Twilight

West vs. east; Vancouver on the left and Toronto on the right. December 2008.

It feels like I’m trapped in the Twilight Zone in some sort of crazy weather spiral. However, the weather I’ve been experiencing over the last several years has been so drastically that crazy weather seems to be the norm.

When I arrived in Whistler earlier this month, it was warmer than usual and there was not enough snow to ski. Then it became too cold and snow started to fall slowly. When I returned to Vancouver before Christmas it started to snow – and snow it did. I think there was a snowfall warning issued daily for over a week on Environment Canada.

I flew from a snowy Vancouver to a rainy Toronto on December 24th – barely making it because there was a shortage of crew available in Vancouver because many flights were canceled from several centres in the west. Toronto is now enjoying spring-like weather. It reached almost +15c yesterday. Warm enough not to require a hat or gloves – something that I was never without in BC this month.

Much of what I do is dependent upon the weather so I will be glad when things return to what we once knew as normal – except in the mountains where it should snow as much as possible!

Baguette

I recently went to a Vietnamese restaurant, Au Petit Cafe, with some Couchsurfers. Before I arrived, I knew there was nothing vegetarian on the menu, but I knew it was easy enough to make something vegetarian by omitting the animal products.

What I received was a vegetable banh mi, a Vietnamese baguette sandwich (see above photo above). The vegetables were pedestrian enough, however, the bread was fantastic. It was the best French baguette that I’ve had outside of France. What makes the bread so good is that it is baked on premises at Au Petit – the way it should be done – just like all the neighbourhood bakeries in France.

The sandwich brought me back to the time I spent in Nice, France eating the pan bagnat – a sandwich loosely based on the salade Niçoise. For years afterward, I used to make these sandwiches myself but the bread was always lacking. Unfortunately, the pan bagnat is not vegetarian; however, I may try to create my own vegetarian version with some of these amazing baguettes.

Incongruent

While walking from the curling club to the subway station this evening, a friend mentioned the unattractiveness, incongruity and randomness of the landscape in the area. Just as he mentioned that, I turned and saw these four houses. In this area of the city, East York, there are many such houses with architecture that resemble barns.

However, this was not the real topic of discussion. It was the accessibility of the Toronto transit system. Had we been on a bus, we would not have seen this landscape. However, buses on this street do not run beyond 7:00 p.m. on Sunday evenings. Even on weekdays, it does not run past beyone 10:00 p.m. This seems to strand or marginalize people – especially the elderly or people with limited mobility. The schedule presents even more challenges when the weather is inclement.

The local transit authority, the TTC has an initiative underway, Transit City: Moving Toronto Into The Future.The plan is to extend the transit system into the suburbs. Having such a plan seems counterintuitive when the TTC does not seem to provide adequete transportation within the city.

The lack of transit in this area of East York made it seem neglected and in despair. If proper transit were provided to poorly serviced areas, would the area improve? A hypothetical question that probably will not get answered anytime soon – but should be asked.

Almost

It’s been four years in the transformation of the AGO from mild-mannered art gallery to a world class art gallery. This is Frank Gehry’s first major project in Canada. It doesn’t look like it will disappoint anyone. It even looked spectacular during construction. There was a reception tonight but it was a private one. It is scheduled to open to the general public in just over a week. We will see what the critics think then.

My images from the past year. Click on the larger image to advance to the next image.

Pie

For World Vegetarian Day, the Toronto Vegetarian Association held a baking contest – the Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-off in Grange park in downtown Toronto.

Some of my friends suggested that I enter one of my chocolate cakes or pies in the contest. However, I’m not big on contests or being judged so I didn’t really think about it much at first. However, when I thought more about it, I thought that a pumpkin pie would be good for the time of year. And so I decided to enter a raw pumpkin pie into the contest. I still had my doubts about the contest though. I didn’t decide to go through with it until three days before the event.

I’m still not sure why I entered it – maybe I just wanted strangers to try my creations to see if they liked it – and find out if my friends were telling the truth or just being polite.

The contest was judged by some vegan cooks from Toronto. They were judging on taste, texture, creativity and presentation. When I showed up at the event, I was pretty sure I was going to fail miserably. All of the other desserts looked – fabulous. My pie looks very plain. There was but five pumpkin seeds on top of the pie. I was left with taste, texture and creativity.

Miraculously, my pie was the first runner-up in the pie category. Here’s a slice of a pumpkin pie – but not the pie I entered into the contest. I actually did not take a picture of my pie – but they all look the same.

Here is a selection of the desserts at the Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-off from my flickr. Click on the large image to advance to the next one.

Clear

The first shot where I noticed the difference between my new camera (not the one in the previous post) and my old camera. The above image was captured at dusk, untouched – except for some minor cropping – and at ISO 1600. The higher ISO captures images better in low light conditions – but also produces lots of image noise because the sensor that captures the image is not sensitive enough and the software makes up for that deficiency.

