A tale of two pigs (or three, actually)

By Andrew Tolson - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 8:03 AM - 0 Comments

What I love about my job is the variety of people, and sometimes animals, I get to meet and photograph. For Rebecca Eckler’s story on domesticated pigs, I photographed two families with two different circumstances. Julie Chen and her family have ‘Henry’, a micro-mini pig who, along with their dog Betty, is considered a pet. Young Henry moves fast, so half the time I was running flat out to keep up with him. (And the thing with animals of this size is you have to get down to their perspective, otherwise you’re always shooting their backs.) Susan Morris runs ‘Snooters’ an animal sanctuary an hour outside of Toronto. Morris has a number of rescued pigs that roam both her hobby farm and her house. The pigs from Snooters are older and it was difficult getting them to do anything other than lie on the floor and sleep, which I can understand because in human years these two would be positively geriatric.

Henry is a micro mini pig who lives with Jill Chen and her family in Toronto.

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Our 10 favourite news photos of 2011

By Andrew Tolson - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 6:43 PM - 0 Comments

Every year, thousands of photographs are viewed, edited argued over, and finally selected by Maclean’s photo department for the pages of the magazine. For the Year in Pictures issue, we were looking for the best images that told the story of 2011. A great news photograph must do many things besides record a moment, the most important of which is to create an emotional response in the reader. Joy, outrage, sympathy, laughter; you know it when you see it. Below are our 10 favourite news photos of 2011.

Anti-Mubarak demonstrators clash with Mubarak supporters on the outer edge of Tahrir Square in Cairo for a second day. Most of the conflict involved throwing stones though the occasional molotov cocktail was also used. (Photograph by Roger Lemoyne)

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Shooting stars at TIFF

By Andrew Tolson - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 1:20 PM - 2 Comments

Movie stars don’t have a lot of time.

When you’re photographing them, there’s no asking about their Aunt Phyllis or how their golf swing is progressing. Yes, there’s small talk of the ‘How are you liking Toronto?’ variety, but really, they just want you to get the shot and move on. They have a red carpet to walk, scripts to read, multi-million dollar deals to sign, and, presumably, eating and sleeping to do. For the Movie Star, this is all part of their job; the promoting, the glad-handing and the quickie hotel room portraits. It’s all business.

Which is why you only have one minute to take the photograph.

For the Movie Star, there are varying degrees of involvement in the shoot. Most endure it like a grumpy kid having their picture taken with Santa Claus. Some enjoy the exercise, such as David Cronenberg, who cordially offered me his very effective Death Stare. Sarah Silverman had fun posing as if she were cramped into a photo booth. For some Movie Stars of a certain vintage, it’s about controlling their image: Juliette Binoche insisted on critiquing every frame and pronounced I “had the shot,” when I wasn’t sure I did.

(She was right. I did.)

But during that single minute I have with the Movie Star, it’s always an odd sensation, being so close to someone who is normally forty feet tall. Because after you’ve been face to face with them, in some anonymous hotel room or bland boardroom, you can’t help but feel the Movie Star seems, well, kind of normal.

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Shooting Ralph Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes

Emily Blunt

Juliette Binoche

David Thewlis

Sarah Gadon

Scott Speedman

John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten

Sarah Polley

David Cronenberg

Sarah Silverman

In praise of crappy snapshots

By Andrew Tolson - Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 4:09 PM - 3 Comments

When it came to photographing Jake Richler’s story on cooking with different flours, the obvious choice was to shoot at the Arva Flour Mills, in Arva, Ontario, Canada’s oldest water powered flour mill. The mill is a museum piece of belt-driven grinders and wooden shutes, and the building shakes under the perpetual earthquake of the century old machinery. Despite using high quality digital cameras for the majority of photographs that run in the magazine, this location called for a more lo-fi approach to the visuals. I’ve been in love with the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone since it came out last year, which renders the photos with a nostalgic sometimes washed out and grainy look. The irony is not lost on me that despite using some of the world’s finest photographic technology, sometimes crappy snapshots are the best way to tell a story.

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Aaaand action! PHOTOS from the opening of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival

By Andrew Tolson - Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 4:59 PM - 0 Comments

The stars are out in Cannes. Check back during the festival for updated photos.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/13/aaaand-action/

“A massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster”

By Andrew Tolson - Monday, May 3, 2010 at 3:39 PM - 7 Comments

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Harry Potter: The Exhibition (PHOTOS)

By Andrew Tolson - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

Barenaked pictures

By Andrew Tolson - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

With last year’s departure of Stephen Page, the Barenaked Ladies could have faded into Canadian music folklore. But they’re back with a new album, All in Good Time, and a renewed sense of purpose. I spent an afternoon with the Ladies as they rehearsed for the their upcoming tour.

The best Olympic photography

By Andrew Tolson - Monday, March 1, 2010 at 3:05 PM - 3 Comments

An outstanding Olympics for photography. Here are my choices for the best images from the Games, from dejection to jubilation, and crazy fans to Sidney Crosby’s fairy tale finale.

For more amazing photography, pick up Maclean’s special commemorative issue on newsstands this week.

Weekly photo roundup

By Andrew Tolson - Friday, January 29, 2010 at 2:42 PM - 2 Comments

Scandal in wildlife photography:

The Guardian

A ‘complicated, and ugly case’:

Petapixel

An amazing story from Haiti:

Photo District News

With all this talk of digital HD DSLRs and, of course, the new iPad, I thought this was a good reminder of where it all started:

Petapixel

This video has been everywhere, but it’s worth another look:

Aphotoeditor

Photography roundup: January

By Andrew Tolson - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 3:31 PM - 1 Comment

Martin Parr of the Magnum photo agency shoots quirky photo essays that don’t always show his subjects in the best light, but he somehow gets to the truth.

The Guardian.co.uk – Martin Parr’s photos

Some of the best coverage out of Haiti, particularly from the Los Angeles Times.
Boston.com

LATimes.com

These images from Vanity Fair are amazing in the way they’ve caught the essence of classic Hollywood photographs.
Vanity Fair

And because it’s been such a heavy week, this is just amusing:
Urlesque.com

A year in pictures

By Andrew Tolson - Friday, December 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 5 Comments

This Year in Pictures 2009 was unusual in one way: despite western news media being kicked out Iran after their election, images of that government’s crackdown still found their way out of the country through social media sites such as Flickr and Twitter. Citizen journalism has never been so effective.

We also saw elections in the US and India – and almost one here in Canada. President Obama dominated the world stage. The war in Afghanistan began a new chapter with a US troop surge and the weather continued to wreak havoc with the planet – all caught by the world’s photojournalists.

Putting together an issue of the year’s best photographs is a daunting task – there were hundreds we could have published in the magazine. (Maclean’s Year in Pictures issue is on newsstands now.) For that reason, we present the best of the rest here on macleans.ca.

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