Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  . But a Toronto Summer is always Hot, Hot, Hot. Jump Up. Jump Up. In the land of  snow   (feature article for WinTV's inflight magazine - Trinidad)  Playing Mas in downtown Toronto - photograph by Andrew Weir In Canada, carnival is done differently. In Trinidad, you might even call it backwards. But hey, if you can get a million people to jump up, you gotta be doing something right. At Carnival in Trinidad, everyone plays Mas in the street.  The players out-number the people watching by a long shot.  In Toronto?  There are million people cheering on the 16,000 people playing Mas along the city’s waterfront! The Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival is getting ready to hit the streets of Toronto, this August 4th.  This is the 45 th year for the festival formally known as Caribana, and not only is going to be bigger, it is going to be better. The Toronto festival runs for three weeks and attracts over a million people ...

Jon Butler opens his exhibition of photographs, on display in the RBC Tower on Bay Street. Part of Contact Festival. Jon Butler uses his camera to have a Group of Seven moment in God's Country La Cloche Spirit: The Equivalent Light, opens in Toronto. Part of Contact Festival   Jon Butler at one time was an integral part of the Thomson News Corporation. Publisher. Newspaper Executive.  Nowadays, he lets others write the news, while he pursues beauty with his camera in Northern Ontario.  On Monday evening Butler opened an exhibition of photographs he took in the La Cloche region of Georgian Bay.  The show launch was held in the lobby of the  Royal Bank's Bay Street Tower as part of the month long Contact Photography Festival.  Three Ontario and Federal cabinet ministers, a over 50-art lovers attended the opening sponsored by Vale's Base Metals, a Toronto based mining company. The La Cloche area, known for the beauty of its quartzite mountains, cr...

Yes, we accept exchanges. Artist Max Dean, takes back a photography album from a woman who found the pictures depressing.  She get another album from Max.  Dean gives away albums to strangers throughout the Contact Festival from the back of his Volkswagen " Foto Bug".  The Foto Bug was parked in front of MOCCA when this photograph was taken. Have Album Will Travel - artist gives away photographic memories in the street Over the past decade, performance artist Max Dean has collected over 600 photo albums. Family Memories. Forgotten Records. Pictures of the past. At the official opening of the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto, Dean told a large audience at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art Gallery, that it was time that he got rid of his collection of albums. Rather than simply throw them away, Dean has made the act of divesting himself of his collection as a performance-based work of art. " About 100 of the albums have been donated to the Art...

 .   $50,000 Cash Prize. A Book Deal and An Exhibition Next Year 2012 Scotiabank Photography Award L-R, MC and Arts Editor at the Globe Gabe Gonda, Janes Nokes, Exec. Dir. SPA with SPA winner Arnaud Maggs; and photographer Ed Burtynsky, Chair SPA . Toronto artist Arnaud Maggs received the second annual Scotiabank Photography Award (SPA) at a ceremony held this evening at Toronto's Design Exchange.  Celebrating excellence in contemporary photography, the $50,000 award, solo Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival exhibition in 2013 and book deal with international art photography publisher Steidl, is Canada's largest prize for an established Canadian photographic artist. "To receive this award is an honour, and it too is an honour to be named in the company of my gifted peers, Fred Herzog and Alain Paiement," said Arnaud Maggs. "Scotiabank's work over the past years both through its involvement in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Fe...

Shy Guy Alain Paiement   Pointing a YouTube camera in the faces of Canada’s BEST photographers (Huffington Post Blog by Stephen Weir) If you can get a photographer to talk, oh the stories you will hear... Over the years I have handled publicity assignments for some of Canada’s best known artists, authors, and, now and then, photographers.  Although one shouldn’t make sweeping generalities about the personality traits of red hot artists, when it come to photographers, the best cliché is “Mum’s the Word”. Authors know that the gift of the gab sells books, and for centuries, painters have been expected to attend their exhibitions. Sculptors appear larget than life – just like their carvings. But, photographers are different. Really different. Doesn’t matter what language. Open the dictionary to the word "shy" and it will likely read: photographer. They see the world with a box held to one eye, separating them from their subject.  For Montrea...

ONTARIO 2012: Fatalities - Summaries & Recommendations I am assisting the Ontario Underwater Council with the writing of fatality reports following the death of any scuba diver in provincial waters.  I have posted an earlier version of the report - what follows is current as of April 29, 2012.  The report was put together by: Stephen Weir          Sport Safety Consultant Ayisha Hassanali    Sport Safety Consultant Raimund Krob         Sport Safety Advisor One can see a more complete version of this report at the Ontario Underwater Council's website  http://www.underwatercouncil.com/?action=cms&cmspage=safety-scubaincidents&parent_cmspage1=safety   Fatalities - Summaries and Recommendations are listed in chronological order. Date of Incident:     2012-04-13   Summary: Dive Site: On Friday, April 13 t...

