Graf, being unusually cooperative about the portrait process, with a little Urban Acid post process.

I've been flat on my butt with H1N1 for 6 days, which explains some of the non-existent posts on the blog recently. I'm better, but still fighting, so we'll see what happens with the remainder of this week. Quite possibly the worst part of it was missing two photoshoots and an awful lot of fall colour in the last week. I hope it's not too late.

Lee Smolin, author of The Trouble with Physics, at last night's Q2C Science in the Pub event.

Took an actual day off on Monday and went to the Toronto Zoo. It wasn't the success I'd hoped for - someone told me the animals are more active in the fall, which wasn't the case this time - but the fish are active all year round.

Despite not particularly enjoying fish as pets or dinner, I can spend hours sitting in front of big tanks at an aquarium. I try to make a point of going to an aquarium if there's one in a city I'm visiting.

The light was extreme on the weekend, when we did a shoot with Bess and her doggies Graf and Sneetch, but it turned out to be great for black and white.

There are better photos than this one, but the utter joy of these three is what draws me back to this one.

I'm on a team of volunteer photographers helping out at the Perimeter Institute's Quantum to Cosmos Festival. Paul and I shot the opening event, which was a panel of 10 well-known physicists answering the question "What keeps you awake at night?"

Kooky question, but it was a lot of fun and the answers ranged from facinating to hilarious. The event was filmed by TVO.

Paul procured some photo umbrellas in the last few weeks, so I'm slowly learning how to manage the light and get portraits lit properly.

Headshots are likely to become a feature around here for awhile. Any volunteers?

Meanwhile, in lessons learned, I got a reminder on minding backgrounds before pressing the shutter. You'd think I'd have learned that one during my 365 stint, but apparently not.

I love the way ivy looks climbing a house, though I've been told it's murder on the bricks and mortar.

The partner in crime says this reminds him of a topographic map, from a distance.

I spotted this bush on a very chilly walk through a Stratford, Ontario neighbourhood yesterday afternoon. The owner of the house popped out to talk to us and told us that it was a Porcelain Berry. I think I will track these down for my house because they're so striking.

Apparently it's very hard being Joolie the cat today.

Nothing goes unadorned in Prague. I love their window boxes.

I've started to refer to my house as "That F-ing House in Kitchener." If you'd been living here for the last 10 months, this would be no surprise to you at all.

These are two of my foster kittens, Mikey (foreground) and Sally (background). They were feral only a few weeks ago, and they've made huge progress on being used to people and learning to play since they came to stay with me. They're going to go to their forever-homes soon, and I'm going to miss their antics.

If you would like to adopt Mikey, Sally, or Putzi, or another animal, contact Grand River All Breed Rescue (petfinder version of their site).

I bought this broccoflower at the market last week, specifically to photograph it. It was more of a challenge than I thought, and I upped the ante by trying to use half-assed studio lights. It's going to take a lot more practise with the lights before I'm happy.