Toronto Views Blog

A shout-out to my in-laws...

Anne and Val, parents of The Wife, celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary over the weekend... Congratulations!

The Wife and I are approaching our first anniversary ourselves but it's hard to wrap my head around 40 years together. I imagine that must have included a lot of highs and lows, but now they still seem to love each other and live content, active lives.

Hats off to the both of them and I just hope I'm still kicking around when I'm in their shoes!

Driver's Seat

I took this shot back home in Australia a few years ago and it languished on my hard drive until I spent some time playing around with post-processing to reveal more detail without going overboard.

Pretty happy with the result, I shared it on my Flickr account and with some friends and colleagues who all wanted to know the details of the technique I used.

Then I had a bit of an epiphany; I have something to give back to the vast online photography community that I had drawn a lot from over the years myself.

So after a few false starts with blogging in the past [they're long since deleted and offline thank the digital gods] I've committed myself to posting regular photography how-to's, downloads and other tidbits at litpixels.blogspot.com/.

I hope you'll pop over to take a look and maybe pick up some things to try with your own images.

Downtown Traffic

The province of Ontario has exchange deals with some countries where you can swap your foreign license with a local one. Unfortunately this doesn't apply to Australia so I'm excluded.

Before leaving Australia I got an international license but that was only valid for one year and expired back in April. It's a good thing I live and work downtown and really have very little call to drive so it hasn't been an issue but I knew I had to finally bite the bullet.

The one thing that makes it a bit easier for me is I can prove my driving experience from Australia which means I skip over all the waiting times at the various license grades.

So this morning I took the intermediate driving test so I can now cruise around unaccompanied and on major roads.

The Wife and I have no immediate plans on getting a car. It would sit idle most of the time and not having a car means I have saved quite a lot of money. It sits there in my account and I just stare at it, wondering where it all came from.

Some friends of ours who also live downtown use car sharing services like ZipCar where you get the use of a car when you want it, without the costs when you don't, and that could be our next step of motoring joy.

Chevron

This is the Michael Lee-Chin Cystal at the Roal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Recently competed, it is a striking presense on Bloor St, one of the main East/West passages through the city.

To me it has echoes of the Sydney Opera House and will in time be seen as a modern classic as well.

I only hope it ages well... Even though it's been completed only a short amount of time, when close-up it's already easy to see signs of weathering and grime on the metallic panels.

Given Toronto's tough cycle of winter and summer extremes it could end up looking the worse for wear in a few years.

All the more reason to experience it now in all its glory.

See more shots in my gallery.

Where the Roof Was

For the Canada Day long weekend S and I went to regional Ontario for a bit of a break.

Simcoe Best Western motel was the headquarters with adventures into Turkey Point for painting of family cottage and Port Dover for a foot long hot dog.

Of all things the hilight was finding an excellent abadonded factory to explore and take pictures of, which are here. More pics to be added in coming days.

It was cool and a bit scary and weird. I kept expecting to find somone/thing living in the ruins.

P