esperame, un poco mas
dame otro dia

esperame, para el reloj
olvidate de los horarios
deja el tiempo atras
aqui y ahora
todo nos sobra
dejate llevar
yo voy pisandote los pasos
voy intentando atar los lazos otra vez

tu dejas la piel
y escapas cada amanecer
no quiero nada
solo quedate

esperame un poco mas
que un lunes gris podria
ser domingo si tu no te vas

– nek, “esperame”

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toronto is littered with tall residential towers. most of the ones i look at were around thirty floors tall. lots of steel and glass in the new towers. there are so many, and their architecture has so little variation, they all begin to look the same.

i was driving around one day with the camera in the car. i spotted this tower in particular next to a park. i setup my tripod and begain work on the shot.

a girl stopped by to see what i was doing. i told her about the conference and the camera. she stuck around until i shot the polaroid, so i could show her. in a thick filipina accent, she told me this was the singer building for retarded people. after several back-and-forths, i realized it was a senior building for retired people. hehe

she suggested i check out the castle a few blocks away. it happened to be casa loma, which i did check out after i returned from montreal.

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last night i held my father’s hand as he passed away. he (and all of us family) had been battling cancer for exactly eight months to the day.

i had just come back from vacation. in fact, i happened to be in the south bay when one of the kids called me to come to the house. earlier in the day he insisted on seeing the blue sky from the front door, even though he could barely stand up. by evening, i had joined the family and let him know i was there. by night, in his wife’s arms, with family all around, in their beautiful house, he quietly and peacefully passed away.

in exactly the way he wanted, at just the right time.

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polaroid type 54.

this is massey hall in toronto. it has a beautiful brick facade with a symmetrical black staircase facing the street.

i scouted this location before. one day i took erna (eric rose’s wife) out for a drive to this building, since she liked staircases. i couldn’t quite get the coverage i wanted with my 90mm lens. i decided to try something closer (still shooting from across the street). i tried 5.6/210.

after my first polaroid turned out well, i realized i could wait for the morning traffic to pause then catch individual pedestrians in front of the lens. this is a quarter second exposure.

it was often that i realized 90mm isn’t wide enough for me. that, or i’m always shooting too close.

back from toronto. i’m tired. i have what i anticipate to be a stressful week at work starting tomorrow. i’m way overdue for a haircut. i’ll probably upload the digital camera pics somewhere to work on during breaks tomorrow.

back in toronto. i spent the past several days in montreal, a fantastic city. i have notes for the blog and many clothing related receipts to get stamped :) the next few nights is basically relax, have fun, and hopefully try out the two restaurants on our hit list (oro and pangea).

today was the last day of the first annual apug conference.

the only conference business i wanted to attend to was the closing remarks/speeches. i went to the site at the designated time and nobody was around. the organizer (mister callow) said to me, “you are the man!” he was impressed that i even showed up. it seemed like no big deal to me.

i talked to john a bit. i talked again with sandy. i shook hands with sean ross (the guy who runs apug as he left. i hung out for a little bit, then took off.

the conference was fantastic.

now i’m off to montreal for the next four days. i’m staying at a bed and breakfast inn. then i’ll be back in toronto in downtown for a few days until i’m returning home. toronto has been so fun!

today was the last day of workshops for me. the only remaining order of business is closing speeches tomorrow, about 45 minutes.

today was really interesting. i spent 20 minutes personally with paula chamlee. she showed me how the ries tripod works (and now i want one). she showed me her lens bags and dark cloth. under the dark cloth, she showed me how she explores a scene visually to find images. we spent most of the time under the dark cloth looking at the ground glass. after we were done, we looked at where the camera was pointed. we found so much potential and the camera was only pointed at two areas, one next to the other. probably a ten degree angle between them. ten out of three hundred sixty degrees.

it was nice to spend some personal time with a published photographer and have her articulate her image finding process. after we were done, i went off with my own camera and did some exploring in front of the gallery. i took several polaroids as notes and remembrances.

i have some things to think about. i have film to develop. and now i have some new camera/tripod/lens lust.