my life, as far as i know.

esperame, un poco mas
dame otro dia

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.

today was the first workshop day of the conference.

after my first cup of second cup, i headed to the gallery. the attendance to michael and paula’s workshop on vision was good. it was interesting to hear about their processes in a well articulated manner. they showed tonnes of images and talked about what they saw that led them to capture the image.

i was warned that their content is not for everybody, and that certainly seemed to be the case. but i like their approach and will incorporate some of it in my own work.

after lunch, there was a panelist discussion on availability of product, a hot topic in the field. the word is, in europe film is already making a comeback in the commercial sector. companies like ilford and distributors like j and c are clearly committed to keeping their products alive and shipping. so it was all pretty reassuring.

after the festivities were over and the afternoon workshops were starting, i wandered off on my own. i ended up driving into downtown and taking college ave all the way into liberty village.

i was standing in a park shooting a tall residential tower. this girl and her dog walked by and she was looking at the camera. so i spoke up and showed her the ground glass. this is the first time i’ve ever invited a stranger to look at the glass. we talked a bit. she explained that the tower was the singer center for retarded people. only i had misunderstood her. her filipina accent had badgered the words senior center for retired people. she hung out for a bit as i processed the polaroid. she pointed to casa loma, a castle just a few blocks away. i didn’t have enough time left on the meter to check it out.

my next shooting was some houses further down college. at one location, i was on the sidewalk in the center of a bunch of residences. a guy stepped out and identified my camera correctly as a large format camera. he has lived in the same unit in that complex for 23 years now. during that time he’s seen 4 residents die. he also talked to me about his guitar playing. he’s been playing forever. he plays anything from jazz to 1950s (pre-beatles) on acoustic. just recently he purchased an electric guitar for $3500, the most expensive posession he has. his guitar was made in petaluma, california. he asked if i could make a photo for him, so i offered a polaroid. i took it, it came out fine, and he was very pleased with it. he offered to pay for it, but i refused. it just felt good/right. i took a polaroid for myself then shot it on sheet film. then i was off to liberty village.

in liberty village i talked to even more strangers. i was shooting a walk with pictures of flowers painted on it. a woman explained to me that the paintings were showing you which flowers were planted under each image. i should come back when the flowers are in bloom, she said.

i ended my day in queen west. everything in toronto is named after the street or intersection it’s on. yonge (pronounced “young”) street bisects the downtown east to west. so queen st west of yonge is queen west.

queen west is a cool, hip neighborhood with lots of boutique shops and restaurants. i finally found an article of clothing for myself (a roots polo) then walked around for quite a while. i ended with dinner at peter pan bistro.. it looked promising, but i’d rate it as mediocre. maybe my san francisco standards are getting high?

so today was full of learning, exploring a city i am liking more and more, and being more social and public with my shooting.

i was greeted by simon galley (sales director european and export markets, ilford). sat and chatted with several published photographers. had dinner with sandy king, inventor of the pyrocat-hd film developer.

on one hand, it’s great to learn from those who are doing great work. on the other hand, i feel like such a nobody.

but i am still having fun. and i am stoked about the product show and the workshops i am signed up for. and eric, another amateur i’ve befriended, suggested i check out the distillery.

i’ve been shooting polaroid and delta.

good: finding decent compositions
good: exposure is decent
bad: going too fast, making mistakes

eric gave me some good ideas about photo groups. basically, a general photo group will have lots of disparate ideas, formats, and methods. you might have someone who loves street shooting in 35mm and someone who enjoys landscapes in 11×14. eric started a large format group. it sounds like a good idea. still thinking about that.

oh, and canadian hersey bars are better than american hersey bars.

i went out on a fruitless pursuit of new clothes. i’ll try again later.

i spent the afternoon out shooting buildings. toronto has a slew of 30-40 story towers. i took several shots. i even talked to several friendly people, and it was nice having polaroids to show them. i got one shot that i like a lot. again, more images later.. :-/

tonight was a pre-conference gathering. i met a lot of people. i am getting increasingly anxious to dive into this conference. talking with eric rose, i think i need to learn more about spit grade printing…..

also, i’ve found when i’m using the 5.6/210, i find i never have enough clearance from the bellows on my camera. i’m also frequently pushing the coverage limits of the lens. also pushing the limit on the 8/90 s-a that i have. maybe i need to upgrade to 5×7 and use a reducing back? then i’d have more volume inside the camera. tho.. not thrilled about filling the bag up more. we’ll see. in any case, i am learning every time i take the camera out.

today i went for a drive. the weather was absolutely beautiful.

i started off on the wrong foot - went the wrong way on a one-way street, then asked for a latte and got a chai from a new employee at timothy’s. but i was soon on my way north into toronto suburbia, then into what i call “canadian nowhere”. i should have taken more shots, it would have been a good title for the series :)

there wasn’t much that caught me eye, save for one barn in particular (image on a few days, hopefully..) and one of the many residential towers closer to toronto. the drive was about 300km (164mi) total. i listened to the news on cbc radio, some light rock, but mostly the wind going past the window. driving really relaxes me.

looking at the map above, i started in downtown toronto. i took back roads north all the way to barrie. i then looped around west and curved back south/easy. i took a highway down to oshawa, then headed west on the 401.

i’m anxious to get back into downtown toronto via the subway. i’ll bum around for a while, then decide on where dinner is tonight. so many good looking places to choose from!

today i wondered how it felt to be a citizen of toronto. last night i saw tim’s parents house. the house he grew up in. today i tried my hand and making off-the-cuff remarks such that i wouldn’t be immediately recognizable as a u.s. citizen.

can you believe it hit twenty-one degrees today!

i’m not sure how i feel about this 1% GST reduction..

do you think the loonie will match the u.s. dollar?

ok, it’s silly.

after running around freaking out because i was missing my passport, ryan ended up finding it and i finally made my way to toronto after 2.5 hours of sleep.

i think my time here will be great. everything has kicked off with a great start. i had a good experience on public transit. i met up with my friend tim (dinner at segovia, one of toronto’s fifty best restaurants!), and got my film/darkroom supplies.

i still have some days to myself before the conference starts, so i’m planning on packing up the camera and heading north for a drive! i love doing this at home - it will be fun to do it here.

it was great seeing tim today. i have a good feel for the city now, and am ready to have fun!