Teaser.

Might put something together later on or definitely tomorrow. Got distracted last night and still recovering. Hey, tis the season right?

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

Sunsets

Feeling lazy about writing once again. After all it is Friday. Time for some sunset pictures. Enjoy.






Walk on my friends, walk on.

Paladin Phil

Public Sculpture: Front Street

I know I talked about Wellington and Front street a little while ago. There is a bit more hanging out a little further east. Let's say from York to Yonge along Front. When I first started my "little" project over a year and a half ago I didn't expect to find so many objects. This is one area that showed the errors of my ways.

Let's start off with York and Front street, more specifically the south west corner.

The piece is called "Triad", fairly tall piece just towering over the intersection. Also rather difficult to get a good shot of it. One way you are practically in the York intersection, other ways there are people and stuff in the way. I originally tried taking a couple of pictures at night, the less said about that the better.
Moving east it gets rather busy with artwork. In the middle of Front street between the "Royal York" hotel and Union Station there's one of those street islands. It's filled with trees, flowers and ummm "Sunflower"?

Steel pieces rusting in the weather. I sometimes wonder what the life span is on such works of art. It's one of those pieces you can actually miss if you are in a rush.

In front of Union Station there's a piece called "Monument to Multiculturalism". Don't get me started on that ideology. It's a nice piece to look at though. At the moment there's a lot of work going on in front of Union Station. The last time I was in the area a couple of weeks ago the area it was located was blocked off and boarded off. The statue wasn't in evidence. I hope it's in storage and will return to it's place of display.

I think I have covered enough for the moment. More on this area to show off. Or you could walk on down there yourself and see.

Paladin Phil

Older Buildings

Know what? I am feeling lazy today. Let's just look at some old buildings and classic architecture.





Seven pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Giving myself a safe estimate and half for writing style, 3500 words is good for today. Off for a walk.

Paladin Phil

Graffiti: Good? Bad? Ugly?

You see a lot of graffiti in Toronto. I know it's not as bad as some American cities. In fact I have had some American friends ask me if it's done for t.v. shows or movies that are filmed here. The sad answer to that is no. There are a lot of people that feel the need to leave their mark every where. And in some cases I do mean that. I have taken a few pictures here and there of what some of them do. Most of the time I believe that the "tags" are ugly and have no artistic value what-so-ever.

So we'll start with the bad and ugly. With quite a few low level buildings all over the city you will find the vandals mark on walls that are a level or two above an adjacent roof.

I think it's pointless. Most people don't look up anyway. So what do they get out of it? The worst part is that most businesses have to pay to get it removed or covered up. Both aren't cheap prospects either. Especially if you leave it you can be fined huge by the city. Doesn't matter that the business owner had no say in the tagging in the first place.

Downtown it can be even crazier. All sorts of buildings, alley's, not to mention vehicles(don't have any pictures of those unfortunately). Most is garbage and dreck.


Remember though, there is always an exception to every rule. The exception for this is a place called Graffiti Alley. It's located south of Queen street and runs from Portland St. to Spadina Ave. A lot of interesting artwork, colour, and design. There's so much to select from that I took over the weekend. I will just show a small sample of the ones that aren't marred or re-tagged.

Actually I will leave the rest for times when I have nothing to write. Just one final picture though. I was in the neighbourhood last September(2008) where I took the fourth picture. I was looking through my stash and realized that I had taken another picture from almost the same spot. This time I was using my zoom lens and got a closer shot. I thought that I had mis-filed it somehow when uploading.

Only reason I know it's two different times is the exif data, and the realty sign on the wall. Any way, that's it for today. Enough for the walking. Time to rest these shank mares.
Paladin Phil

Downtown, Buildings and Setting Sunlight

Nothing to really say today. I do have a bunch of pictures that are worth seeing....






Enjoy....