28 December 2010

If this blog were a turkey...

Man.. there's so much news in this here blog post, you'll be making blog news sandwiches for a week! Maybe even a pot of blog news soup! When you're done reading, you'll want to sit back on the couch (or sofa), unbuckle your belt, shake the pictures on the wall with one of them half-belch-half-sighs and pass out for 5 hours!

Makes you wanna keep readin, don't it?

Ok, so where to begin?

A few weeks ago I mentioned that someone from Winnipeg had ordered a print from me. There's a nifty story behind this sale. I get a message on my telephone answering service from a lady who asks me about a piece I have hanging up in a cafe here in Victoria. (Demi-Tasse, formerly Rising Star on Broad St.) The piece is one of my uniquely mounted pieces with the shot 'brownie as monolith' in it.
It's a 22x24 inch print, mounted behind an antique window. It looks a little something like exactly this:


The woman who called was asking about it and, after some phone tag it was determined that the one of a kind unique piece wasn't exactly in her ballpark but a print of 'brownie as monolith' would be. She was heading back home to Winnipeg the next day and it was decided that I'd get a print done & ship it to her. It was to be an x-mas gift and this is where it gets neat. The gift was for her father who's in his 80s who used to be a photographer, used to use a Kodak Brownie and... get this... who's name is Brownie. The photograph immediately set off the 'perfect gift' bells and the rush was on. This was sometime in late November and they wanted to get it framed & wrapped for x-mas. The busy season was on at Canada Post & there was a bit of worry as things seemed to take slightly longer than hoped, but in the end, it got there on time, was framed and apparently Brownie loved his Brownie photograph!


I've sold many prints & am always eager to get feedback, but I was quite excited to get news of this. Quite happy indeed. I'm smiling now, actually.

So, what's next?

It was a quiet x-mas this year & I decided to turn the downtime into uptime funtime cameratime! I had neglected my camera for quite a while. Hadn't really spent any real quality time with it in about a month and a half so, with all the nothing going on I figured it was time to make amends. Pulled out the camera, slapped on the makeshift macro (I won't tell you how to make one, but I will say that there is much fun to be had in disassembling lenses or looking backwards through them... electrical tape can help.) set up my lighting equipment (an old desk lamp that may have belonged to Mickey Spillane at one time) in my studio (the closet that I call an office a.k.a. The Troutcave) set up the tripod (um... it's an actual tripod) and started getting up close and personal with my camera collection:







 So, needless to say I had a fun time. They say you can get lost in macro work and it's true. Imagine suddenly having to navigate your surroundings as though you were a flea. A millimeter can be vast. You can trip over an eyelash. I actually got so into it that I used my 'live view' function on my camera for the very first time. I've had the 40D for 2.5 years and have never even looked at the silly thing. I hate live view. Photography is an intimate process. My eye through the camera is how I want to see the world. Everything else doesn't exist. But, a lot of these shots would have been impossible or else terribly painful to line up any other way so... I scrounged around for my manual and figured out how to employ the mechanism. I tell you, my camera has so many bells and whistles that I have no idea are even there... it makes me giggle. Next year's DSLRs will be coming out with 'post to facebook' functions and internal editing software. You wait. It'll happen.
What...? Oh, it already happened...? Oh.
(shudder).
So that's how I spent my x-mas vacation! Photographically speaking, that is. The wife and I cooked a bird and ate it too. Yum yum.
A bunch of the shots from the series are on ye aulde website-a-reno (click: portfolio - studies - cameras.) and I posted them on redbubble where I then made a truly swank lookin' calendar. Check ca:



Well... that wasn't really that much news after all... just a lot of me rambling... funny that...

It's kinda like I promised you a big ol turkey with all the fixins and I came home with a half-eaten happy meal and a pack of Certs.
Oh well.
How's about I make it up to you all on the next exciting episode of it's the Kreddible Trout Photography blog! where I will do up one of them 'Year In Review' things that seem so popular amongst people in the media who can afford a vacation.

Or maybe I won't. I'm not yet quite sure if I'm lying about that or not.

 ...anyway.

So...
Tune in next time to find out if he's serious about Kreddible Trout Photography's Year In Review and if he is just how in the hell he'll be consise about it without it taking the whole of 2011 to read! 
(It's a nutshell, Trout! Not a novel!)

Say 'goodnight', Troutie.
'Hi Trevor!'
... oh sweet jeebus...

18 December 2010

Last Big Marketing Drive of 2010!!!

(...oh, er... I mean...)
Seasons Greetings And Best Wishes To All My Loyal Followers!!!

As it is the time of year for businesses everywhere to foist out the final desperate plea for sales, we here at Kreddible Trout Photographic Industries are no different. Firstly we want to thank all 22 of you for following this silly little blog, wish you a festive and yule-tastic holiday season and remind you that Original Kreddible Trout Photographic Artworks can be purchased from my redbubble portfolio as well as through my website. Heck, you can even call me on the telephone & say 'hey Troutie, I'm an art savvy consumer and I want to purchase some of your yummy yummy art. Hook me up, yo!'
And I will hook you up. Yo.

So, to those few of you who don't have to work through it, have a great holiday season! To those of you who do have to work through it... well, y'know, double time is pretty sweet & try and enjoy it none the less!

Peace Out!
-Kreddible Trout

12 December 2010

Arts, Crafts and the Cycle of Life

(I wrote this piece a few years ago to post on JPGmag. A conversation I had last week reminded me of it so I decided to share it here. These are the kind of blog entries that I enjoy sharing. I hope you get a kick out of it.)

Arts, Crafts and the Cycle of Life

I went to the Salmon Run the other day and have to admit I was a little disappointed to see not one single salmon do anything but swim or just lay there being eaten by birds. There was no running involved. I thought I was going to see salmon doin The Darwin.

Anyway.

