At the first edition of this year’s Long Winter, I took part in the Disposable Project. It’s an on-going interactive installation that aims to re-purpose everyday forgotten and thrown-away items. Participants were encouraged to draw on coffee cups in hopes of provoking dialogues for consumption. On my cup, I doodled me thinking about a burger.
Art
Niagara Falls in Autumn
We had a guest stay at our house from Chicago over the weekend. What do you do when you have guests from another country? Take them to Niagara Falls. I made a vlog of the day and check out some photos below! The full set is available on Flickr.
Taken with my GoPro Hero 3+ Black:
Taken with my Canon 60D:
Halton Hills Conservation Area
On Monday, the weather was still nice so we headed up to the Halton Hills Conservation areas and hiked in a few of the parks. Check out my Vlog of the adventure and photos below.
Cheltenham Badlands & Forks of the Credit Provincial Park
My search for fall scenery led us to the Caledon area. We visited Cheltenham Badlands, a small series of soil erosions which turned into beautiful scenery and also Forks of the Credits Provincial Park for a mid-afternoon hike. Check out my video log of the day and some photos below.
Shoe Museum, Weird Stuff and More at Nuit Blanche
On Saturday, I attended Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche, the all-night art event in Toronto. I’ve been a couple of times in the past few years but never into any of the museums. This year, I checked out the Bata Shoe Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario along with the weird Nuit Blanche exclusive exhibitions. Here are some of my favourite photos from the night.
My full Nuit Blanche set can be seen on Flickr.
The Beginning of Fall
Fall is upon us. The weather might still be warm, but the trees are already turning colours. Here are some photos shot at a local park.
I also saw this playground and decided to give it a spooky feel.
Buskerfest 2013
On Saturday, I walked around Buskerfest. Here are some random photos of things I saw:
A Day at the Zoo
On Thursday, my family and I went to the zoo. At least 10 years had passed, since I’ve last been. It was a lot bigger than I remembered as a child. Here are some of my favourite photos from the day! My full zoo gallery can be seen on Flickr.
The Konstruktor- A DIY 35mm SLR
I first learned of the Konstruktor’s existence via Laughing Squid. The idea of a DIY camera was so cool so I ordered myself one from Lomography.
It’s basically like the IKEA version of a camera. The camera light chamber comes premade but there are instructions on how to build it if you ever feel like taking it apart. The body is plastic and most of the parts you have to twist from the plastic moulding. It also came with a screwdriver and stickers for customers to add their own personalizations.
The box claims that the camera can be built in 1-2 hours. However, it took me 15 minutes to distinguish the screws the first time I built it.
The instructions for the most part are pretty clear. The diagrams are easy to follow but must be looked at carefully. The first time I missed an arrow pointing from end of a spring to a little nook.
The reason I had trouble building it the first time was a defective light chamber. The springs were not strong enough to activate the shutter. I spent 6 hours thinking I built it wrong before considering that it was defective. Luckily Toronto has a Lomography store and I ended up exchanging it. It was a little bit of a hassle to do that though because in-store they claim their inventory doesn’t have any affiliation with the online (even if it was shipped from there).
Anyways, the second time around I built it in 45 minutes.
Here is the camera decorated! I was a bit sticker happy…
I’ve never really owned an analogue camera so the thought of not being able to see photos until later is so nerve racking. I bought some ISO 800 film from Lomography but right now I’m purposely experimenting with (unopened) expired film I found around the house. I made a couple of film winding mistakes in the beginning so it will be interesting to see how those turn out. I’m hoping that having to think more about composition will make me a better overall photographer!
Despite the weird mishap, I do recommend the Konstruktor if you’re interested at learning how cameras work. The top placement of the viewfinder is a cool experience. I can’t vouch for the quality of photos though because I have no idea yet! Don’t worry. I’ll definitely be posting some scans when I get the film developed.
Ate My Way Through the Harbourfront Centre
To celebrate Canada’s birth I headed down to the Harbourfront Centre, mainly to eat bacon.
For $7, Barque Smokehouse offered a plate of bacon samplers. There was a mini smoked pork belly with pineapple skewer, peameal bacon taco, a smoked tofu with lettuce, bacon wrapped sausage, nachos and lastly a root beer float with candied bacon. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. It was too bite size to really give you a bacony kick. I think I would have preferred to pay more to have a full-sized version of each of these things made in less of a rush.
Luckily, there was plenty to eat at The Harbourfront Centre. There were many vendors around and some worldly offerings at the World Cafe. Maybe since it was Canada’s Day, two corners were occupied by our country.
A beaver tail felt like an obvious choice considering it was Canada’s birthday. In case my American readers don’t know, it is deep fried dough (sort of like a churro or fountain cake) in the shape of a beaver tail and served with a variety of yummy toppings. They are usually quite rare in city and are mainly found out East or at ski resorts. Anyway we chose a light offering of apple cinnamon.
To wash it down, I had a fruity alcoholic drink called Krazy Kool-Aid. It was sweet and refreshing despite not having any actual Kool-Aid. We enjoyed some tunes from The Toronto Mambo Project as we enjoyed our drinks.
We returned a little later to the World Cafe to sample the other Canadian offering Portobello Burger which had various vegetarian dishes on the menu. We ordered the Tasty Tacos and the Portobello Burger. The tacos had black beans & garbanzo beans, sauteed in onions and cooked in a tomato sauce. It was served in hard corn tostados with a traditional Mexican salsa and topped off with an old cheddar cheese. The cilantro was generous and even though it was a hard shell taco, it wasn’t messy at all. The portobello burger was served on a whole grain Ciabatta bun. It contained chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion, sweet red peppers, and goat cheese melted into a portobello mushroom cap. For a vegetarian burger, we ate it before remembering to take a photo of it.
When we were not eating, we explored some of what Harbourfront Centre had to offer. We were quite entertained by some hilarious karaoke rap. I totally should have busted out some Eminem but I thought that was not clean enough for the diverse audience. We ventured into the buildings to see what was in them and discovered an Architectural gallery as well as another with Inuit art. At Paws Way they celebrated Canada’s Day with a presentation of Canadian dogs and cats. Here are some random photos:
Harbourfront Centre’s fireworks had happened on Sunday so I headed home to see some with dad at Mississauga Celebration Square.
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