  . The Low Down On An Upcoming Scuba Show (May issue of Diver Magazine) By Stephen Weir  A brand new Canadian based underwater TV series is descending to new heights thanks in part to its use of cutting edge video cameras. The Outdoor Life Network (OLN) has begun airing  Descending,  a scuba adventure TV series that uses the new Red One digital video camera to get hyper-real footage from the bottom of Lake Ontario to the wild waters of New Zealand. The Red One, built by the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company (founded by Oakley owner Jim Jannard ) is in the vanguard of the next generation of digital broadcast cameras.  Relatively small, pretty cheap ($25,000, not counting the  70 lb Gates waterproof housing) the Red has the ability to shoot highly detailed video images in very low light, far outstripping the capability of high def TV sets to show such amazing quality.  Underwater the Red One sees and records images more accur...

Montreal's Finest  Text  and video links(s) in English and French for an article/video posting for Huffington Post Alain Paiement - photograph by Stephen Weir Alain Paiement, Montreal photographer is one of three finalists nominated for the Scotiabank Photography Award (SPA) 2012, the largest annual peer reviewed celebration of excellence in Canadian contemporary photography. It is designed to raise the international profile of Canada's leading photographic artists. Trois photographes canadiens bien connus ont été choisis comme finalistes du Prix de photographie Banque Scotia (PPBS). (Scotiabank Photography Award) Il constitue la principale célébration annuelle de l'excellence évaluée par les pairs dans le domaine de la photographie contemporaine au Canada See the English Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M-NKm8_U2E&feature=relmfu Alain Paiement and his Montreal studio/home photo-Stephen Weir See the French Video http://www.you...

 Humber Bay Dive Incident: 58-year old woman passes in Toronto hospital I recently volunteered to help the Ontario Underwater Council research and write fatality reports - accurate information about accidents that occur in the Province while people are diving. The reports are meant to give reliable/factual data to the dive community and to make recommendations on how to make the sport safer (based on the facts of the incident). I had hoped I would go the whole year without having to work on a report.  Sadly that is not the case. A 58-year old woman died this week following a Friday April 13th incident in Toronto at Lake Ontario's Humber Bay. What follows is the report that has been posted on the Ontario Underwater Council web site.  It is reposted here because I write about diving and have built up a following of visitors looking for scuba information. Location of the park. Not accurate as to the location of the incident Date of Incident: 2012-04-13 Summary: ...

Stephen Weir in costume as the Greek Chorus A Review About My Toronto Stage Debut At Harbourfront Pictured I am on stage at Toronto's Harbourfront, in the midst of my acting debut.  My wife and I and 4 of our friends were 20% of the Greek chorus in two short plays Ajax and Little Iliad . The mask was integral part of my costume. The pair of plays were written and performed by hometown guys Eban Webber and Frank Cox-Connell. They had a 5-performance run at the Enwave Theatre as part of Harbourfront’s annual World Stage Theatre.  The two short plays took a 21st century Social Media generation approach to the telling of one the (mostly) lost Greek epic plays, which chronicled the Trojan Wars.  What is left of the Little Iliad is thought to been written in the middle of the 7th century BC. Webber and Cox-Connell's first short play frame their take on the Little Iliad by portraying two friends talking on Skype.  Eban Webber (playing himself) is on ...

(as published in Huffington Post - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/linkedin-privacy_b_1401066.html )  Stephen Weir LinkedIn Privacy Alert - Telephone, Telegraph and Tell a Publicist LinkedIn With Investigative Journalists - Maybe You Want To Drop Me Soon Yesterday, for the second time in a month an investigative criminal reporter has called me looking for info on people that I am linked into through the popular business social network. This time it was concerning a case of medical fraud, and one of my Linkedin  contacts was related to a doctor arrested in the US.  The Star was trying to reach Toronto relatives for comment. My Linkedin contact, a member of the media himself, was related directly to this doctor. At the beginning of the month the Globe and Mail was asking for Linkedin information that would help the paper contact a woman about to be charged over an insider trading issue (gold stocks). Their calls kicked off an internal ethical de...

 . 18th annual Shipwreck Festival sets a record for number of paid attendees Over 500 wreck aficionados crowded into a high school theatre in Welland to hear North America's top shipwreck experts talk about their latest underwear finds.  Shipwreck 2012, Ontario's largest underwater event, is  an annual symposium staged by the Niagara Dive Association (NDA).  This year's wreckstock set an attendance record. " We reached that magical number of 500 paid attendance" said volunteer organizer Ian Marshall on Saturday at the Welland Centennial High School , just as the Shipwreck 2012 conference was wrapping up, "We do know that we sold over 500 passes, but, there were a number of  divers who bought tickets but didn't them up so the actual attendance will be a little lower than tickets sold. But, of course, we have to add in all the unpaid exhibitors and speakers numbers too, to find out how many made it here this year. Going to be next week before w...