Seems every year for as long as there've been salmon, they've been swimming upstream, spawning and dying. To the population of Victoria BC and some late-season tourists it's apparently quite a site to witness. The vibrant struggle of salmon fighting fierce opposing currents & predators has got to be one of the more impassioned displays of survival of the species nature has to offer. Really something to be seen. Unfortunately we had arrived at the tail end of the season and were left with a river teeming with dead salmon carcasses and scavanger birds. Lots of interesting photo ops but the majesty of nature had been replaced by nature's version of dumpster diving behind McDonald's.

The area, Goldstream Provincial Park has nature trails along the stream with information posts as you'd expect. 'The Life Cycle of Moss'... 'Dew: Nature's Perspiration'... things like that. We walked along the paths which wound creekside through the woods and soon came upon a little visitor's centre. An information lodge stuffed with stuffed birds to look at, t-shirts to buy & people with beards to explain it all to the city folks. After pushing a few buttons to hear stuffed birds making sounds that the live ones were making outside I wandered out the back where I discovered something quite disturbing indeed. It seems a macabre tradition to allow (and even encourage) children to cover dead salmons in paint and make prints on large sheets of white paper with them. Really, tables full of dead fish and paint lined the outside wall of the information centre. It looked like kindergarten of the disturbed. I was confused. I'm not a parent but I do seem to recall that when I was a child the grown ups telling me not to play with dead animals. Even if I really really wanted to. I asked someone if they do the same thing with squirrels to which the response was mild disgust. A dead fish is ok though...

A fitting homage to the majesty of nature, don't you think? These solemn creatures fight all odds to procreate, battling current, predator and time, and end up being groped by a five year old covered in paint. I heard one kid remark "This is SUCH a good idea!"

Indeed.

I've decided that this is how I want to be remembered. Burial is so passe, cremation is kinda cool but who's ashes are they really? George Carlin once said he wanted to be stuffed full of dynamite and blown up. I was favouring that idea until now. Thanks to the salmon run I have a new idea. When I die I want people to make artsy-craftsy prints of me! At my service, I want to be lain naked on a table so everyone can cover me in paint, slap a big sheet of paper on me and make themselves a print. I can be wiped down and redone until everybody has their own, artistic interpretive print of me to do whatever they want with. Hang me over your mantle. In your office to inspire productivity. You name it!

Just like the salmon.

A fitting tribute to the cycle of life and not in the least degrading.





08 December 2010

Just call me Mr. June.

Last week was pretty eventful. Here's the rundown:

#1
So, as I've mentioned my shot comin t'getcha has been featured in the David Suzuki Foundation's 2011 calendar and last week, in a 100% post consumer cardboard envelope, it arrived at my door.
So... yeah, like, I get mail from David Suzuki... I'm kinda a big deal y'know... oh, did you get that?... David Suzuki is what I said... yeah... I'm fantastic.
...Oh... it was sent by... oh. A person in the mail room? Hmm...
Yeah, so I know a guy who works in the mail room at the David Suzuki Foundation... yeah, I'm a pretty big deal.

Needless to say I'm pretty thrilled about it. Mr Suzuki himself signed it. Pretty cool.


...you can call me Mr. June....


I'm pretty thrilled to be in the calendar and hope that some of you out there go over to the David Suzuki Foundation website and buy one. I'm pretty certain it's going to a good cause.


 #2
On that very same day (wow it was like x-mas in my mailbox!) I also received a bunch of stickers I ordered from redbubble. A few of my own designs and some others I really like. Here they are displayed around the calendar:


Close-up of my 'nothing is real anymore' design in sticker form (though you'd be much cooler wearing the t-shirt)


#3
I was also asked by the good people at Toast Cafe in Sidney BC to fill their walls with art! I frequent the shop in my 'day job' as a landscaper to get the best coffee on the peninsula. (for those of you who don't know what 'the peninsula' is, it refers to the greater Saanich area of Vancouver Island. Here you go!) They asked me Monday & I had stuff hung by Saturday. If you're in the Sidney area & want a great coffee & a dang good sandwich you should stop in. (I hear they have some nice art on the walls too!)

#4
And finally... I sold a print to some folks from Winnipeg. Someone contacted me after having seen my uniquely mounted 'brownie as monolith' hanging in Demi-Tasse (Formerly Rising Star) Cafe on Broad Street in Victoria & asked if they could buy a print of it. It's to be a gift. There's a cute little story behind it that I'm excited to blog about when it's opened at x-mas.

And I think that about does it for the life and times of Kreddible Trout for the beginning of December. Good things. Not terribly lucrative things, but good things. I like good things.


...and remember our x-mas slogan kids:

Nothin says 'Happy Holidays' like 


26 November 2010

The Hostile Takover of Art (pt.1)

Happy Buy Nothing Day Everyone!


This has been brewing in me for some time now, the fact that art is almost surely dead. If not 'dead' it's been buried alive and there are few of us left who seem to care & we can't find any shovels. Buried, bought and buggered by business. What better day than Buy Nothing Day to expel this little demon, eh? 

That's right kids, sit back and get ready for a rant! 

(this is how we do business here at KTP!)

Many things over the past few decades have exemplified business & marketing's hostile takeover of art but I think we can all agree that their true September Campaign was when a certain shoe company bought a song called 'Revolution' that should never have been able to be sold by someone who had nothing to do with it's creation in the first place. In 1987 Nike bought the Beatles' song Revolution from Michael Jackson and put it in a commercial to sell shoes made by child sweatshop labourers.

Profits soared.


Now, I know there had been many hugely successful marketing campaigns before that (I mean, Max Headroom selling Pepsi was just brilliant!) but this was really the first, blatant, open handed slap in art's face. Marketing stood there with that smug little smirk on it's face, 'What're y'gonna do cry about it?'
This was marketers' big risk... this was the test. As tests go it was a pretty safe bet on their part. For years they'd been preening us for the moment when they'd ram that final nail in the hippies' coffin (the previous ones nailed by the hippies themselves in the form of Pathfinders and the starting of marketing firms) & get on with business.
The test was this: if we can take a song, a piece of art, written by a group of artists who are revered to the point of sainthood, a song that was clearly pondering revolution and now has the hindsight of it's lyricist's rebellious path since it's release, a song that emulates the population's (albeit distant and homogenized) understanding of 'revolution' and use it to sell them sneakers... we've got them in the palm of our hands.

