Recently, I finally completed a series of twelve large canvas prints, each measuring 40 × 60 inches, featuring street scenes from Montreal. The images capture different sides of the city. A father, wearing shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt, walks along a street lined with Victorian buildings, holding the hand of a little girl dressed almost exactly like him. At a restaurant terrace, a group of people sit together, eating, drinking, and enjoying the outdoors. In a park carpete

Today, a retired McGill University professor came to my shop with two VHS tapes that he wanted to digitize. When the order was completed, he seemed quite emotional. He also purchased a USB drive to store the digitized videos. Then he noticed the book I had placed on the counter. He picked up a copy of Nonimportantech, flipped through a few pages, and asked me if there was an English edition. “Yes,” I told him. I handed him the last English copy I had on the counter. He looked

Yesterday, the owner of the bar next door came into my shop again. He often comes in to have posters printed for his events. His bar regularly hosts live music, and from time to time, film companies rent the place as a filming location. We have known each other for a while, but our conversations are usually quite short. He comes in with a poster, we talk about the size and the paper, and then he goes back to the bar. Yesterday, however, I became curious about something. I ask

Spring arrived with the first flowers of the year. Around that time, a gentleman named Mike came to our shop and ordered a large-format photograph. It was a beautiful image, but there was something more to it than beauty. The picture had a certain strength—a sense of movement and energy that made it particularly suitable for a large print. While we were discussing the print, Mike told me that he had traveled to many parts of China. His business was importing sport bicycles fr

Today, an entrepreneur from Westmount came into my little shop. He came for something very ordinary, at least on the surface. He had a collection of family documents that needed to be scanned—old newspapers, identification documents, photographs, and other pieces of family history. Some of them looked almost like pages from a family genealogy. As I worked with the documents, I began to realize that he and I had something in common. We are about the same age. He graduated from

Yesterday, a couple came into my little photo shop with an oil painting. It was roughly 12 by 12 inches. They wanted to know how much it would cost to scan it and make a digital copy. I told them: $20 plus tax. The woman immediately took out her phone and showed me a digital image they already had. “This is the one we have,” she explained. “We paid someone $100 to scan it, but we think it was just taken with a phone.” I looked at the image on her screen. Then I asked if I cou

Last Friday, a gentleman who looked about my age walked into my little photo and printing shop. He had a simple question. “How much would it cost to print 100 color brochures?” They were standard tri-fold brochures, printed double-sided on ordinary copy paper. I gave him a price: $100 plus tax. He looked pleasantly surprised. Then he told me that the last printing service he had used had charged him $200 plus tax for what sounded like essentially the same job. I didn't think

Recently, something rather unexpected has been happening at my little photo shop. More and more people who come in for completely unrelated things—passport photos, document printing, photo restoration, or other small jobs—notice the book sitting nearby: Les Lignes de l’Amitié : Chroniques d’un enfant, de la solitude à la confiance. Some pick it up and flip through a few pages. Some read a little longer. And, lately, quite a few have decided to buy it. Today, two women came in

Yesterday, I produced a double-sided 24×36-inch coroplast sign for one of my customers at ACCO PHOTO. It was an ordinary printing job, yet it unexpectedly reminded me of one of the central ideas behind my novel Nonimportantech. The customer's clothing brand is inspired by a small burrowing animal. That simple image immediately brought back the Project 057 products from my novel. The Project 057 products are also inspired by a burrowing animal. They are sophisticated biomimeti

A few days ago, an old university classmate in Hong Kong received two copies of my novel, Nonimportantech, ordered through Amazon. She sent me a photo and wrote: "I bought two copies. One to read and annotate. One to keep. Besides… buying two meant free shipping." That last sentence made me smile. Even after more than thirty years, she still has the same wonderful mix of humor and practicality that I remember from university. Back then, she was probably the most beautiful and