I’ve had very little time for road trips and other camera related fun during the last few weeks, as we’ve been trying to make some headway with our reno. It’s basically just really insignificant nagging little things that are not done at this point – painting, finishing of furniture, cabinets – stuff like that. We had this brilliant idea of doing much of the work ourselves, and it seems that for the last year or so we tend to only get as much done as we have to. Happily, we’ve been forcing ourselves into rapid progress lately and things are finally coming around in the “not often used” areas of this big old house.

Anyway, in times such as these, I’m getting really tired of two aspects of maintaining this blog. It’s one thing to have to come up with something clever to say each-and-every day (well… humour me will ya?). On top of that, I feel this need to somehow tie images together in a loose story or common thread.

Believe it or not, it’s time consuming. Do you have any idea of how many feet of baseboard I can “cut in” in the same amount of time I can write this? Jeez – it must be 30 odd feet – that’s half a room!

This sucker has to be streamlined for a few days to get me over a hump. So, using the very best PR / BS / Spin logic that I can muster…

Announcing a new Blog Category: The Shoebox! An elite, limited collection of some of Kim’s best never-before-seen shots!

In reality, this will just be a semi-regular assortment of pictures that would probably be lying under the couch in a box collecting dust (had I actually ever printed any of my stuff). They’re decent pictures really – files that have just ended up kicking around from directory to directory on my HDD because I’m generally too lazy to get creative and come up with a theme.

So, without further delay….

Tags: lobster trap, shoreline, skipper, windy trees

Does anyone else think that these highly saturated, overly colourful commercials that are currently running for Newfoundland tourism are more than just a little bit misleading?

The fact is, in the outport communities that I’ve visited lately (perhaps with just a single exception), the scourge of vinyl siding has totally taken over. It’s even creeping into the city (get your hot beverage first, that’s a long read).

The idea in a previous post of “appreciating the details” is something that I think more people need to do.

We’re loosing something in Newfoundland, and quite rapidly. While the provincial government is actively promoting a certain “look and feel”, the municipal governments are watching, helpless and broke, while it’s all covered in plastic.

Several years ago, I spent a few weeks in the Twilligate area. I was just starting out as a photographer, but I already knew it was a gold mine – there were old houses and history everywhere. When I went back last year to shoot it again, armed with a better camera and knowledge of how to use it, it was mostly gone. If one of those things that I had shot before wasn’t already torn down, it was covered in vinyl siding.

When we bought a house to renovate, it had already been chopped up and put in tupperware. Although it was an old home, it had been renovated so often that there was nothing remaining from the original construction – totally stripped clean of character. We did what we could – rebuilding with as many materials as would originally have been used while making the whole thing energy efficient underneath. Although it’s not within the city’s heritage area, the result is one of the better looking houses on the street, and a property that has tripled in value in five years.

My only hope now is that people have gone the “quick and dirty” route in attaching the vinyl – that they’ve “strapped out” the old to cover it with new. If that’s the case, it would be a relatively simple process of pealing back the plastic and scraping off the flakes before appling a new coat of paint. Sorta like the exterior equivalent of taking up the carpet and re-finishing the hardwood.

Hopefully all is not lost.

Tags: lobster trap, old house, original materials, wood pile