And they did.
And they do.
They needed to see just how far they could push before we'd actually rebel.  They're still pushing. Because we let them. Because alongside art, they bought our morals and integrity as well.

Seems really sinister doesn't it? It's not. It's just business.

Since then we've seen Fred Estaire dancing for soda pop and revolutionary figures being reduced to t-shirts who's wearers have only
ever rebelled by going to the Rage Against The Machine concert against their parent's will. (actual quote I overheard 10 years ago: "Man, I love Rage, I just wish they weren't so political!")


It has become so ingrained in our ideals that anyone who questions the tried and true methods of business is written off as 'an idealist'. Those who question the pervasiveness of marketing get heavily patronized in that oh so charming way business people love to. It's simply a fact. It's reality. If you dont' play along you're simply missing the point. Anything but the pursuit of money is considered a charming little idea that is nice to visit in the movies but has no viable place in 'the real world'.

The idea of creating art, simply for it's own sake, for all the reasons artists have ever created, for it's true purpose: to vent, to nourish, to beautify, to rebel, to stave off 'demons', to invite & rejoice in epiphany, to mirror-hold, to provoke change, to sway lovers, to criticize, to entertain, TO EVOKE... all these things really only hold merit if you've got a good way to sell it. If you follow the rules on how to 'get it out there'. If you don't, if you're not interested in 'the business' side of it, you're patronized.

Everything is business.
 
I've not been in business long (or arguably at all) though people have been buying my art for a few years now. I simply do not have the knack for it. I've tried. I've done research, taken courses, but everything about it just pets me the wrong way. The goal is wrong. The goal is money. I never want to sell someone a piece of my art. I want people to want to buy it. If they don't want to, I'm fine with that. The error in my business thinking (a source of pride for me) is that I don't ever want to cater my art to someone else. I'm not a service, I'm an artist. I don't want to keep abreast of the latest market trends because that's what I'm supposed to do to be a successful businessman. I want to create my art. Period. I would rather work odd jobs the rest of my life & have folks who truly appreciate my art occasionally buy it than do what I allegedly need to in order to 'be successful' in the eyes of money.

I'm such a REBEL!

In my peripheral experience in 'the photography business' I've noted one thing, this industry has admittedly and shamelessly become almost entirely about marketing. A little over a year ago I attended an intensive, five day, photography workshop. I rarely mention it and don't really put it down on my resume as the only thing I truly took away from it was that I'd rather remain an artist than become a business person. Of the... we'll say there were 250 people there, I saw maybe... MAYBE 20 people who I thought might be artists. The rest were, at best, business people with expensive cameras. At worst, marketers with even more expensive cameras. From the instructors to the students it was all about how to 'get yourself out there' and 'be seen' while the thought of art took a back seat or was left entirely out of the equasion. The question of whether or not the person's product provoked any real need to 'be seen' was never posed. My understanding of the mantra is this: you can create stunningly uninspired shit all you like, you just need to know how to 'get it out there' and you can be 'successful'. People are jumping through hoops & knocking over old ladies in order to get to the front of this shameful line. For whatever brief minute they'll be there before someone else comes along with a bigger shinier hat and a brighter, better crafted smile. The idea I heard repeatedly was that, despite the 'economic downturn' we were (are) in, some people were making a killing! More successful then they've ever been! How? Please tell us HOW? By 'marketing like they've never marketed before' was the answer. Many of them claimed that 75% of their time was spent marketing. That's 75% of their time not taking pictures. My heart ached.
The presentation that opened the entire seminar had some pointy-haired guy (who was braving this recession splendidly) go on at great lengths about how he's started wearing mismatched socks because he thinks it makes him more unique... because he saw someone else doing it. In my world, that makes you desperate, not cool. He doesn't do it because he is more unique, but because he thinks it'll make him so. So... he's a poser. His wedding photos were good, don't get me wrong, he obviously knew what he was doing with a camera & photo editing software but what made him truly successful was his marketing.

And his socks. Let's not forget his clever socks.

(... I stopped wearing mis-matched socks a few years ago.)

I could go on about this all night, but there's a reason I called this 'part 1'... I have a lot to say on the issue.


In closing, there is still a faint knowledge that we're not only allowing this to happen to our good friend art, that we've accepted it and have almost entirely lost the ability to recognize that there is anything wrong with art's direction is being diverted by greed. The knowledge is faint, but it is there. Isn't it?

All that said, you must think I'm a miserable no-fun-nick. Far from it. As you can probably figure out from my marketing campaigns of the past year, I have a great deal of fun not taking any of this seriously at all.
(Besides, most of you know me anyway as really, I've done a horrible job with my social network marketing strategies and have done little to get this blog 'out there' beyond ... hi mom... beyond a smallish circle of people whom I know personally... there's a marketing term for that that illudes me at the moment)


Again, Happy Buy Nothing Day Everyone!!! 
(If anyone buys something from me today... I'll be SO MAD at you!)


-Kreddible Trout


24 November 2010

Kreddible Trout Design??? You Betcha!

The other day it donned on me: I do design too! Ive been designing my own business cards for ages, have done posters for various types of events (mostly ones I've been involved in...art shows etc) & small businesses. I've done layouts & designs for this very blog!
So the heavy business side of my brain got to thinking...
'hmmm... how can I use this ability to my financial benefit? There's got to be a way...'

A couple of weeks later I stumbled upon this revolutionary idea to advertise it and start charging for my services!
(I do feel bad about having to lay a firm NO down and start charging the bake sale ladies. To be honest though, I think they've been taking advantage of my posters for cookies fees. Last time they gave me a cracker with a raisin on it... that's not a cookie ladies! Besides, they're all driving fancy sports cars now... I'm getting a bit suspicious. All that new bling... Ethyl got some gold teeth put in. I think they can afford to throw some my way.)

So please check out the new DESIGN section of the website-a-go-go!
And if anyone needs posters, business cards, layouts for your manifestos, please feel free to email me. My rates are (as always) reasonable and I guarantee service with a smile (possibly a sly grin)!


