Photography is a hyper-saturated field. Everyone and their cat can become a photographer. All you need is an entry level body with a kit lens, and a business name.

BUT THIS CAN BE A GOOD THING!! Hear me out…

I often introduce myself to people as a documentary photographer. I put that right on my bio, on my website, everywhere.

The catch is that I have made a mistake in assuming everyone knows exactly how this works! 😱

The Elm Café is more than the sum of its (perfectly awesome) parts: it is a tiny hub of activity and community on the otherwise nondescript corner of Montreal and Charles St. If I'm having a dramatic day, I might liken it to the floodplains of the Nile amidst Egyptian desert. If humanity is what you seek, you can always find it at the Elm, lodged deep in a diverse community of hard-working people trying to pursue dreams or make ends meet, or both, in the Inner Harbour, who don’t often have the time to wish for things like this, but who very much yearn for them anyway.

The event ran 12-6pm this Sunday, and the crew were ready to WORK HARD. There were boxes of complimentary donuts, tall cups of coffee for the artists, and a full waiting room of eager folks waiting to choose their piece and put it on skin. Oh, and an array of flash selections by each artist to choose from.

Paula also has a sense of humour and a keen sense of timing: she was the lady who, at the Kingston Town Hall with the prime minister in January, after ‘tensions began to escalate' as she puts it, asked Justin Trudeau what he does with his old ties. After he fumbled for an answer, she told him, "The reason why I asked is because I’m looking at your tie and thinking it would make a fabulous dog collar"

While blissfully immersed in my stolen slice of time-space at Toronto Pearson Terminal 1, I was perusing the shelves of a bookstore, looking for a quick and painless read (I sometimes like my literature to be like my photography). I picked up a book called Dirty Rowdy Thing, by someone called Christina Lauren (actually two people), and bought it without hesitation.

I consumed it while on the plane, and that, my friends, was the beginning of my love affair with contemporary romance.