I rarely took shots above ISO 800 on my previous camera because the noise made it look like a snowstorm. Bring on the night!

Square

I notice recently that I’ve been cropping some of my images to a square or 4×5 format. I find that the 3×2 format of 35mm and D-SLR cameras don’t always work for what I’m shooting. I never used to crop my photos because I was framing the subject to fit in the camera viewfinder but it did not work when I viewed it on paper or on the screen.

However, I noticed that when I cropped some of them, it gave them a new life and changed the perspective of the photo. I’m sure I learned why in school, but my brain is like a sieve and I usually forget such minute technical details. I normally would shoot, process the levels and then post – maybe I could not be bothered to crop photos before.

Now that I think about it, why isn’t all film/digital in a more square format? Lenses are round and if film is not, there’s a lot of wasted space. I will guess that it started with some film manufacturing executive fitting into the manufacturing process or something like that. I’m going to a camera show on the weekend so I’m sure some people can let me in on the secret.

Enough talk, here are some pictures. Two of my favorite images, one square, one 4×5. Ironically, both from NY – maybe that’s what changed. Click on either image to jump to my flickr set.

Slideshows of the sets; click on the larger image to advance to the next one.

The 4×5 flickr set:

The square format set:

Boxed

I listed my former Nikon D200 camera along with my tourist zoom lens on Sunday and I sold the camera tonight; the lens is still for sale. I was surprised because I thought the lens would sell sooner. I’m about to buy a new camera but I haven’t decided which one to get. I think I already know, but I’m thinking of a few different options. I had this one for almost two years. I honestly thought I would have owned it for much longer – but I guess two years is a lifetime in the age of electronics. One can’t get attached to objects.

I definitely learned a lot from this camera – including lighting, exposure and especially effects with a fisheye lens. I haven’t decided what to do with the fisheye lens since it only works on the smaller frame digital cameras and not the full frame digital cameras – which I am very likely about to buy. Maybe I’ve outgrown the fisheye lens. A fellow photographer told me that I would probably outgrow it in about a year and a half – I’m three months away from that since I got the fisheye lens in 2007. Although I am curious to experiment with a super-wide angle lens. That could be my next challenge.

Some recent images with the D200 and fisheye lens.

Hipster

I wasn’t exactly sure what a hipster was until recently when I visited New York City. I found out through a free newspaper that they live in Williamsburg, an area of Brooklyn just over the river from Manhattan. Apparently they aren’t well liked by some because they over-pay for Goodwill fashion, drive out good-value restaurants, hang at dive bars and  drive up housing prices, especially lofts!

Elise Thompson, an editor for the LA blog LAist defines hipsters as people wearing “expensive ‘alternative’ fashion[s]“, going to the “latest, coolest, hippest bar…[and] listen[ing] to the latest, coolest, hippest band.”

People are starting to emulate them in other cities – including Toronto as seen here in gbalogh’s (a flickr contact) photo stream.

Hopefully we won’t need to reinforce our doors to keep them out in Toronto – and hopefully they won’t invade Sneaky Dee’s!

Here’s a funny video of hipsters in action in Brooklyn.

Dynasty

Ten years after I first visited Yankee stadium, I returned for a final visit in the last season of the current Yankee Stadium. They will be playing in a new stadium starting in 2009 – also called Yankee Stadiium and the old Yankee Stadium will be demolished.

Although there is a lot of history in the current stadium, it is an old style stadium. The seating is old, the walkways and washrooms are cramped and there are not many amenities. Skydome/Roger’s Centre in Toronto is quite spacious in comparison.What I find most interesting about Yankee Stadium are the fans that visit the games. They are the most lively, boisterous and out-spoken – true New Yorkers. The Yankee fans may taunt you because you’re a Jay fan, etc. but everyone can still be friends because we’re all baseball fans.

I’ll probably go back to visit the stadium before it is demolished but this will probably be my last Yankee game in the House That Ruth Built (or the Stadium, the Big Ballpark in the Bronx, the Cathedral of Baseball).

On a related note, while in NY, I met a guy from Toronto that has the goal of watching every Toronto Blue Jay game in 2008 – at home and on the road. He worked out a deal with his company to work part time – when he was in town. His enthusiasm seem to be waning when I talked to him – but that’s understandable because he has been watching baseball games daily on his own for five months and counting. As Homer Simpson knows, baseball isn’t that exciting most of the time (when sober). Ryan’s website, is Baseball Odyssey – he stopped blogging at the end of June – perhaps that’s when he contracted baseball fatigue.

Here is my Flickr baseball set. Click on the larger image to advance to the next image.