carmizvilevy: I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to shoot this close to the edge of the platform. While I made darn sure there were no people or trains nearby, I still cracked a smile as I crouched down and composed. I imagined what it must look like to others, the rel
carmizvilevy: I don't like to talk about the weather. Everyone else seems to, though. They complain about how cold it is, about how tragic their lives have become because Mother Nature dared blow frost over the region. While I don't deny the hardship - frozen pipes suc
carmizvilevy: I know what you're thinking: Bananas? Seriously? Freaking bananas? And green ones, at that? Allow me to explain, for there's a reason they're showing up in my feed today. I woke up before 4am today. The wind chill was touching -35C, and I had a pre-dawn d
carmizvilevy: Another scene from a hospital; another shot I probably had no right to take. But took, anyway, because the list of so-called forbidden subjects is long, and my storyteller's voice has always focused on the stories that never get told. There's a sadness th
carmizvilevy: I probably shouldn't have taken this photo. Shooting strangers (photographically) in public spaces is often perceived by some as a somewhat grey area, and I realize I pushed it with this one. But... There's always a "but" with me, and it just as often sta
carmizvilevy: We're often told, usually by our elders, to cherish our health, to appreciate it as a precious gift, for once we lose it there's often no way to get it back. Walking through a mega-hospital like this one, you're constantly reminded of that, of the health
carmizvilevy: At the risk of oversimplifying things, there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who are lights, and those who are not. So-called lights look out for others, spend more time listening than speaking, go out of their way to be around when their pres
carmizvilevy: So the other night I'm walking through the icy, dark streets of downtown London after getting off the train from Toronto. My car is parked by the office, a few blocks away from the Via station, and as I often do, I'm stopping here and there whenever somet
carmizvilevy: The scene: Toronto's Union Station, Wednesday, 5:07 p.m. The Via train back to London has been delayed, and we're sitting on the track waiting to get going. I stare across the station and find myself wondering about the folks on the Go commuter train on t
carmizvilevy: I work near the Forks of the Thames, the point just to the west of London's downtown core where two branches of the Thames River converge into one. The area is surrounded by bike paths, and is crossed by a pedestrian bridge. On any given day, even in the
carmizvilevy: When you get lost-but-not-really-lost in the countryside, finding the right spot to stop and gather your bearings is key. Thanks to some pretty sweet connected-GPS tech in the car, I knew exactly where I was, and I wasn't exactly worried they'd find me in
carmizvilevy: Way across the highway from the rest stop where I've come to recharge my proverbial batteries, there's this farm that could easily do double duty in a Norman Rockwell painting. Every time I pass this place - often, recently - I quietly tell myself I need
carmizvilevy: We often ask ourselves why we have a dog. We also often ask ourselves why we got ANOTHER dog after losing our previous pup. There's no real answer to either of these related questions, because getting a dog has little to do with getting answers to questio
carmizvilevy: Tuesday, 10:25 a.m. on the lowest level, S6, of the parking structure beneath the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. I've just said goodbye to my father-in-law and am about to hit the road for the long drive, alone, back to London. Debbie's back upstair
carmizvilevy: There was a lot to see during the 6 minutes I spent parked beside a nearly empty country road in the shadow of a clearly empty country church. This seemingly abandoned farm building was what caught my eye in the first place, a slowly decaying snapshot of
carmizvilevy: The scene: I'm standing in a parking lot in Morrisburg, Ontario, looking across the highway at a stand of trees. In the middle of overwhelming life events, I find staring at trees - or crumbling barns, or checkerboard floors, or hamburgers, or old cars, o
carmizvilevy: It's mid-afternoon in the middle of Ontario. I've just left the OnRoute rest stop after spending entirely too much time there doing nothing, because that's what rest stops are for. I was wiped, and the break did me some good. As I accelerate back onto the
carmizvilevy: These aren't just any windows, and this isn't just any building. I feel like a voyeur pointing my lens toward them and trying to shoot a photo. But I need to do so for two reasons: First, photography - especially of things outside the glass - provides a t
carmizvilevy: My father-in-law's hospital room overlooks the interior courtyard of a number of buildings, old and new. No one walks into this forbidding place unless they're certified to repair the witches brew of HVAC equipment that dots the asphalt-pitched roofing be
carmizvilevy: When you look at the world through a funhouse lens, everything is fair game. A simple walk on a street, or, in this case, in the dimly lit basement corridor of a beloved restaurant that was just a short walk away from our apartment when we were first marr
carmizvilevy: This is a conference room on the 6th floor of the Jewish General Hospital's Pavilion K, just down the hall from my father-in-law's room. The cool, modern, rectilinear aesthetic contrasts starkly with the ugliness of serious illness. It's an architectural
carmizvilevy: This morning in our house was little changed from any other weekday morning: All of us twirling through the kitchen and front hallway, quickly grabbing our things together as we prepared to head out into a world much bigger and colder than the cozy one we
carmizvilevy: The scene: A hallway in our Toronto office. I've come here from London for the day, as I do most weeks, to do stuff for work. I get to collaborate with some incredibly smart, creative, kind people, and we get to produce the kind of content a much younger
carmizvilevy: My father-in-law's journey took a turn for the worse this week. He's back in the ER with an infection of unknown origin, unable to fully relate to those around him. As I write this, we simply don't know what's going on, or what happens next. It's a fright
carmizvilevy: On an ice-covered sidewalk at a busy downtown London intersection, a single blue wool glove lies forlornly, its twisted fabric flapping in the biting wind. As I walk past and my conscience pings at me, I wonder who lost it, and whether they've realized it
carmizvilevy: I spend most of my days staring at screens and rearranging words into coherent content, so every once in a while I need to head for the exit and experience the great outdoors for a bit. It's good for the eyes to focus on more distant objects for a few min
carmizvilevy: I took this picture on September 26 of last year, the day before the world as we once knew it was turned on its axis. Death changes us in so many ways, but the one that sticks out for me most is the sense of before and after. Everything I do is now divide
carmizvilevy: I've been doing a lot of thinking about time, and not just because I need to figure out where to hang the lovely, sun-drenched clock you see here. Like all of us, I'm not getting any younger. Time moves in one direction for us all, at one velocity. We can
carmizvilevy: London is a long way from our original home in Montreal. Most of the 730 km-ish trip is spent on Canada's largest, busiest highway, the 401. Because it winds through Toronto, Canada's largest, busiest city, traffic is always a factor. A normally 9-hour ri
carmizvilevy: Early on a Sunday morning before we pack the car and begin the long trek home, I take one last stroll around my father-in-law's neighbourhood. I've been doing that a lot lately - walking around, reflecting, taking pictures, trying to remember what it feel