#2 Weekend in Toronto

Recently Krista and I went to Toronto to celebrate her birthday weekend and see the Toronto Burlesque Festival.

It was so fun to be back in the city; when I moved to Canada, I first lived in Toronto for about 5 years. The diversity, the energy, the scale, I love it. Kingston has lots of good points too, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss Toronto sometimes.

I challenged myself to:

• only bring one lens and one camera body. Obviously when I’m going to a photo shoot or event, I bring my camera bag, filled to the brim. I like to have options but it’s not fun to carry around.

• shoot from a moving vehicle. I’m always at my destination for a photo session or event, and I always drive. But on this trip we caught the train which gave me the chance to have a little play with my photography and try something I haven’t really had the opportunity to try before.

• to practice slow shutter (longer exposure time) and the technique of “panning”. Panning is a technique where a slow shutter speed is used (which inherently creates motion through blur) but you move (“pan”) the camera to match the speed of the subject, to ideally have the subject sharp in focus and other elements blurred. I also knew I wanted to try and get a motion blur picture in Union Station.

• to capture a picture of the CN Tower that is somewhat unique

• minimal/no editing

Street photography is a genre of photography I enjoy looking at, but don’t really get much chance to explore for myself.

We went to burly shows on both the Friday and Saturday nights, both shows were excellent and there were so many talented performers. Minds we blown constantly.

Hope you enjoy this collection, let me know what you think!

Gear used:

• Fujifilm XT-4

• TT Artisan 35mm MF pancake

-Jordan

Krista out front of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

Took advantage of some nice lighting during intermission.

And a cool alleyway. Why not??

Here’s my CN Tower shot I was hoping for. Framed it between the two buildings and captured the silhouette, back lit from the sky. If I could do it over, I’d re-frame it so the tower was coming out of the bottom left corner for a more abstract look and more negative space from the sky. Still, I really like this one.

I just really liked the interesting shape of this building and the reflections in the windows. I shuffled a little to my left so the buildings on the right would be out of frame, creating that negative space. There is the cable from the street car tracks that I could have removed in post processing, but for the sake of minimal editing, and authenticity, I left it in. Besides, Toronto is full of streetcar tracks and cables. It literally is real life.

Omg what a delicious brunch at Fran’s. Of course I could have taken a picture of the meal but look at that face. Get you a partner that loves brunch as much as you do.

These next few were taken at Little Canada! Absolutely worth checking out if you can. It is miniature models of many Canadian cities and areas, and all the little figures tell so many interesting stories. Not to mention it made for some fun play with photography!

This was at the Eaton Centre, at a Christmas lights and snow show. Kinda random, kinda a lot of consumerism shoved down our throats. But the show was cool. I wanted to capture it in a way to help you, the viewer feel like you are there. Seeing it through a human perspective. So many faces looking up at these lights-behind the screens of their cell phones.

Hey! Can you tell I like framing my subjects coming out of the bottom left corner??

This is at Nathan Phillips Square. I had a few different shots of the Toronto sign. The rink was fenced off so I used the fencing to create this interesting perspective, a different look at the sign. How does it make you feel?

I looooove how this one looks! It was a rainy, foggy night and I loved how the light on the building disappeared into the night sky.

Just playing with some reflections in puddles. We were walking back to the hotel and I was playing with puddles and with motion blur. If I could have a do-over for this one, I’d stop, slow down, and reframe to get move of an upwards perspective in frame.

Using rule of thirds and leading lines to make a mundane moment a little more interesting to look at.

The idea of framing this shot of the Fairmont was a good one but I think my focal length was a little too wide to achieve what was in my head.

I love this pic! I took a lot in the Great Hall at Union Station, going for that motion blur image I mentioned earlier. As it was day time, there was a lot of light, and slowing down the shutter meant that a lot of my images here were over exposed (I ordered an ND filter to counter this once I got home). But this one isn’t bad and I like that the subject was moving slow enough to be frozen, while the people around them are blurred. Kinda stillness in chaos.

The next few were taken on the train home.

I took so many pictures on the train home, mainly for practice, occasionally hoping I’d capture something cool. But again, the main point here was to have a play, and to practice panning and playing with motion blur. I like how this one kinda feels unsettled and chaotic, with the creepy face and the twist of motion blur that is rotated. You can see it more clearly on the tracks in front of the face. It feels unsteady, chaotic.

This was a happy accident. A lot of the time, photography is luck, clicking the shutter at the just right moment. Here, the train crossing is centred, (mostly) in focus, and we have panned motion blur. So there is a lot of movement in the image, I am taken right back onto the train, watching the world go whizzing by my window.