museum: The Bata Shoe Museum.

Last week I viewed X-rays of my feet for the first time. I have narrow feet, but seeing how narrow my foot bones are made me wonder how they took so much abuse from years of long distance running. Feet are amazing. My apologies to my feet for taking them for granted. Did you know the human foot contains more bones than any other single part of the body?

Women’s shoe fashion is far ahead of the curve compared to men’s, in my opinion. Women’s shoes have more to work with. Women’s feet are prettier than men’s. Those lovely arches and high heels have got it going on.

Most of men’s shoes can be considered as unisex, but for women, there is a large variety available, including:

High-heeled footwear that raises the heels, typically 2 inches (5 cm) or more above the toes, commonly worn for formal occasions or social outings. Varitions include kitten heels (typically 1½-2 inches high), stilletto heels (with a very narrow heel post) and wedge heels (with a wedge-shaped sole rather than a heel post).

Sneaker boot or sneaker pump: a shoe that looks like an athletic shoe, but is equipped with a heel, making it a kind of novelty dress shoe.

Mules are shoes or slippers with no fitting around the heel (i.e. they are backless).
Slingbacks are shoes which are secured by a strap behind the heel, rather than over the top of the foot.

Ballet flats, known in the U.K. as ballerinas, ballet pumps or skimmers, are shoes with a very low heel and a relatively short vamp, exposing much of the instep. They are popular for warm-weather wear, and may be seen as more comfortable than shoes with a higher heel.

Court shoes, known in the U.S.A. as pumps, are typically high-heeled, slip-on dress shoes.

Maybe I should photograph more shoes. If you have sexy shoes, give me a ring.

It’s best to order your cards early so you have time to send them out before Christmas.

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Wintertime night driving on Willow Avenue (Dean Oros Photo + Design)

A Lake Ontario winter storm (Dean Oros Photo + Design)

A bed of ice lays across a pier (Dean Oros Photo + Design)

Icicles hang from a ceiling of ice (Dean Oros Photo + Design)

Sunlight from the east reflects off the surface of Lake Ontario, Toronto Canada.

 
The Studio has a growing library of images such as this. The beauty is that no one would ever know this scene was captured in a major city such as Toronto.

This change of season, for many, can evoke a poetic melancholy. The possibilities of summer have passed, and the cold of winter is on the horizon.

Five different sized pumpkins sit atop a red wagon, priced for sale in celebration of Autumn and Hallowe'en.

Autumn brings with it breezes of change. Multi-colour leaves fall from trees, crunching beneath our feet as we stroll over them. The promise of Thanksgiving will soon arrive.

In 1819, John Keats wrote an ode “To Autumn”, a famous poem depicting three stages of the season: its fruitfulness, its labour and its decline into winter.

One of my favourite paintings of Autumn, entitled Otono, is by Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900), an American landscape painter.

Bushels of red apples for sale at an outdoor Farmer's Market.

Think of crisp apples used to make hot apple cider. Pumpkins to make pumpkin pie. And we can’t forget the fun families will have carving pumpkins, eating pumpkin pie, and trick or treating during Hallowe’en.

Enjoy Autumn. It will be over before we know it.

Pictures
I often work on personal images to relax. Images that are just for me. They bring back memories and I enjoy bringing out the beauty of these images as I remember them when I first captured them. I’ve been so busy this past summer, and autumn will be just as busy. They also tend to be images that relax me when I view them. By viewing I mean viewing each image for a few minutes. I know the internet is obviously not best-suited for this, but if you view the larger version it’ll give you an idea. There is a lot of subtle detail which you’ll see the longer you take in each image.

I don’t typically release many personal images, however as I was working on these images this morning, I thought I’d share them because I like them, and maybe you’ll enjoy them, too.

My work is best appreciated when viewed as a large fine-art print, at least 13×19″. I prefer printing on textured art paper as it complements the feel and look of my images, and it has a matte finish. I’m providing these images as artwork, too. If you enjoy viewing any of these images, click on it to view a larger version with the option of owning it as a fine-art print or folded 5×7″ greeting card.

Music
Aside from pictures, I listen to a lot of music. Almost all genres. So I’ll share a short list of what I’ve been listening to this week, in no particular order (scroll down to the bottom for the list).

A rowing crew of five people row on the ocean as the sun sets.

Fishermen cast off a cliff in Ka Lae, Hawaii, the southern-most tip of the USA.

Two lone trees in the distance of a grassy hill seared dry by intense sun.

A tropical forest densely populated with trees, plants and other vegetation.

A variety of flowers, trees and shrubs manage to blossom out of lava on the Kilauea Iki Trail, at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, island of Hawaii.

Here’s the short list of music I’ve been listening to this week. Next week it’ll be completely different. I think you can find everything mentioned on iTunes.

1. Timing is Everything – Garrett Hedlund (from the movie “Country Strong”)
2. Give in to Me – Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester (same as above)
3. Houses – Great Northern
4. November was White, December was Grey – Say Hi
5. Everyday – Carly Comando
6. Cheers (Drink to That) – Rihanna

Take a time out. Enjoy it.

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Four month old baby girl in a blue polkadot dress. Wavy hair! Funny look on her face!

Four month old baby girl laughing in a blue polkadot dress. Wavy hair!

Love them.

Art Gallery of Ontario. Left: Frank Gehry Staircase. Right: Galleria Italia. (© Dean Oros Photo + Design)

It was pouring rain and foggy this morning when I drove to the Art Gallery of Ontario to view the Abstract Expressionist New York exhibit.

Featured are artists from the Museum of Modern Art Collection: Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.

What did I think of it? In one word: Fantastic.

While there, I learned of Philip Guston. He was a Montreal-born painter and printer. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. He was influential in Abstract Expression, and studied with Jackson Pollack under Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankovsky.

I read a great quote by Guston:

“I should like to paint like a man who has never seen a painting”.

I often feel like that when it comes to photography. Imagine having a completely blank canvas in your mind when viewing and photographing the world, unencumbered by the influences of others or by circumstances.

That state of mind can never exist. But if it were possible, I imagine it might be beautiful and ethereal.

This image of Eli is available as a stock image for use in magazines and more.

Have you ever thought your child has modelling or acting potential? Having your child’s image appear in any piece of advertising is one way to get noticed. The Studio has a growing Image Archive of Children available for licensing. We provide this exposure to select clients we photograph at no additional cost. And, we can create modelling headshots to submit to agencies. Get in touch for more information.