Also, I just posted a few shots from a recent promo session. As odd as it sounds, it was for another classical musician. The gentleman Joey Pietraroia (a fellow ex-pat Montrealler) is a real deal classical music conductor!
Here are a couple of examples, more can be seen on ye aulde website


So that's all for this installment of What's New On The Website! 
Next episode... something COMPLETELY UN-SALES/PROMOTIONS RELATED. I GAR-ON-TEE! 
(oh thank jeebus!)





07 November 2010

another satisfied KTP customer and his cat!

My old buddy Nick (a rapidly budding new photojournalist) standing in front of his recently delivered Authentic Kreddible Trout Custom Designed Calendar titled ‘Intricate Nick’s Cavalcade of Days and Pictures’.
Of course, Nick is a kidder and, knowing my pure, unbridled, almost satanic disdain of cat pictures, decided to take a stab at my not-so-funny-bone.

HAR-DE-HAR-HAR, Mr. Nick! HAR-DE-HAR-HAAR!

04 November 2010

15% off Kreddible Trout until Nov. 14th!


Greetings one and everyone! 
To celebrate the
post-halloween-pre-pre-X-mas-consuming-season
Kreddible Trout is offering
15% off  
All you have to do is enter the 
SUPER SPECIAL FAN CLUB CODE 
(located at the bottom of this blog entry) 
when filling out your order at redbubble 
and  presto-blammo 
you get 15% off

But only til Nov. 14th! 
...because with deals this crazy the bank will never give me that business loan I need! 
(the banks only give money to lunatics who already have money)


 






... and if you look hard enough 
you can find calendars and stickers too!

So please head on over & buy some yummy yummy art!
Hey! 
Don't forget your 
SUPER SPECIAL FAN CLUB CODE:

KreddibleTrout_is_on_sale_0604


...offer ends November 14th 2010.


...and if you want to know a little secret... 
...it's for all the la-de-da nature & pretty flower stuff... 
...but sssshhhhhh... don't tell anybody... it'll ruin my credibility as a jaded-edgy artist...
this code will get you 15% off there: 
WilliamJoseph_is_on_sale_0951
 ...for those of you who like flowers and crap like that.

23 October 2010

21 Days, 2 Calendars and 1 Birthday later...

Hello Folks, I know, it's been a while. I thought I'd send out an update on what the dilli-o has been going on over here at KTP Enterprises.

Firstly, the Customize Your Whole Year Calendar Extravaganza  got off to a roaring start and then put-putted to a quiet halt. Two orders flew off the shelves shortly after my announcement & then the chorus of crickets & tumbleweed began chiming again. I stormed in to the marketing department demanding to know what happened to the new BMW they promised me. After my ten minute tirade the entire marketing department (my desk plant Mertyl) sat in stunned terror until it finally piped up with 'Well sir...  seems that sliced bread was actually a pretty remarkable invention... we were a bit presumptuous on that... but... well, I do think that the sliced bread people may have put a little more time and effort into advertising it... you know, more than just one blog entry at least.'
The entire office was silent. The vein in my head throbbed in that way it does when it wants to pretend it's Donald Trump. Mertyl sat motionless.
'So....' piecing it together 'what you're saying is..' almost got it now '...one roadsign on the information superhighway is probably insufficient?'
'No.'
'What?'
'It isn't probably insufficient, it is definitely, tremendously and almost embarrassingly insufficient'
'Don't get cocky Mertyl'
'Sorry sir.'

And thus it went on. Mertyl and I spent the better part of last week trying to see eye to leaf & eventually came to the agreement that I was spending far too much time talking to houseplants and need to get out more. (Though the more I think about this the more I realize Mertyl may be trying for a power grab... I have to keep my eye on that one, Peace Lilies are known for their cunning)

So! Where was I?

Oh yes, the Customize Your Whole Year Calendar Extravaganza is very much alive and kicking and two happy customers are in possession of a whole year's worth of Kreddible Trout Photography!

The first, entitled Intricate Nick's Cavalcade of Days and Pictures and looks a little like...   

 























Followed by "Yay! The Whole Whole Year!" Screamed Keny McPuaid. For my old friend Keny.
 

 





















So, to be sure you're not the last kid on your block to get an Original, Custom Designed Kreddible Trout Wall Calendar get your orders in today and remember, any of my shots (excluding portraits, weddings and nudes) from any of my online haunts can be used! So... it's kinda like a scavenger hunt! Find your favorite shot! PLUS (as if that weren't enough) yours truly will come up with some ridiculous title for the whole shebang that will be as unique and original as the calendar itself!!! It's win-win-win all around!

Email your picks to trout@kreddibletrout.com today!



Oh... and I had a birthday. Mid month I turned almost 40... and there was much rejoicing... yay!

02 October 2010

4 Years In The Making... Published in JPGmag!

I just found out that I've been published in JPGmag! (I've been trying for this for a long time.)
Even though some of the 'older crew' know it's not quite the thing it used to be, I have a special place in my heart for JPG as it was the very first photo-sharing site I ever joined lo those many years ago!(2006)
I've made a lot of eFriends and connected with a wonderful network of photo-peers (a handful of whom I've met in real time) through the site and, despite several, shall we say... 'glitches' over the years it's still a pretty decent site. (those who know about the glitches know about the glitches, those who don't... what's past is past.)

Wow... four years, in eTerms that's a long time. Seems like several generations. (Remember the gulf spill? How many years ago was that? Thank goodness that's all over!)

Thanks JPG!

01 October 2010

Breaking news!

This is Kreddible Trout coming to you live from the Fundraiser for the Bwera Vocational School and Cultural Center Project in Western Uganda.
reports are scetchy but mr. Trout's 'standing next to his piece with puppy dog eyes' scene has paid off with a couple of compliments.
More news to follow.

***several hours pass***

The night seemed to be a great success & my piece found a new home. Please stay tuned to their website for updates on how successful the night really was.

21 September 2010

Customize Your Whole Year! With Kreddible Trout Photography!

