February

We start this cold month out by wanting to go out and take photo but also not wanting to do anything due to the constant freeze and thaw weather the city has been having. On the one hand its been nice not having to walk though snow, on the other hand its been very icy these weeks making it challenging to walk in the city yet alone bike though a trail.

Tommy Thompson Park

Finally on the 9th I decided to suck it up and take a trip down to the Spit (Tommy Thompson Park) On this trip, I was testing a few things. First, I brought a two-camera setup: the R6 Mark II as my primary camera with the Tamron 100-400mm attached, and the 90D with the 24-105mm or 100mm macro. The R6 would be for wildlife, while the 90D would be for landscapes, macro, and maybe a timelapse.

This update has become so long that I’ve made it into its own post that you can find here

Photo Shoot for Paul Gordon

I did a photoshoot for a tap dancer!

Paul is a dancer friend of my parents and how this job came up was Paul was talking with my mother and said he was looking for a photographer to do some simple photo of him while he was preforming for a new tap dance video the was recording and my mother said I had recently graduated college and was looking for some opportunity's. we talked on the phone and discussed what he was looking for, it sounded simple enough and I took the job. The shoot location was DC Music located not to fare from Kipling Subway station. Oh and Toronto had just gotten a massive snow storm, it was a bit of a challenge with the TTC I'm just lucky the TTC was up and running.

The photo shoot it self was fairly simple, he had also hired a videographer for the day who was very nice. The only problem I ran into with the session was the smoke/atmosphere that was used to show off the lights. It ended up creating a slight haze in the final image.

Don Valley Walk

To end the month off I took a long winter photo walk though the Don Valley. Again the goal was to test out some strategies same as the trip I took earlier in the month. This one how ever I ran into extra problems and it makes for a lame adventure. For starters I was walking though part of the valley after a large snow fall, meaning I was walking though between 8 and 14 inches of snow. I was hoping to test some audio equipment out, simple recorder and mic just to see what sounds I could pick up. I guess the cold drained my batteries again because I thought I put new ones in but I only got 10 minutes of use from them and I apparently didn't bring any extras with me. That how the day started, every bird I saw was either out of reach or deep in the brush. I would have gotten a great image of three Red Tailed Hawks eating a pigeon in the middle of the trail if I hadn't tripped and face planted in the snow. Yup, and all I saw were the three Hawks starting to fly away to nearby trees and then taking off and flying over the tree line. One must have taken the pigeon with them because all I saw was blood and feathers. After that it was just a slow walk out of the valley.

January