Happy Nude Year

I have one photo that mentions a Hummer, and another that includes "bikini" in the file name of the photo. They get a ridiculous number of hits from Google's image search. So, you sickos, this one's for you. Happy new year.

Dunas and Jarvis.

Looking Down at the Sky

"The taste for quotations (and the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste."

- Susan Sontag.

Reflections in broken glass, the Rail Lands

Neglected

The boy dog of the pair hasn't had his photo shown very much recently.

Taken using my brand new FL-36 flash.

Skyline at Night

I have very few photos taken from the Bathurst Street Bridge at night.

Santa Sends His Best

Mixed Media.

The Fashion District, Toronto

My Fetching Redhead

Dog photos used to be all I took, but I've been neglecting them as I became more "Serious." Serious isn't all that great a thing to be.

This is now my 202nd post; this little doggie was also my second post. She's an absolute sweetheart. You may remember her from a more compromising moment.

The Weight

Everything is made of stone.

Fort York

Strings

A piano, disassembled and abandoned in an alleyway, plays one more note.

This is my 200th post, and is presented as a tribute to a good friend in Texas. If he hadn't taken his photo first, I never would have taken this one.

There are a couple of other neat numbers to share: I've just passed my 8500th visitor, and will pass 15000 page views within a week. My main camera, the brilliant and under-appreciated Olympus E-1, is six months old and has just passed 6800 exposures. Only 143,195 until its rated service life is up. Finally, photos that do not have a grey border are being hosted from my Flickr account, which is where I'm keeping most of my presentable work these days. This blog will continue to be my 'best of' and personal showcase.

Zero Frame Exposure

Walking toward City Hall on a Tuesday Night.

Toronto Lights

There's a new addition to the Christmas lights this year.

Toronto City Hall.

Waterfall

Not the mightiest waterfall, and not even the one I got closest to.

Webster's Falls, Dundas, Ontario

Blank

Welcome to Webster's Falls.

Dundas, Ontario.

Ribbons

Christmas trees at a corner market.

Queen Street West.

Snow Route

Summer's over, but some things are eternal.

Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Empty

The home of a garment factory on Spadina Avenue, now empty.

The textile mills were the earliest industry here, establishing the identity of the area that it's still known by today. This factory was the last holdout in a neighbourhood now dominated by condos, offices and - its legacy - fur and fabrics retailers.

The Fashion District.

Collage

A staple image from downtown Toronto.

Queen street west

A Sense of Place

I've previously posted this under the title 'Home', but re-edited it from scratch for the "Our City" clinic at my camera club.

It won me my first ribbon.

That Time Again

No, I didn't dangle the little girl dog over the tub just for this photo. It was time for her bath anyway.

Enough

Advertising is taking over more and more public space,
equalling the visual blight of vandalism and graffiti.
Sometimes, though, there's no better response.

Streetcar shelter, Spadina Avenue.

Tough

I'm not as tough as I seem.

The Brickworks in the dark is an intimidating place to work, with no ambient light and the noise of constant water movement all around. I've taken many photos in and around the old buildings, but this is my only photograph of how it feels.

Twenty two photos taken over the course of 2005 can be found on my other website.

Broken Window

Broken photographs lying in a back alley in the rain.

They aren't even mine.

Arson

A vacant house burned.

View the full series here.

Moving Camera

My favourite view of the city, constantly changing.

This was taken from the Bathurst street bridge, with the camera firmly pressed against the handrail as several trucks and a streetcar went by. No additional blur effects have been used. This is an eight second exposure with an R72 IR-pass filter.

It seems fitting that my 185th post is using the same camera as the first.

updated 30 nov 05: this is a second, more extreme version of this photo. I have re-edited it to bring out the grain of the long exposure and better control the colour. The original edit can still be seen here for comparison.

Season's Greetings

Finally, my photo of hallowe'en.

the Brickworks park.

Machine Age #2

A few feet to the right, six months later.

the Brickworks.

Heat

Thinking warm thoughts.

Partially demolished building, Queen Street West

Brown Grass and a Deep Blue Sky

Blue skies look black in infrared.

the Music Garden

Machine Age

An old favourite that somehow never made it here.

the Brickworks

Wrath

I posted an earlier version of this image six weeks ago, and it remains one of my favourites. It's probably my most divisive. It seems like the viewers who don't like it dismiss it immediately, but the people who like it have all given it a second look.

... so here it is again.

the Bathurst Street bridge

Eyes

at the Toronto Eaton Centre.

Grass

the Music Garden

Below the Water

Cichlids, a favourite fish for freshwater aquariums.

African pavilion, the Toronto Zoo

Elephant Autumn

Reading Kim Echlin's novel Elephant Winter renewed my sense of awe for these magnificent animals.

African Elephant, the Toronto Zoo

Please Do Not Cross

No kidding.

Siberian Tiger, the Toronto Zoo

Please Do Not Feed

Pigeons are a bunch of ugly, arrogant, lazy birds with no redeeming value. They get so fat that they lose the ability to fly more than a few flaps, and resort to walking from place to place.

Gulls are okay.
Gulls can actually fly.

Small

Even big things can be small.

Bathurst Street Bridge

Pretty

It's been almost a year since I posted a photo with autumnal trees.

A small town about an hour north of Toronto.

Vineyard

Peller Estates, Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Brollies #2

Umbrellas on Spadina avenue.

Brollies

Spadina Avenue

Uglify

While the City of Toronto has also done its part to make the city ugly for the sake of advertising revenues, nothing looks quite as bad as the results of 'postering'.

the Fashion district

Back Alley Philosophy

Eventually Insight leads to Discovery.

It's lucky for my sense of humour that this truck doesn't fit in its garage.

West of Queen Street West

Minolta, Stopped

A pair of photographers - using Nikon cameras - outside the Toronto office of Konica-Minolta.

Effective October 1, 2005, K-M has withdrawn from the Canadian market. As an Olympus dSLR user, I'm disappointed to see one less alternative to Canon and Nikon on the store shelves. They take an interesting anti-shake technology and a number of excellent cameras with them as they leave.

Feathering

Narrow depth of field at 150mm (4/3) using f4.5.
This image has had very minimal selective sharpening, owing to iso800 noise, and no blur or noise reduction to soften it.

Sitting

One of the most important things that I've learned as a photographer is to simply slow down.

Trinity Square.

Music

The theme for Lensday this week was Music, which also happens to be the theme for another site's October challenge. This was originally taken for the latter, but only in passing.

Darkness

This is a colour photo.

Toronto Street

Labyrinth

Walking the Labyrinth at Trinity Square.

Red Chair

I've been in a geometric mood recently.
...but I don't like this as much as "Yellow House".

Trinity Square.

Yellow House

Fort George, Niagara-on-the-Lake

To view more photos from my visit to Fort George, click here.