2008: The End of the Beginning.

This year was the year that I started taking pictures far more often, I was very prolific in doing so as well. I was carrying my camera around and snapping a shot here or there as the mood struck me but I had no real aim, method or goal. I was being very amateur in methodology. A picture here or there of scenery, rarely of people though. I was starting to learn the limitations of what my camera could do. I still tried though.

My first real major subject had to be Nietzsche, more on him later, much more. A small little history about him though. Nietzsche is my friend's Susie's dog. I went with her when she picked him out from his litter mates in late April. Of course animals are like children when you try to take pictures of them. They don't really stay still when you need them too. Many of my pictures of him, as you will see, are very blurred.

Well in June of this year I found a direction, or two, or three in my photography. I was downtown on a Saturday afternoon having just dropped off my uniforms at work for the coming week. It was far too early to go home and grab some sleep, Susie was busy with a bunch of friends, and I had my camera with me.

I remembered an idea I had about a year or two before. Downtown Toronto is riddled with sculptures. I wanted to show my sister in law, and brother in China what Toronto has to offer in the way of culture. So knowing of many pieces that were located near to where I was, I started walking and snapping. I went nuts doing this, in a good and bad way. In a span of about 4 hours I had walked from King st. West and University, to King and Yonge, to Bay and Bloor. Meandering back and forth randomly like a drunkard on his way home from the bar late at night. I called it a day and went home to grab some sleep before work.

Well this became an ongoing project. I tried to restrain it to the downtown core, but I kept finding odd little pieces all over the place. A year and a half onwards and I am still finding public artwork in all corners of the city that I move about in. I found a few tools as well in my search. Most pieces had a name of the piece and the sculptures creator's name as well. A little internet search and I found web pages which listed other locations of other pieces of work as well in the downtown area. One web page I used extensively I discovered was a little out of date. Only a few pieces weren't where they were listed or gone altogether.

It wasn't just sculptures I was taking pictures of in the following months. Buildings, skys, clouds, you name it I was just going wild. I was taking the odd picture of Nietzsche as well in all of this. I also tried to take pictures of friends and people. Some times it turned out, most times it didn't.

I have shared my joy and good finds with a lot of friends, in the real world and on the internet. One thing I can say is that I have received a fair bit of praise of some of my pictures. Of course I have mostly shown only the good ones or outstanding ones. As this introspective continues I will also look at a lot, and I do mean lot, of bad ones. Till tomorrow.

PaladinPhil

Layout, Postings, and Proper Direction

Okay, I have spent some thought on how this is going to go down. In a drunken haze I was struck by a moment of clarity. I will be posting my walks and directions I have taken in longish posts with a picture or two to illustrate what I have seen. Since I have over three years of pictures to go through this will take awhile till I arrive at the present. Thankfully I have a fairly good memory about how it happened.

The long posts and musings will be happening Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s. On other days, randomly for the moment I will pull out a few pictures and go into greater detail of what happened or what I was thinking at the time. This will be a neat introspective as well. For some pictures I will even link to a map where they were taken, and any other details to expand on it.

I will be working fairly constantly writing my postings ahead of time so that I can just fire them up and link the pictures. As well, I might have a friend of mine help out who was there with me at the time of some of the pictures. You will see her as well, since she’s in a few of the ones I took over the past two years. So stay tuned and comment freely when you want.
PaladinPhil