The marketing gurus here at Kreddible Trout Photographic Enterprises have informed me that these days people desire a uniquely personalized consumer experience. They tell me that in order to actualize positive monetary stimulation here at KTP I need to engage my PCB (potential client base) with a genuinely dynamic marketing enticement.

After a short thrashing with my belt they begun speaking human again and it boiled down to this:

CUSTOMIZED 2011 CALENDARS!



Some die hard fans may remember this scheme from last year but this year it's been revamped enough for me to call it BETA. How does it work? What the heck is it? Well, simple: you get to pick any 12 of your most favoritest Kreddible Trout Photographs and I compile them into a calendar which will be individually titled to you!

Say for example your name is... oh I dunno... Wayne Gretzki and you order a calendar from me. I might title the calendar:  Wayne Gretzki's 2011 Calendar! (wow, am I asking to be sued by a childhood hero?)
Ok, well try this: your name is Francis Corbo LeNoy, I might call the calendar: 

The Year 2011 According to Francis Corbo LeNoy.

Now, what makes this really fun for you kids playing at home is that you not only get to choose images from my website, but from any of the other photo sharing sites I frequent. Like something of mine you see on redbubble? How's about JPGmag? Do I even have a Flickr account? If you can find a page from my very first geocities site and see something on there that you like... well, you'd need a time machine to do that because geocities closed down last year. (If you have a time machine... please let me know. I have some time/space theories I'm curious to try out.) And if you want you can even choose the month each picture goes with! Or just leave it to my artistic discretion. Whatever you want. 1000% customizable!  Just email me a list of your choices and lemme at it! *The only limitation is that I can not include portraits, nudes or wedding shots for obvious reasons.

These swank, stylin calendars are produced and shipped through redbubble right to your door! Printed on high quality satin art paper (heavier paper for the cover) with a hanger & white coil wire binding. Think of it as a time management app for your iWall! (Or, like me, you can think of it as a pretty calendar.)


$35 (CAD) plus S&H gets you your very own, personalized calendar! Just like Hypothetical Gretzki!

15 September 2010

Fundraiser for the Bwera Vocational School and Cultural Center Project in Western Uganda.

Feeling philanthropic?
Always wanted to own an Original Piece of Trout (TM)?
Well now's your chance to do BOTH!

(Tell us more oh elusive one!)

I will!

Kreddible Trout Photographic Enterprises has donated an original, Uniquely Mounted piece of photographic art to the Partnership for Opportunity Development Association's (PODA for those who insist on acronyms) upcoming fundraiser for their Bwera Vocational School and Cultural Center Project in Western Uganda.

About the project:
(from PODA's website)
The proposed Bwera Vocational Secondary School and Community Cultural Centre Project has been designed to address the need for education in a severely impoverished rural community in Western Uganda. This particular project was identified as essential by community members through a collaborative consultation process. The School and Community Centre will provide free secondary school enrollment and vocational training for HIV orphans and other disadvantaged youth, providing new opportunities, support, and a greater sense of stability in the region. The project builds on an existing vocational and secondary school project, in which Partnerships for Opportunity has been involved since 2005, in collaboration with Cobra Association for Life Improvement, a local Ugandan non-profit.
   


About the Fundraiser:
When:
October 1st, 2010 - 6pm
Where:
DaVinci Centre, 195 Bay Street, Victoria BC (Vic West)
What & How:
It's a lottery. There will be 100 pieces of art donated by 100 artists. Doors open & viewing begins at 6pm. Throughout the evening there will be music, a locally sourced cash bar and complimentary light canapes (I'm curious to find out what one of those are). At 7pm is the main event. Lottery numbers will be drawn, at random. When your number is picked, you get to choose your preferred piece from those that remain. There will be one piece of art for every ticket so... unlike the regular lottery, everyone goes home a winner. (I envision the last guy getting stuck with one of them black velor clown paintings but the joke's on the other 99 'cos those things rock!)

How much:
$200 per lottery ticket (which guarantees a piece of art)
$20 per spectator (like me)

About the Piece of Trout:
I'm gonna keep that as kind of a secret. The kind of secret that's... secret. I'll just say that it is one of my favourite pieces. It used to hang over my desk. When I decided to move it to a place where more people might see it, the pricetag was $385. Because I believe in this cause and with some luck on your side you can drive it home for $200!

I will be there. I would love to have 200 bucks to throw in the hat in hopes of walking home with a new piece of art. Unfortunately, this functionally starving artist can only afford to be a spectator. When I sat down and spoke with Colleen from PODA about the donation, she explained the project to me. I asked if they needed any photographers with a rudimentary understanding of hammers to join the team.

It seems to be a really good cause & I'm very proud to be involved even in this indirect way.
Please come out if you can. Even if you're just a spectator like me.

03 September 2010

Kreddible Trout Published on 1x.com

There's a really swank website out there called 1x.com that has some actual criteria involved in being published there. And I quote from their website:
"1x is a photo community with a difference. Take the work of the most talented photobloggers, various famous photographers, and many serious amateurs, select their best work and collect it all in one place - that is 1x. Everyone is welcome to contribute, but every photo is screened, which means it has to be approved by an editor (screener) before being published. 1x is a photo gallery with a constantly evolving exhibition. We publish dozens of new images every day."

I just got word that one of KTP's most popular images 'montreal die-in' was published there today.

In the world of online photo communities it feels good to be one of 'dozens' rather than one of 'every bloody thing submitted'.

Thanks 1x!

Submitting image from iFuture Mach II

This is purely a test of my ability to post correspondences from 'the future' including digital images taken with, and edited in my 'portable device'. (remember when 'portable device' was a naughty euphemism?)
This is the same couch as yesterday. Just all messed around with.

02 September 2010

iNews! (that's what they'll call news in the future...)

