Every month, the Gladstone Hotel hosts a monthly tweetup called tweetgasm. Today, we will be hosting the October Edition. So come on down to the hotel and meet some of the interesting characters that make up the Twitter community here in Toronto.

Celebrated another successful year at Nuit Blanche. 12 hours and over 400 photos later we made it through the night in one piece. You can view the selected Framed! 140 series or the complete series of images from Nuit Blanche. It was a wonderful night of shooting and enjoy the art. Thanks for being a part of it.

For 12 hours, once a year, the downtown core of Toronto becomes one massive art festival called Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. It runs from dusk til dawn, (approximately 7 pm to 7am) and is combination of installations, exhibits and interactive art pieces, celebrated by the citizens of Toronto. In the past few years, I’ve done various portrait series during Nuit Blanche and this year is no different. My goal this year is to shoot 140 portraits over the 12 hour period, that averages out to 1 portrait every 5 minutes.

This year, I decided to revisit the GET FRAMED concept that I did a couple of years back. This time around I’ve gone with a bigger frame for a bigger impact. If you’d like to be one of my 140 characters in this series, follow @photojunkie on twitter to find out where I am or where I’m heading or keep your eyes open for a guy with a huge golden frame.

Hope to see you out there tonight, dress warm and wear comfortable shoes.

I can proudly say that I’ve spent more than half my life online. Many would probably argue, that I should get out of the house and stop spending all that time in front of the computer screen. However, they would be wrong to believe that I’m some sort of recluse. In fact, the opposite is true. Over the years, I’ve spent time on BBSs, IRC, internet forums, mailing-lists, meet-up groups, ICQ, blogs, friendster, myspace, MSN, IM, flickr, facebook, twitter and the list goes on and on. And with each network I’ve found and made friends with like-minded people

I’ve always believed that you get out of something, what you put into it. And I feel the same is true when dealing with these online social circles. They all exist because of the mere fact that we are willing to participate and they all flourish because we all make the effort to be a part of that particular community.

This site was conceived and inspired by my twitter usage. And it wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the inspiration behind every smile I’ve captured in the community over the years. It’s an homage and a tribute and a gateway to all your individual stories, all your streams and all your blogs and websites.

If you like what I’m doing on the site, there are a number of things you can do to help insure that this project continues. A) hit the facebook “like” button in the sidebar to join the 140 characters facebook page. B) share a Pride story or C) nominate someone for the Toronto 140 series or D) nominate yourself.

Participate and become a part of the bigger picture.

This past Friday, I attended the Official Toronto Pride launch party, marking the beginning of Pride Week here in Toronto. This year, we are celebrating the 30th milestone year in our pride history and I thought it would be important to mark this landmark year with a special series of portraits. Since June 1st and through to June 30th, I have been posting one portrait and pride story over at photojunkie.ca, culminating 30 stories from various proud individuals from the community. Of course, this being the 140 characters site, I’ve decided to spill the overflow of portraits and stories over to this site.

This series is of special significance in light of the various conflicts and upheaval surrounding this year’s festival. I personally think it is important to share these stories of what Pride was to remind us all of what Pride could be again. I think it’s key to remember and be thoughtful of what Pride means to us and what it means to be Proud. Just like Pride this year, this series is a work in progress. I’ll be continuing to shoot more portraits and gather more stories until I have reached my 140 goal. Until then, browse through the Pride 30 series thus far and have an amazing Pride Week here in Toronto.

This year, on May 18th and 19th, 2010, mesh celebrated their milestone fifth year running the conference. The organizers have done an incredible job in the past 5 years, showcasing engaging keynotes and speakers, which has lead to their success and expansion with mesh U and mesh marketing. Personally, this was my fourth year attending mesh. I’m not quite sure why I missed the first year of the conference, but I have attended every one since.

Over the years, I’ve always carried my camera with me to mesh. In 2007, I I took shots in almost all the sessions I attended.  In 2008, I decided to do my first mesh portrait series during the conference. It was all shot on film with my Yachicamat 124G medium format camera. In 2009, I continued the tradition  and shot  a second portrait series on my Canon A2 35mm film camera. So going into mesh U and mesh 2010 this year, I knew I had to continue the tradition, but I gave myself  a minor restraint, keeping the series to 140 characters.

When I first started blogging in 2000, I did it because I wanted to share my life with my friends. Over the years, I’ve shared my stories, my interests, my photos with a growing amount of friends, family and admirers. Of course, more recently my online presence has been mostly spent on Facebook and Twitter, both quick ways to share tidbits of my life with those that I know and those that I’d like to know respectively.

Over time, priorities change, new chapters open, other close, life gets faster, but one thing remains the same, my desire to share stories with those around me. 140 Characters is site dedicated to sharing photos and stories I’ve gathered from those around me.  With this site, I hope bring some humanity back into my online presence, one person at a time, one photo at a time, one story at a time.

To kick things off, I have two themed sets to share, the first being 140 portraits of attendees, speakers, volunteers and founders of MESH U and the Mesh Conference captured earlier this year, celebrating their 5th year educating about the web space here in Canada. The second series is in honour of the 30th Anniversary of Toronto Pride, showcasing the stories and portraits of 140 individuals who’ve celebrated their pride over the last 30 years.

Thanks for checking out the site and stay tuned for more themed portraits series in the near future.