photography

Shoe-gamers, I got you.

If you’re a ‘kicks with everything’ kind of human like myself, then let that one Drowzee go (Pokemon GO-ers, I see you!) and stay with me for a quick minute. I spent the last couple of nights drooling over some damn good lookin’ sneakers that have made their way north of the border as of midnight.

Wednesday 5:22pm : As I was digging deep in the closet for the perfect pair of Chucks to pair with my summer hashtag oh oh tee dee (aka #ootd aka #outfitoftheday) the constant chatter in my head was telling me that those chucks were too worn out, girl! But I wore them anyways. And when I got to the Converse Modern Auckland launch tonight (check out #ConverseModern on the interweb) I realized that the more worn out the Converse, the sexier. Somebody make a doc; if those Chucks could talk! 

Welcome to the fam, new friends!

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I mean, everyone’s appearance changes as they grow up! The minute I put these bad boys on my feet I knew that they would take me from breakfast to bedtime. Simplicity is my favourite. I’m going to go back to that ‘kicks with everything’ line right now as I line up a couple of pictures of what I wore today. A dress and sneakers? With converse, absolutely.

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And this is where I tell you that Footlocker at 247 Yonge Street is the only place that you can get your anxious sneakerhead hands on these. Five colours! Raptor red just made sense for my feet.

I’d say, ‘out with the old, in with the new’ but I’m all about saving those sneaker stories. The stains, the scuffs, the good stuff. Just adding these to the collection.

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Footlocker also opened the first #PumaLab in Canada at the Footlocker on Queen Street West this week. So many shoes! So much awesome. -k

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Something ’bout Simplicity.

“It’s the little things, but they all add up.”

I sprinkle that mesh of words into scenarios frequently. Because I am a big believer and lover of simplicity. Sure, I absolutely adore the big brimmed hat the shy girl on the corner of Yonge Street is sporting but it’s the way the hat tips and her coat sits and where her purse hits that makes for stronger pictures. Stronger feelings. Everything is art. 

I like messy beds and over worn pyjamas. I like the wild silence on the subway in a car full of fifty strangers. I like uneven footprints in the snow and melting flakes on eyelashes that make your mascara run. I like aged cracks in the pavement and a paper bag caught in the gutter from someone’s lunch. I like worn out edges of over read novels and fingerprints on the car window. I like holes in t-shirts and the sound of coffee brewing at 8am. I like imperfect smiles, frown lines and scars with stories. I like how you look at me. I like empty wine glasses on the counter from the night before and newspapers on the train seat next to you that have been touched by numerous hands. I like water stains on the bathroom mirror and cloudy airplane trails in the sky. I like how you make me feel. I like the souls sense of serendipity and the touch of a first dance. I like blueberry stains on my fingers and the morning after nose scrunch of a too-many-drinks text. I like the lipstick stains on coffee cups and the sound of a key in the lock after a long day. I like you.

Everything is art. -k

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‘The simple things are the most extraordinary things and only the wise can see them.’

Therapy and Tea.

Creative expression is an addiction of mine. I crave waking up on a Sunday morning, making a cup of tea and endlessly scrolling through pinterest boards full of photos and quotes that fill your soul up to the top. And then writing the crap out of my reaction to a photo or quote. Thinking about it now, it’s a therapeutic thing. When the soul has been emptied of a little confidence or belief, I believe in finding something to repair it. I’ve heard this before –> There are poems inside of you that paper can’t handle. How beautiful and true. When words are locked up in my insides I always find it easier to express them through photography. It’s definitely a favourite creative outlet of mine. I’ve been stopped in my tracks on my daily commute a lot this month due to the city shifting into winter mode. The puddled streets and snowflakes and sun hanging on to the buildings because it doesn’t get to play as long at this time of year has made me pause. And as I sit here now at a loss for words, I’ll drop a photo I took this week to explain the rest. Happy Sunday. -k

Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

photo (1)‘Have no fear you will find your way. It’s in your bones. It’s in your soul.’ – Mark Z. Danielewski

My New Year.

My sweet summer is gone. It doesn’t feel like summer is signed, sealed and sent away on Toronto streets due to some last minute heat from the sun but this is the time of year where shifts happen. More Raptors news on my social feeds and planning for upcoming events means the countdown to my new year is on. I’m so ready to dig in.

But I’m so happy thinking about the summer that was. Snapshots of summer have been slapping me in the face all day. I saw a lot. A lot of things I’ve never seen. And I am so thankful for the days on opposite coasts. Someone said to me on a Sunday morning in a city that wasn’t mine (when we were absorbing wordy memories of yesteryears while staring at a new day warming up in front of us over java) to store these moments in your mind for yourself and the people you are with instead of capturing them to share on social platforms like the ways of the world. The two of us, we had changed since our last meeting, but what hadn’t changed was me cringing at the fact that my camera was still sleeping at home. But then I just let it be. (It was NOT easy, trust me, I crave my creative outlets and the excitement of creative visions.) To be places and see the seconds in moments that no one will absorb but you is kind of awesome. Especially when you’ve got someone to talk about it to down the road. And pictures just never live up to the moment that was. It has stuck with me, for me (and you) to see.

And now? With grace and guts I’m tackling new endeavours. That’s the only way to do it. You know that saying, ‘act like duck; keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like hell underwater’? Uh huh, honey. I’ll be quacking all month until some of these visions that keep slapping me in the face become reality.

And when the nights are darker than most because my thoughts cloud the moon,
the thought of your face, two breaths between us, makes me sleep;
the blurred dream of a someday soon.

But the pics I did grab? Uh huh, honey. Next trip? Vancouver for Raptors training camp. Back to the west coast which will always have a piece of my heart. -k

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due north.
No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. – Lana Del Rey

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West Coast Ways – Day Three.

I asked a friend the other day, ‘how’s that bucketlist of yours looking?’ I found a version of mine folded up in the back of my journal this summer with the date 2006 on it. The wild part about it was that I sat there ticking off some dreams that became reality when I didn’t even realize I was putting energy into making it happen. Some were small like surf in Malibu and my continuous quest to hit every baseball stadium across the states which is a work in progress. But some were on the next level scale like host my own TV show and get a photo professionally published. I’ve been given the same advice more than once in my life from people that I admire with great respect; write down what you want even if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. And keep writing because as the pages fill up things with scribbles and scratches, things will become clearer and you’ll find yourself checking off bucketlist dreams one day too. I challenge you to try it.

One of my little wishes was visit wine country in California. So the ladies and I set foot on Sonoma Valley soil on a Sunday funday last month. Check. -k

What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create. -Buddha

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West Coast Ways – Day Two.

It’s Friday night in Toronto and I’m sitting on my balcony while the rest of the city says cheers to the weekend and fights the urge to tame the wild child inside of them. I’m watching them chase each other down the street six floors below. It makes me kinda happy because I know that buzz of being in a good place. That feeling of letting the bad shit go.

Saturdaaaay in the park was pretty perfect in San Francisco. Dolores Park reminded me of Trinity Bellwoods here in Toronto. The eclectic people pulling together parties of four or five or fifteen on a patch of grass with a view of the city that you seed with hopes and what ifs and scary but reachable success. I’m at the age where I flutter between back then and the future, unsure of tomorrow but sure of what I want tomorrow to be. The ‘on top of the hump’ part with the anxiety but excitement for the free fall. And these mini time outs from reality to relax and laugh and discuss where you are and where you want to be with people in the same boat kind of fuel your drive. I spoke with people that ventured from across the states and Canada that all met on one blanket and unknowingly said cheers to getting here.

And the view? Well that just adds to the awesome… -k

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