Greetings to you, people of the past. I, Kreddible Trout, am communicating with you from the future. Please do not be alarmed. I have discovered a device that will make your fascination with sliced bread seem trite. (though I have doubts that this device would taste good toasted with peanut butter)
It is a telephone with which I can not only surf the world wide web and make blog posts from the bathroom but a device which also has a camera and a compass. Apparently there are a few other things in it too. I'm excited for the next rainfall to see if an umbrella will pop out. I am also under the assumption that, in the case of a disaster (knock on iWood) it will inflate into a raft of some sort.
For now... I'll spend my time making sure North is staying where it's supposed to and taking a few 5MP pictures with it.
It is called iPhone and this is the first picture taken with it that wasn't of my goofy face looking like it's trying to figure out advanced trigonometry while worrying about a recent burrito experience. 

(shut up and show us the stupid picture already!)
 oh. yay. another stupid roadside couch...

29 August 2010

Audacious Kreddible Trout Updates Nature! (wasn't it about time?)

That's right folks, I've had it up to here (imagine height demonstrated) with how stagnant nature has been lately so I decided to go on in there and spruce it up a bit! I pine, ceder and fir'd it up too, dang it!

Wha'choo talkin' 'bout, Trout? (...too soon?)

What I'm talking about is I've added some new stuff to the Nature section ye aulde website. That's what!

Nature? You shoot nature, Trout?

Hecks yeah! ...sometimes. To be honest it's not really my photographic cup of tea all that 'nature stuff'. I love to be in nature. Specifically naked and swimming in nature. But photographing it...? A tree's a tree. A creek's a creek. Pictures of it just don't cut it for me. Nothing compares to being in nature. No photograph can fill your lungs with pure oxygen or your soul with calm the way standing in a forest does. Sorry Ansel. It's pretty and all, but it's just a feeble copy.
I suppose it's my approach to art that makes nature difficult for me. I seem to photograph flaws. I try to photograph the human condition. I end up photographing the human condition and it's flaws. I take jabs at our silly ways. I'm petty like that. But nature is flawless. Until we enter the picture (pun intended). I think the only flaw in nature is that we've tried to separate ourselves from it. Which seems to be in our nature. Which is messed up. So there's nothing to 'jab' at with nature. 'My art' there has no purpose. Which is why I'm usually swimming naked and not taking pictures of it.

But sometimes I do. And they can be found in the Nature section of The Mothership Kreddible Trout Connection.

These are a couple of new ones taken at Lizard Lake a while back. Enjoy.



...ok... I like it sometimes. Please go on over and check out the rest. There'll be more to come soon.

23 August 2010

Kreddible Trout Industries Activewear Division

As some of you may know, Kreddible Trout Industries has an Activewear Division dedicated to bringing quality upper-body garments to the torsos of the world. Some people call these garments 't-shirts'.
T-shirts are vitally important to my generation. No one thought it would happen, but it seems that somewhere between the late 70s and the early 80s the bumpersticker fell out of fashion as the vessel for all things immensely profound and was replaced by the t-shirt. (The early 80s was just that kind of fearless time) From my first favorite tee 'homework rots my brain' in grade 3 I knew they were powerful. This t-shirt with a cartoon of a depressed looking ogre fellow with a pencil sticking out of his ear sitting above a pile of papers (presumably homework) seemed to make my teacher really really uptight. Anything that rocked my 8-year-old socio-political situation that strongly was bound to be more than just a garment! It was a statement. It was a revolution!

Needless to say, with the potential of evoking that kind of response... I had to start designing t-shirts. And now, lo these many years (and words in this blog... will he get on with it already??) later, Kreddible Trout Industries Activewear Division has made yet another sale of it's most popular, and hopefully controversial items! One of my favourite t-shirt designs 'nothing is real anymore' has sold for the 5th time, making it the most popular seller in the activewear catalog and darn near the most popular item in all Kreddible Trout Industries!

Here is the design of the t-shirt:

note the painstaking attention to detail:


this lovely (and mildly bitter) tee and many others of mine can be bought through the good people at redbubble. I'm actually wearing a redbubble tee right now... it's COMFY! Doesn't YOUR torso deserve a Kreddible Trout Tee?

Kreddible Trout Activewear... cos everyone should have a nice piece of Trout to slap on their torso!

18 August 2010

Kreddible Trout in David Suzuki Foundation's 20th Anniversary Calendar for 2011!

As we all know, it's hard to kickstart into full-on production mode after a long holiday and here at Kreddible Trout International Headquarters it's no different. Since returning from the the break for the big wedding to-do things have been pretty slow to start...
High atop the glistening, corporate headquarters of KTP Enterprises and Subsidiaries there are still a few cardboard & couch-cushion forts lingering like the ruins of some kindergarten civilization long forgot. The offices are strewn with pizza boxes, jelly beans, crushed root beer cans, the odd clown nose & some sort of frankenstein-esque creation taped to the boardroom door consisting of photocopies of various parts of the board of directors unclothed (and now quite libel) bodies. My head is the crowning glory of the horrific masterpiece and I don't know whose 'hey now' that is but whoever owns up is in line for a promotion!

So, as the confetti settles and the remnants of wedding wine gets 'stored away', the memo I got in my electronic mailbox today was quite a nice hang-over remedy...

Yours truly, Kreddible Trout has been honoured by having his photo comin' t'getcha included in the David Suzuki Foundation's 20th Anniversary Calendar for 2011! This is quite an honour indeed as Mr. Suzuki is someone I very much admire.


As some of you know, my artistic ideals tend to veer towards the progressive. Or they try to at least. They strive to somehow evoke some change. I've often said that I'm a mirror holder/finger pointer and one who's just vain/self-conscious enough to point the mirror/finger at himself as frequently as I do outward. We're an amazing, messed up and beautifully flawed species. This amuses me. Saddens me. Enlightens me. Fills me with joy. And fear. Photos such as comin t'getcha and others like it are where my heart truly is. The humour involved is always of a satirical nature and hopes to spawn thought. To have my work associated with a cause such The David Suzuki Foundation this is where I feel I belong artistically and I hope I continue to find similar venues for my work.


...and now... back to the office clean-up. If I had a shop vac, a hose and a new computer I'd be in fine form... guess I'll use this laptop to shovel garbage into the corner and sort it out after the new years party...


04 August 2010

Kreddible Trout is Hitched!

