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  • Mary & Perry

    A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting Mary & Perry’s wedding. The bride got ready at the King Edward Hotel and then we took some fun shots walking over to the ceremony – at the Ontario Heritage building. What a cute little secret this building is; I’ve been downtown almost every day for most of my life and I had no idea it existed.

    The bride was as lovely as could be.

    Her maid of honour carried the dress train as we walked towards the hall…

    …pausing for some lovely family photos along the way.

    And then it was time to enter the hall.

    Mary and Perry are very downtown – we even did their engagement photos at Union Station. So after the ceremony we went for a short walk for some couple shots. They make such a good looking couple!

    And I couldn’t end this post without a shot of the cakes. The caterer produced some of the loveliest cakes I’ve ever seen =o)

    Thank you to Mary and Perry for letting me be part of their wedding day – I wish them much happiness on their adventure together!

  • Tired of lightning yet? Because last night was truly spectacular, and I guarantee no photoshop has been used.

    I don’t really have anything else to say here except that I got really lucky, and the shots were worth standing in the rain with a head cold.


    Ok, when you look at these last two you’ll see why I had to promise no photoshop, they look too crazy to be real.

    And last… this one just exploded in front of the camera and it was so bright I’m amazed I got anything at all.

  • Dramatic Weather

    We’ve had some stormy weather here in Toronto – which always makes for good photo ops ;) Unfortunately we weren’t positioned well for getting great lightning pics, but it did make me want to share some of my favourite lightning shots from last year.

    This was a nice capture – I took it from the balcony of our old apartment which used to have a great view of the CN tower. Lightning hits the tower frequently and usually it’s so bright it blows the shot right out – but for this one I used a very fast shutter to capture the bolt.

    And ditto for this one.

    This was taken looking north up Spadina – I’ll bet this storm looked great over the lake.

    This one made me literally jump in the air when I saw the shot – lightning is such a crap shoot, so to speak, you never know if you’ll catch one!

    Tito and I love chasing storms around – for more lightning photos you can check out one of my earliest blog entries from us storm chasing north of Toronto =o)

  • Macro

    I needed a break from all the photography I’ve been processing- so I decided to do some more photography ;o) Fun shots though, instead of ‘working shots’. One of my favourite things to do is macro – you don’t have to go far to take great macro pics. I went no further than a vase of flowers on my table.

    For the techy among you, I shoot with the Canon 7D.

    The Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens.

    And to get even closer, on top of the 100 mm prime I put kenko extension tubes.

    An interesting thing about focusing when you’re shooting this close – no matter how sensitive your focusing ring is, it’s usually easier to just set your lens as close as it will go and then move toward and away from your subject until you have the shot in focus.

    Shooting with a tripod is a good idea, it allows you to have a slower shutter. This water droplet would be tough to take hand-held. It’s fine with just the lens, but lens+kenko makes your camera an unwieldy object.

    An ordinary gerber daisy becomes a fascinating landscape of texture and colour.

    And that’s why I love macro =o)

  • Goodies!!!

    Though the Knitters Frolic is almost a month gone I’ve finally had a chance to post about the goodies I bought! It’s so delicious looking that I can’t bear to keep it all in the stash; it’s all on display on my desk at the moment =o)

    How beautiful is this? 3 skeins of Dye-Version bamboo in the colourway ‘Rustico’ – enough for a shawl sized Clapotis (which is on the needles now, but work is so crazy I’m moving at a snails pace with it, grrr…)

    And then there’s this. At last I have treated myself to a skein of Tanis Fiber Arts‘ Silver label Mulberry Silk in the colourway ‘Teal’. So beautiful it can only go to someone really special so I will be knitting the Citizen shawl for a certain somebody.

    I couldn’t resist this colourway, so I added 2 more skeins of the Teal in Purple Label Cashmere for me. This will be going into the Sugared Violets Shawl. I think it’ll be a perfect match.

    I also couldn’t resist swinging by the Viola booth – Emily makes stunning colourways in a truly remarkable yarn. This beauty is called Radioactive in her Merino Sock weight. It’s destiny is uncertain… perhaps I’ll actually try knitting my first pair of socks.

    Mmmm… Fleece Artist. That’s 800 metres of gorgeous colour. I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with it. I just wanted it ;)

  • Stormy!

    We got a great Victoria Day storm this year – completed with au natural fireworks ;o)

    The normal view:

    The view yesterday:

    I took some close ups too:

    Talk about an angry looking cloud! At this point I needed to take the camera inside because a truly torrential rain was coming in.

    It rained like heck for about 10 minutes, and then ….

    …the sunset shot hard through the space under the clouds…

    …causing a beautiful rainbow. In this case the end of the rainbow was at Queens Quay and Spadina. Maybe it’s just because the condo is still so new and wonderful, but I have to say, I agree.

    The contrast of the dark water and sky with the now brightly lit island was pretty cool.

    And then… a second rainbow!! What does it mean ?!

