Europe 2006 - London to Copenhagen

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

EasyJet is about as no frills an airline as you could possibly imagine. No movies, no free food or drinks. They don't even bother assigning you seats! Luckily I was able to push and shove my way ahead of the pack and grabbed a window seat.

I'm pretty happy with this window shot. I've found that one of the tricks is to shoot as early in the flight as possible. The longer you stay at high altitudes, the more frost builds up. That's my tip of the week ;)

Europe 2006 - London - Stansted Airport

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

After dropping of Christine's incredibly heavy extra bag at my buddy Dan Snaith's house (aka Caribou... that's right, I'm name dropping!), it was time to briefly say goodbye to London and head to Copenhagen.

We flew out of Stansted Airport, which was about a 45 minutes train ride from downtown London. After checking in, we had a good 2 hours to kill before boarding out EasyJet flight...

So I broke out the camera, polarizer and captured some shots which I turned into this HDR.

Distillery District @ Night

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

Way back in February I found myself down at the Distillery District for some video game art show. I got to play me some XBox 360, then got borred and when shooting.

After about 15 mintues extreme hypothermia and front bite started to set in, but I managed to get a few decent hand held shots. I'd love to go back with a trip this summer.

Anyways, enjoy!

First Pic with Nokia 6682

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

I just got me a Nokia 6682!

The geek in me is gitty with joy over this new toy!

The music lover in me is hyped about the built in mp3 player.

The photographer in me is reveling in always having a camera at my side.

And to my surprise, it actually takes decent pics! Check out my first snap with the new Nokia 6682.

The Sky Is Angry

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

A violent storm rolled through Toronto last night... The High Park areas lost power for 9 hours. My first act upon the return of the sweet AC was to upload this photo... which also happens to be my first photo posted with my band spank'n new Nikon D200 + Sigma 10-20mm.

My Account of the Storm, as posted on BlogTO:

"I was nearly hit by lighting last night as the bolt struck less than 100m from where I stood. There was a flash, a fierce crack, a tingling in my feet and then a weird rubber band noise as the electrical grid went down, all in less than a second. The speed at which the storm overtook the area was astounding. Less than 5 minutes before the lighting and violent gusts of wind, I was playing tennis under a clear sky.

The power was out in the High Park / Roncesvalles area for over 8 hours, and my nerves were shaken for at least that long. If you have a good storm story, please share."

Europe 2006 - London - Camden Market

I fuck'n love Camden Market. I'd go their every Sunday if I lived in London. The sheer magnitude of its flowing chaos blows my mind.

Great shopping. So many unique things to buy! Great people watching! I even found me a drum circle and a Japanese girl straight out of Harajuku.

The food areas are a bit much. Everyone yelling at you and shoving food in your face. It's really cheap, but you definitely get what you pay for... and then get it again about 45 minutes later.

The last two pictures on the right are two of my favorites from my European vacation. Both are HDR photos produces with slightly different exposure bracketing, and slight different post processing. Neither are quite perfect, but close enough to what I was going for. I'd really love some feedback from you guys as to which one you prefer. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

Europe 2006 - London - London Eye

We should have known from the ominous clouds that we were pushing our luck going on the London Eye... but come on, it's London, it's always cloudy!

Unfortunately for us, these clouds were determined to ruin our view of London. Less than 2 minutes into the ride the rain started.

Oh well. The view was still spectacular, but the photos could have been much better. I spent most of the ride looking for gaps between the streaks of water from the freshly falling rain.

Quite expensive (what isn't in London), but well worth it.

Europe 2006 - London - Big Ben & Underground

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

It might be a cheesy touristy shot, but I love it. So many iconic symbols of England in one shot: Big Ben, the Underground, cloudy skies, and a pink mini cab! Awesome.

Europe 2006 - London - Notting Hill Tube Station

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

The tube stations in London are so amazing! So old, so grand, so unique... It seriously puts the TTC to shame.

I could literally spend a year of my life photographing the London Underground... maybe I will one day.

Europe 2006 - London - Carnaby St

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

This year I decided to blow all 3 weeks of my vacation time at once with a grandiose 3 week adventure through Europe. My partner in crime was my friend Christine, on her way back from South Africa...

There are a few hundred photos already online, and I'm just finishing up the last 50 or so from Prague. I'll be writing up a post or two about each city I visited so stay tuned!

Our first stop was London, England. Thanks to far too many business trips, I amassed a massive amount of Marriot reward points, which were blown on 3 nights at a fancy hotel near Oxford station.

After struggling through our jetlag, Christine and I headed down to Carnaby St for a little window shopping. Definitely one of my favorite areas of London! It reminded me of Queen St. W in Toronto. I bought a salmon coloured shirt. It's a tough tough shirt. Seriously.

World Cup

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

Unless you've been living in a closet, by now you know Italy won the World Cup, and not to insult Zidane's mother.

After the final penalty kick I headed over to College St. to check out the celebrations. It was no St. Claire West, but it was certainly wild enough for my liking.

New York City

I've been to NYC four times now, and the sheer scale and energy of the city still wows me each time I'm there. Beyond that, it's an amazing city for photography! I'd never be without my camera if I lived there..

My Sunday in NYC was spending wondering Washington Square Park, SOHO and Times Square at night. The skulls are from a store called Evolution on Spring St.

Brooklyn's North American Invitational Kickball Tournament

Last weekend Brooklyn Kickball held their first ever North American Invitational kickball tournament. We might not have brought home the championship, but we won a few games, made a lot of friends and definitely proved that Toronto can kick it!

Thanks to our wonderful organizers Andrew & Sarah, Toronto made an epic entrance to the Brooklyn fields. The Canadian flag, matching uniforms (thanks to American Apparel) and a rather boisterous rendition of Oh Canada were all it took to make a few hundred Americans stop in their tracks and jointly say "check out Canada!".

Toronto fielded two teams, Toronto 1 and Toronto 2... Also known as the Rough Riders! Toronto 2 ran into some, shall we say, technical difficulties in the way of Brooklyn and DC's finest. So we'll just brush over those loses and move on to Toronto 1.

Toronto 1 came out of the gate strong with a near perfect defeat of Providence by a score of 7-0! Props to the Providence kids! They were good sports and kept the game light (Even if they did give everyone pink eye).

Toronto 1's second game was against some thugs from DC called the D-Block. These guys could learn a thing or two about chilling the fuck out and playing by the rules. We beat these losers 5-4, but thanks to some crafty cheating, only came away with an official tie. It probably didn't help that our referees were hammered at this point...

On a personal note, kicking a homerun against DC was one of the highlights of my weekend.

Lastly we faced Brooklyn 3, and, well, it didn't go so good... We were all a little too tired and sun stroked at this point to put up a good fight. Oh well. It hardly hampered what was without a doubt one of the highlights of my summer!

Brooklyn Bound

The drive from Toronto to Brooklyn / NYC was full of adventure. Things started off sketchy with a MacGyver style reattachment of the rear view mirror involving massive amounts of duck tape and superglue... unfortunately the sun was a little too hot, the glue melted, and we were rear-view-mirror-less...

As if Christina's 10 year old Blazer wasn't having enough issues with the mirror, a flying piece of shredded tire took out her right turn signal just outside of Toronto...

But alas we made it!

We decided to take a detour through Times Square which was both mesmerising and horrifying! Christina, get off your cell phone! OMG! AHHHHH!