Last weekend was my second Toronto Photo Marathon, and was even more fun than the first somehow. I think I was just way more relaxed about it, and my approach was different. Last year, we just wandered around town looking for pictures for each subject, whereas this time I spent a lot more time just figuring out ahead of time what I would do for each one, and it turned out to be more fun. I even experimented with
painting with light! That is something I will definitely do something more of. I also rented an awesome 17-40 mm lens for the weekend which turned out to be VERY VERY useful. Anyway, here were the topics, and what I took for each one. If you have any interesting ideas for them, I would be more than happy to try them again! :-D
1) Downtown
- Wide angle of tall buildings reaching to the sky in the financial district
2) Food
- A photo of RoadRash with LOTS of fries in his mouth and a crazy look
3) Glorious Winter
- Skaters at Nathan Phillips Square anticipating the end of the Zamboni's ice cleaning (with zamboni in the picture, and city hall in the background, and the NPS arches overhead)
4) Movement
- city hall again, with skaters zooming by (long exposure)
5) Self-Sustainable
- A picture of Newton's Balls!
6) Solidarity
- I had 5 friends link hands tight in a small circle, and I was on the ground pointing the camera upwards...I think it'll look cool, with the super wide angle lens I was using.
7) Family
- I put 5 toothbrushes in a cup radiating outwards in a cup, and took a photo of them from straight above...I think it'll look kinda neat.
8) Sensuality
- this one was a challenge...I ended up asking a pretty girl in a coffee shop to sip a nice cup of cappuccino as if she were really enjoying it, and shot in really close on the drink and her lower face, with nice lighting from the window.
9) Darkness
- this was my light painting experiment, I went into my dark bathroom, and opened up the shutter, with a red filter on. I turned my head in profile to the camera, and had my mom light up the opposite side of my face with a a flashlight, in an attempt to get just the silhouette of my face, with the rest of the photo black.
10) Detail
- for christmas I got this glass paperweight with a skier in bubbles inside it, and I put it in the sun so that it was creating nice light beams on a nice red felt bench, and the bubbles were sparkling...using my macro lens of course.
11) Global warming
- I bought an inflatable globe, and had my mom hold it, and one of those BBQ lighters lit underneath. In retrospect i should have stayed with my original idea of putting a scarf and a toque on the globe and taken a picture of that, I think it would have been funnier. I may still take that photo!
12) Good Idea
- Initially I was going to take a picture of the 'We Recycle' sign on the edge of a recycling box, but at the last minute I forgot and just took a picture of the yellow CBN bike rack...the bike rack that belongs to the free yellow bicycles you could get just to ride around for a day for free. It was a good idea that is unfortunately now defunct.
Anyway, it would be fun to continue with these themes and take more. In particular I think I'm going to play around with global warming for a bit.
I also went over the weekend to Le Select Bistro, for dinner with my school friends. It was really good! The duck was yummy as were the beans and potatoes. The soup was decent. The Creme Brulee was very nice, light with the perfect amount of carbonized sugar on the top, and not overpoweringly flavoured. The wine was a Malbec from somewhere in South America, and was really good.