    :)

  • Knitters Frolic Yarn Bowls

    About a month before the 2011 Knitters Frolic I went into the studio and threw 12 yarn bowls for the Purple Purl’s booth. Though the Frolic is over (and the bowls did extremely well!) I wanted to share a few pics of them here.

    yarn bowls

    My beauties – fresh off the wheel. This is when they’re the most beautiful to me.

    yarn bowls

    And the final bowls being presented to Jenn and Miko at the Purl.

    yarn bowls

    I tried out some different glaze combos

    yarn bowls

    As well as some traditional favourites.

    yarn bowls

    And these ones were my favourites!

  • Oh, the Horror

    This is a tale of redemption and resilience. This is what happened to the hat I thought I’d lost.

    It had fallen into the leaves in the parking lot last fall, and turned up this spring. It had been outdoors, under snow, all winter. It had been rained on. It had been snowed on. It had been run over by our car, for about 3 months before Tito picked it out of the mulch with a look of horror and said ‘Is this yours?’.

    Now, if this was an ordinary hat I’d have called it a loss. But it’s not. For a start, it’s Emily’s yarn. Which doesn’t just make it 100 times more precious to me – but also means that it bounces back from tragedy like nobodies business. Besides, I knitted it specifically to go with my Thermis, and damned if I wasn’t going to get some use out of it. I am also wise in the ways of the restorative powers of Soak. So with this in mind, and a strong cup of tea, I set about operation rescue.

    First I had to get all of the mulch out of it. Yuck. This is not even a third of what I pulled out of that hat. Thankfully it was early enough in the spring that I had only to contend with mulch and not critters.

    Next I rinsed it in warm water a few times and then set it into a warm bath of Soak. I left it there for an hour, emptied and refilled the Soak wash. I had to do this twice more before the water came out perfectly clear. I put the red bottle in because it’s my favourite scent =o)

    And voila! Look at that, it’s perfect. The fibres all fell back into place, the hat smells great and it’s completely clean and wearable. Kudos to Emily and the fine folk at Soak – I will go on to enjoy this hat next winter =o)

  • The Music Garden – Spring is Sprung at last!

    I sound like a broken record, but wow things have been busy!

    There are so many great things I’ve been up to, and I’ve had no time to sort through photos – but hopefully I’ll get through them soon.

    • Had an amazing time shooting Mary and Perry’s wedding – a peek at that to come as soon as the happy couple return from their honeymoon.
    • Mother’s day was amazing, and mom built a gorgeous new piece, as soon as we get some sunny weather I’ll be able to shoot and share her latest!
    • The knitters frolic – I was so burnt out from work that I didn’t get to stay as long as I wanted =o( I did enjoy getting to say hi to some of the great folks that I only ever chat with online, like the incredibally talented Tanis, Julie, Chris and Emily. I also barely managed to churn out 11 yarn bowls in time for the show, which I also need to share pics of because they turned out so well!
    • I spent Saturday at a fundraiser for Japan organized by some of the people in my Karate circle – together we did 108 repeats of one of our forms. I really missed the feeling of waking up early and leaving town for a Karate related event, and it’s always great to see some of the folks from the McMaster dojo. Photos from that to come soon!
    • The big event, Saturday night I was the photographer for Dylan Dias’ latest fashion shoot – done entirely in black light. I also custom designed a piece of black light reactive jewellery for the shoot – now those are some spectacular photos…. coming soon!
    While I crawl through the piles of RAW filling up my drives let me leave you with a few photos of the beautiful Music Garden near my home. Spring has certainly come.
    Cute couple =o)
    Red wing blackbird – he got so close I was having trouble focusing!
    Tito and his new buddy.
    It doesn’t matter how many photos there are of flowers out there – I never get bored of how beautiful they are.
    And last… this photo is 3 images strung together – with the camera on rapid-burst.
    That’s all for now =o) more to come when I’ve done some catching up!

  • Mi Casa

    I’ve been MIA for a week working on putting together my kickass new condo. It took a lot, but I’m there, I’m in love and here are pics =o)

    The view, one of my favourite things about this place.

    Aaand – the condo. I’m proud to say I designed it from scratch, almost everything is new and I did it for under $5000. It accomodates everything Tito and I love to do while still making a small condo feel calm, open and comfortable.

    • Couch – easily the most expensive thing. Pavillion on Queen West – $1600
    • Accent chair – Pier 1 – $299
    • Rug – IKEA – $29
    • Mirror – Pier 1 – $200
    • Accent table – got from an antique store that was going out of business for $400
    • Dining table and chairs – IKEA – $475
    • Expedit bookshelf – IKEA – $229 for the big one, $69 for the narrow one by the easel.
    The bookshelf is the realm of organized clutter.
    The Tito-zone
    The bedroom – bright and airy with a view that’s heaven to wake up to.
    My knitting/reading/guitar playing corner
    Swift table and working area
    Left to right – Tito, my uncle Len and my dad enjoying the balcony.
    There it is! My own sweet little piece of downtown Toronto. It’s been a rough year, but totally worth it =o)