Pretty Busker

This guy and others were hanging from big balloons doing acrobatic stuff. I just missed the show as he was lowered upside down back to the ground, hanging from a trail of red fabric.

Thought his powder smudge on the nose was cute.

Death of An Angel

A fellow photographer (another Steve) asked that I try this shot in b&w and also suggested the title, which I like as it was that juxtaposition I saw when framing the shot -- the wings (e.g angel) and the old testament violence of the sword...

Anyway, both work I think, although I'm still a bit tenuous with the b&w conversion decisions.

Too Lazy to Post Here, As Well

Please visit here for the other Buskerfest shots:

Toronto Buskerfest 2008

1) Some guy on stilts
2) The Space Cowboy -- a sword swallower who also juggles, which is what he's preparing for here; having a flaming torch thrown to him to juggle along with a couple of sharp objects while blindfolded AND maintaining balance atop a 3 metre unicycle.

I'll post the sword swallowing shots later.

Graffiti

The fiery stuff on a wall next to a parking lot on Queen West. The devil in a back alley nearby. The water from across the street on the wall of a car wash -- marketing not graffiti precisely speaking.

It Just Does Not Get Any Better Than This. Period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w9F7zf_2mM&feature=related

Don't worry I'm not going to get in the habit of blogging links to youtube, but this has to be shared with those who will not have heard this song or these two singing it (KK wrote it, of course, he being one of the best song writers on the planet) through some misguided idea that C&W music is inferior.

And, sorry, you'll have to cut and paste the URL as blogger refuses to work with Apple or some such technie annoyance.

Moped Heads

Window transparencies, across from Moss Park; an empty retail space.

Electric Blue Flower

This blue's gotta be only more shocking in the rain...

When In Doubt Go to Dog Photos

Ruby asks, "Do you really need ANOTHER photo of me?"

Just one more Wakestock 2008 shot

I love how this guy seems to be jettisoning fuel from his board prior to a rough landing :)

Get me outta here!

Ruby shows her displeasure with veterinary science's lack of creativity in keeping her from her stitches..

The hood came off today, seconds after this shot was taken; the stitches about 30 minutes later. A very ugly scar -- she has already asked about canine plastic surgery...

More Wakestock

Smokin' Crack at Wakestock 2008

Ahem...

Anatomy of a Fall

Wakestock 2008. Toronto Island

(Just a reminder that a click will give you a larger image)

Kid, board, levitation

At the exit from the Island ferry terminal.

Duck Spin Cycle

by popular demand -- okay I got one email -- the sculpture in colour

"River God"
myles lowry
cast and painted cotton fibre

Celtic river god

The first bit of "fine art" I ever purchased. Rendered here a bit more mysterious than usual with depth of field choices and high contrast b&w.

Spider water storage?

Cruised!

From the file marked, "dang, shame I'm taken!" :)

Street shot from Toronto Gay Pride 2008

Painted Cement Wall

Bits of a mural, east side of Mt. Pleasant Blv on cement wall of Bloor St. underpass

Hail, hail the Nikon 50 mm 1.4 lens. Hail!

Cheap (in price) little lens. 50 mm used to be the standard length most SLR cameras would come with, or most started with; many famous photographers shot nothing but 50 mm during their careers. The 50 mm length is called a "normal" lens as (wrongly from a strictly technical standpoint) it is said to mirror the human field of vision. At 1.4 it is very fast (meaning it can shoot in low light) too. But the wonderful thing is because 50 mm used to be so ubiquitous the optical work is all but perfected by people such as Nikon and so for the price of a medium priced pair of shoes (which I had my eye on at Holt's) you get this kind of crispness.

This blogger in no way endorses Pears shampoo :)

It just happened my favourite camera shop (but not where I bought the lens, for while my favourite they are also the most expensive camera shop) had a light box set up (white walls lit from outside the box to provide profoundly even, shadowless light) with this shampoo bottle in it. As I waited to be served, I fired off this shot to test the sharpness of the lens. WAH! Keep in mind this is a pretty low res copy, as well, so blogger won't throw up and prevent me from posting.

50 is also apparently a superb full length portrait lens; plan to FINALLY do some formal work with a model while on holiday in early August. I also owe the Markham family with grand patience a family portrait.

Monday Approaches (or The Hostas are Nervous!)

With the weekend ending this profoundly annoying and anger making rain is surely about to clear into a stifling hot and sunny Monday. Stuck inside with the recuperating dog I slipped outside with camera between assholishly long and heavy downpours to capture a snail on a small retaining wall (curb, really) in our courtyard.

We have:

1) A snail veering at the last moment to avoid a precipice
2) A sharp left turn for the thrill of it
3) A snail unfurling from its house after being plucked from another location so as to be in front of someone's camera

From a Sunnier Day

A bee fly (apparently -- as I suck at bug identification) cruises a very yellow flower.

