Toronto Photo Walks: High Park (Part 4)

The neat thing about the photo walks is that it gives you incentive to try new things with the camera. I started shooting in RAW format this past weekend and on Saturday at the beginning I was also shooting black and white as the preview feature. Neat thing about RAW is that if you shoot black and white you still get the colour images as well. I did have a small problem at the lunch break in downloading my memory card. All I could download were the preview images instead of the RAW files. I figured it out later when I got home and I was happy with some of the pictures I had previously taken. As well, the black and white images added different views to the subjects. So here's a couple of images that are straight black and white, and followed are two images that were uploaded to my Flickr account in both colour and black and white.







Paladin Phil

Toronto Photo Walks: High Park (Part 3)

What to view today, what to view. I didn't really take all that many pictures this time out as I did on my first excursion with the group. This makes it a lot harder to really find a topic some times. Of course I can always go with dogs and the zoo.

Animals are always fun to shoot with a camera. Also at times a lot harder. So anyway, I am all talked out for the day now, enjoy the pictures.







Paladin Phil

Toronto Photo Walks: High Park (part 2)

Sure it's nice walking around shooting the scenery and other things that catch your eye. Every now and then though you stop and look around yourself and start shooting the people. The group is a highly eclectic collection of individuals. I have heard the expression "Herding cats" I just never thought to group photographers in the same collection.

It's not just about equipment, it's how we all see the world around us and stop to document it one picture at a time. As well, goofing around is always the order of the day. Mugging for the camera was also part of the process. Here's a collection of the people that I saw and had fun with.








Yep and here's the mandatory group shot of most of us. Stragglers were not there, but there were more of us around somewhere.



Any way. Great times with great people make for great walks.

Paladin Phil

Toronto Photo Walks: High Park

Well good Monday morning everyone. Yes I am serious. It was a great weekend for going out and hanging with a bunch of photographers again. The light wasn't that great, but the temperatures were marvelous. No bone chilling cold. I guess that means winter is starting to loosen it's grip here now. This past Saturday we were wandering around High Park in Toronto which goes from Keele and Bloor on the North East corner all the way down to Queensway and Ellis on the South West corner. Lots of nature and landscapes, people animals, birds. A wonderful day. I think I will start off with one of the most amazing things that happened that day today. I was using two lenses on Saturday, a 50mm and my zoom lens. Was busy switching back and forth as the opportunity arose. Trust me I needed the zoom for these following shots.

Early on I saw a bunch of chickadees and swapped out the 50mm for the zoom to catch them in the bushes. I managed to catch this one early on.

I didn't see anymore till after lunch though. Man was that a shoot worth showing. Along one of the paths there was a retaining wall where some one had scattered bird seed. So we were walking along and noticed all these chickadees feeding and flying off. Since the few people I was with were a head of the main pack we stopped and started grabbing pictures of them eating the seed.





Now here is where it got interesting and fun. A brave and intrepid photographer grabbed some seed from the fence and held out her hand. These chickadees were very brave and used to the human presence. Within the span of a couple of minutes birds were landing on her hand and eating from her palm. All you could here was the sound of camera shutters snapping away catching the moment.


You had to be fast and have a fast shutter speed cause these guys were fast. This next picture if you look carefully to the left of her hand you will see a gray blur. That was the chickadee taking off at the "high port".


It eventually returned and I grabbed one last photo of it.



Now here's a fun picture. I cautiously moved down the path and waited to see if the chickadee would return for one more shot. I didn't see it but this picture shows what was going on around us at the time.



I can't wait till everyone posts their pictures from this moment online. The different views should be interesting altogther. So I think that will be it for the day. See you all tomorrow.

Paladin Phil

High Park Zoo

I went to a zoo on Saturday...Yeah, Monday morning feeling too lazy to write again. Enjoy the pictures.















Remember, keep looking and eyes open.....



Paladin Phil