Ladies, gentlemen, children of all ages! Announcing Mr. and Mrs. Trout!

This past weekend (July 31st 2010) was Billy and Michelle's Carnival of Love where my stunning bride and I tied the knot amongst family and friends on beautiful Gabriola Island, BC. There was a barker, a tight rope walker, a bearded lady, a fortune teller, several gypsie-types, a stilt-walker, hoola-hooping queens, a strong man, tattooed ladies, a clown and, of course, the bride and groom... the mermaid and the ring master.
There was pop corn, lolly-pops, salt-water taffy, enough jelly beans to choke 20 clowns and a chocolate drooped, sponge taffy wedding cake.
The entire weekend was spectacular. We couldn't have asked for it to have gone off any better.

Below is a scan of a real-deal Polaroid of the Ringmaster and the Mermaid taken by our photographer and friend, Vivienne McMaster.

Many more photos are to follow but this one has a special place on this blog for it's photographic allure.

I'm still reeling from the ludicrous amounts of sugar and wall-to-wall family visits so the blog is still on mini-hiatus. Once the dust settles... Kreddible Trout Photographic Enterprises will be back in full swing. Or... swim.

12 July 2010

reports from hiatus & the redbubble homepage

Where the hell have I been? Oh yeah. Busy.
Just a quick update for the throngs of you out there in Trout Fanclub land as to where I've been and will be for the next month.
After arriving home from the big adventure down south I have been full marriage preparation mode. The future missus Trout and I are due to get hitched on July 31st and have been tremendously busy preparing. Truth be told, she's been busy with it all for much longer and has been working very hard indeed. Since I basically took off 2 months to do the big trip, I needed to pick up my end of things upon my return. So, that's where I've been.
I don't expect to have much time for anything until mid august. Until I can return to semi-regular posts I hope you can all stay busy with the Cut Out, Dress Me Up Trout Kit you received with your Trout Fanclub membership package.

One more thing, my shot montreal die in was featured on the redbubble homepage. It's gone now as there is a daily turnover on that page. Here is my profile for those curious and this is what the homepage looked like sometime this past weekend:

and here's the other view:



We will return you to your regularly scheduled Trout updates when the marital dust has settled. We thank you for your patience.

12 June 2010

Pat's Hands

When I was in San Diego preparing for Artwalk I frequented a thrift store called Pat's Corner in the North Park area. I struck junk gold there. A lot of the pieces I made for the festival used stuff found at Pat's.
The place was a maze, part of it was organized and somewhat presentable and other parts looked like modern history upchucked and no one bothered to clean it up. The yard out back had the larger bits of broken antiquity that had been pulled gracelessly off the sides of houses & somehow ended up in Pat's corral.
Overseeing it all, Pat sat in the middle of the store like a glorious queen of tarnished dents. The several times I was there, I never saw her out of her throne.
Her throne.
A humble chair slightly raised and surrounded by a world of junk unimaginable. I would not be at all surprised to find Jimmy Hoffa's dentures under an old Mad Magazine on the floor next to a cookie tin full of forks. From atop this post she'd size up your finds and, with the arbitrary mathematics of thrift store pricing, would arrive at a dollar amount you could never argue with. This price wasn't made up, it was pronounced with sage-like certainty and was usually rounded off to a fiver.

My last time in there I talked to her for a bit. She seemed to approve of the artistic madmanship I planned for the items I bought. She would only let me take a picture of her hands which I admire. They do better job at describing the place than my feeble words ever could.




11 June 2010

Sleek new designs! (same ol lunatic at the helm.)

Despite the redundancy of this announcement I still feel I must announce this new news:
the blog has had a face-lift!

Check out the sleek new designs! Scroll down, the blogs been on the treadmill and drinking smoothies!
Ergonomic features include:
- a wider blog format!
- eye friendly sleekness!
- colours similar but slightly different from the old ones!
- and a BRAND NEW BANNER at the top of the page!

SOMEONE'S getting a raise! Not me. But... well, someone at 'blogger' maybe. I might get myself a goldfish for the office...

Soon to follow will be new stuff over on The Mothership Kreddible Trout Connection! Don't go there now. Wait until tomorrow. Seriously, if I see all sorts of hits on the website before I make the new additions the goldfish gets it!


... ok... I'd never harm a goldfish.

29 May 2010

Sayin' Hello Yellow.

Quick note.
Checked out my analytics today and saw that someone up in Yellowknife had checked out ye ol blogue. Nicely done Yellowknife. Obviously there's someone up there who knows where it's at!
(It's here. As they now know.)
I'm thinking it may be my northern-most hit to date.

Side note.
I do wonder what happened to all the hits I used to get from China. I mean, they were all over the website last year. I think I scared off the sleeping giant with my brazen capitalist marketing skills.

Anyway, come back to me China and thanks for stopping by Yellowknife. If you have any questions please feel free to ask one of our customer service specialists.

27 May 2010

To 'wax poetic' is lofty and fine, but to 'grind poetic' is simply devine.

Over at the mothership there is a message board. A day or so after I left the Casa del J. to schlep back home last month I found this lovely poem writ to me by the lovely Mrs. Col. J. on that message board.

I'm deeply flattered by the piece and mildly worried that my coffee addiction is so powerful that it moves people to poetics.
Love. Death. Justice. Coffee. Truly the 4 essential themes in poetry.

Here is the piece:


Mr. Coffee's Lament
by Mrs. Col. J.

Oh where oh where is my Kreddible Trout
Oh where oh where can he be?
With his 3 cups of water and 12 scoops of grind,
Oh where oh where can he be?

For 4 weeks in a row I gave him my brew,
Because he was looking so tired.
When he left for his workshop, I thought to myself
His art is part talent and part being wired.

And now he’s gone home, and I’m stuck here with decaf,
and what oh what do I see?
Across the counter where I always sit,
The Sumatran Roast taunting me!




Thank you very much Mrs. Col. J.
... & say 'HI' to Perky The Coffee Machine for me, would you? Tell her I hope decaf is treatin' her right.