Post-op waterdog

Heightening my guilt and my dog daddy worry, Ruby flashes her fresh stitches lineup... This effectively keeps her from any show ring, as well. Which I'm okay with, but several Portie owners have told me she's the cutest they've ever seen with her facial markings... And who am I to disagree :)

A bug, and pretty blue sutures

These insects were thick thick in number all over these flowers. Windy as hell -- the whole bud and bug waved in and out of the viewfinder so I gave up trying to get the shot I wanted, but this single speciman was close enough to crisp focus to share.

Given my luck with the one spider photo, see earlier posting, when I found a spider on my shirt while sitting on my balcony earlier this week I carefully dragged my finger behind it and sure enough it came away with a string of web. I let it down gently on the balcony floor and ran to get my camera -- it was TINY and a brilliant red/orange and very shiny and I hoped to identify it with a good macro shot. As I was setting up the shot the spider moved, catching Ruby's attention who then promptly ate the itsie bitty spider before it could ever again go up the water spout.

Ruby was spayed today. Gawd, my worry levels! -- I got all weepy taking her to the vet this morning. She's drugged asleep on the floor at the moment so I took the opportunity to snap a shot of her surgical wound and pretty blue threat holding her feminine viscera in place. Here's hoping she doesn't bother the sutures forcing the need for the stupid cone-over-head solution. I apologize to Ruby for showing one of her nipples here!

A couple of Toronto Gay Pride shots

1) Cellphone pouch
2) Fishnet

Bite me

This guy is about the size of a dime. Hanging out in the nooks and crannies of a cedar rail fence at the brick works marsh ponds.

PS -- you really do have to click on this shot to see the larger version.

Exposed Sexual Bits

Calm amidst the (photographic) noise

This gorgeous bronze, with gold gilding, Tibetan Buddha sits just north of my television.

On Stepping on a Snail

Morning

light the tone
a child paints the sun

a charm of finches
flit a sharper cowardice still

and a small black dog
ambushes through long grass
lolling tongue bumped with grass seeds and hay bugs.

underfoot are sluggish flights to dew
glistening exhaust graduating the way
then porcelain fractures
with a crisp retort

and here at this spot
the day ends before
the sun clears the hills.

breach

Ooops, almost over someone's head on first run into the lake.

Happy Dominion Day

We spent some of it at/in the lake.

Armed

This wee guy with the threatening leg spikes is only a few mm across the wings. Sorry I have no patience for doing macro shots (couldn't be bothered getting the heavy, read steady, tripod or finding the flash to bath him in light) but he flew out of my flowers when I was watering them and landed on the grand green of my watering can inviting a photo shoot, so I grabbed the camera.

Pride shots coming. Hopefully in crisper focus than this.

Happy Pride!

1) The ubiquitous fag flag
2) This bee's hairdo is definitely gay --btw, a different kind of bee than the earlier photo
3) Nothin' gayer than a gay man's balcony garden -- this is the north end of my balcony.

Enjoy Pride -- if parade day can't produce hot, sunny weather then nothing may be able to save this summer!

bee

Funny, I just read that there are no native honey bees in Canada (Ontario?) all having been imported from Europe, and that there are tens of types of native non honey producing bees native to Toronto (most nearing extinction apparently in the great bee disappearance crisis) and voila this never seen by me before bright green bee robbed my balcony flowers of some pollen as I sat having lunch today.

Quality not great -- hand held the macro lens in windy conditions. Having said that, this IS a good time to point out that if you click on the photos on this site you see a larger version.

Photos, the next day

Photos by He Who is Now Landed. Here we have:
1)monster from the deep with stick
2) Wet dog and an old dog
3) Testing the water

Commentary in previous blog.

Portuguese WATER dog

Ruby, I may have mentioned, makes like Chicago abattoir meat hooks are being thunked into her spine when I bathe her, or even simply rinse her feet of the 8 pounds each of mud and gunk they can collect on even the driest of days.

So it was with some trepidation -- despite an episode twice recently where she was happily submerging most of her head in a mud hole created by a leaky sprinkler system in a park -- that we FINALLY took her to Lake Ontario to test her receptiveness to water. I also know of a Portie that hates the water; won't go near the lake no how, no way.

Ruby gave a bit of a start when a wee wave washed over her front feet -- surprised I suppose that the water was coming to her -- but then in she went and in she went even to fetch and return a stick a few times before as is usual in land locked dog parks, we ceased to exist -- certainly as someone to be obeyed.

She did not actually swim, never going that deep, but worry wort daddy wasn't ready for that yet anyway :)

The Cherry Street off leash park, which includes the lake, is wonderbar. Ruby was soon wrestling with dogs (her favourite of all things) both on sand and in the water.

A bath afterward at home means there is only about 3 pounds of fine sand everywhere. I'm thinking whatever force results in sand clinging to long haired dogs so tenaciously might work for NASA in keeping Shuttle tiles stuck where they're supposed to be.

Photos by Who Who Is Now Landed -- oh wait, there are no photos since F'n blogger doesn't work. Again, I ask: does anyone know if one is able to migrate one's files out of blogger?

Still Moving In -- if you can believe it (thus the lack of blogging or any other on line activity)

These three shots were in a Lebanese show as part of IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia).

I believe all of these shots stem from PRIDE Toronto events.