21 May 2010

the KREDDIBLE TROUT (part of the) WORLD TOUR 2010 SOUNDTRACK

"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted
."
- Lorenzo, Merchant Of Venice Act 5 Scene 1. By Willy Shakes.
(one of my favorite quotes)

Now, I'm sure Ol' Willy mightn't have been referring to The MC5 when he wrote those lines, but he was never graced by the concords of sweet powerchords and Marshall stacks. I have been.

I'm going to digress a little before I even begin here. Please bear with me.

In the last few years this whole digital music thing has begun to wear hard on my soul. I'm not pining for those nostalgic pops & grooves of vinyl. (Though they do have a depth to them that can never be matched. Much like film vs. digital) Nor is it the opening beeps of a cassette I miss.
It's albums that I miss.

Albums.

Be they on cassette, vinyl or even CD, an album - the collection and arrangement of songs - used to be as much a part of the art as the actual songs. They moved, they flowed, they had cadence and reason. Slap on the cover art and the album was the piece of art.
This whole MP3 thing destroys that. Having a million songs on shuffle mixed with the millisecond attention span of the children of the MTV generation has turned the once glorious feast that was a solid album to a microwaved noodle bowl downed with a Red Bull.
It's grotesque.
As a passenger in cars over the past few years I've sat in (sometimes-not-so) quiet rage while the driver skips from 'oh my god I love this song!' to 'oh this song totally rocks!' without ever listening to either one in entirety! Entire car rides go by and I hear two thirds of a dozen songs and maybe one all the way through.

CDs made it bad with the ease of skipping and the lack of 'sides', but the shuffle of MP3s is ruining music for me.

So, for the KREDDIBLE TROUT (part of the) WORLD TOUR 2010 I decided to slap a bunch of full albums on CD. No mixes. No 'mellow countryside mix'. No 'hard rockin city' mix. ALBUMS. Most of them were doubled up (you can almost fit 3 Ramones albums on a CD, Misfits too.) on one CD, and there was one or two with some mixed filler at the end (though I shudder to call Roger Miller, Devo or The Zombies 'filler') but mostly, 100% albums. A bunch of them were the actual CDs too, but I didn't bring many as car rides tend to scratch the hell out of them.

So, as another little glimpse into Trout... here's my soundtrack. They're in no order except that the first 10 or so were in heavy rotation.(If any of you are going on a roadtrip, I'd advise all of them.)

- The Rushmore Soundtrack.
- Alice Cooper - Easy Action.
- The Ramones - Rocket To Russia.
- The MC5 - High Times.
- Gord Downie - Coke Machine Glow.
- Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks.
- Jane's Addiction - Jane's Addiction.
- Van Halen - Fair Warning
- The King Kahn & BBQ Show - Invisible Girl
- The Black Keys - Thickfreakness.
- Judas Priest - Hell Bent For Leather.
- Mark Sultan - The Sultanic Verses.
- Bob Dylan - Desire.
- The Stooges - The Stooges.
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada
- The Ramones - Animal Boy.
- The Beatles - The White Album.
- The Ramones - Mondo Bizarro.
- The Misfits - Legacy of Brutality.
- PJ Harvey - Dry.
- Nomeansno - Sex Mad/You Kill Me.
- Richie Havens - Collection
- The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle.
- Talking Heads - Little Creatures.
- Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny.
- Pink Floyd - Animals.
- TV On The Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.
- The MC5 - Back In The U.S.A.
- The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry.
- The Almighty Defenders - The Almighty Defenders.
- Boss Hog - Boss Hog.
- Frank Zappa - Chunga's Revenge.
- The Beastie Boys - The In Sound From Way Out.
- Primus - The Brown Album.
- The C.P.C. Gangbangs - Mutilation Nation. (second half of trip - thanks Tommy.)
- The Dicks - These People.
- The Ramones - The Ramones.
- Ween - Chocolate & Cheese.
- Van Halen - Women And Children First.
- The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed.
- The Tragically Hip - Phantom Power.
- fIREHOSE - Flyin The Flannel.
- Radiohead - OK Computer.
- Tom Waits - Big Time.
- The Dicks - Kill From The Heart.
- Pete Seeger & Brother Kirk Visit Sesame Street.
- Nomeansno - Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong.
- The Sonics - Boom.
- Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel The Illinoise.
- Patti Smith - Horses.
- Black Sabbath - Master of Reality.
- Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All.
- Do Make Say Think - & Yet & Yet.
- The White Stripes - The White Stripes.
- Ween - The White Pepper.
- Metallica - Master of Puppets.
- Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones


... there were probably a few that I missed but I think I got them all.

14 May 2010

Brazen New Initiatives @ kreddibletrout.com!

That's right folks there is something brand-spankin' new a-brewin' over at the ol' Mothership Kreddible Trout Connection!

Reports are sketchy at this point but it seems that the self-proclaimed 'Gurus of Gigantic Ideas Department' believe they have sunk a hole in one recently with their LARGE SCALE PHOTOGRAPHIC INSTALLATIONS idea. They're just so sure about it they convinced our team of web developers (me, sitting on my living room floor drinking too much coffee) to put some gaudy, repetitive and criminally 80s coloured links on the website to draw attention to it. They all lead to the same thing, which is annoying, but in marketing annoying works! Annoying works! Annoying works!

They think it just may be the key to unlocking the gateway to riches I promised them that night after too many virgin margaritas. (Ow. the headache still haunts me)

The nutshell is this:
- Big Walls.
- Big, custom tailored photographic art.

We're thinking:
- condos. - restaurants.
- bars. - offices.
- lobbies. - foyers.
- other places like lobbies and foyers.

Clincher #1 - It's absolutely one-of-a-kind. TIER 1 CUSTOMERS get photographs no one else will ever have. Period.

I know! Crazy! Just crazy!

The other clincher is that the first couple of art savvy consumers who hire me for this fantastically one-of-a-kind initiative are going to get a really, really sweet deal. As I need to build my portfolio for this new concept, I'll be charging just slightly above cost for the first couple of commissions. Really though, it's for a limited time only!



Are you still reading this? Would you go over and look at the thing already?!?