On Saturday, I walked around Buskerfest. Here are some random photos of things I saw:
Photography
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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Tall Ships Hamilton
Since we sort of failed at finding the ships last weekend, we decided to go see them in Hamilton. We saw them this time as they were all settled along Hamilton’s Pier 8.
The area is much smaller than Toronto’s Harbourfront so we found all the booths full of historical 1812 paraphernalia as well. Oh, and delicious ribs.
Flowers Flowers Flowers
Summer means tons of beautiful flowers are in bloom. Here are a few from my yard and local parks.
Weekend at the Harbourfront & Toronto Island
On Sunday, our family went down to the Harbourfront Centre to check out the Tall Ships at the Redpath Waterfront Festival. Teddy also came with us. Either we thought the boats looked the same as regular boats, or we were on the wrong side of Queens Quay but we couldn’t find too many to take photos of.
Since we had the dog with us we ventured into Paws Way. Inside was a cafe where you could share your food with your pet, a store and walls full of random beloved pet stories. To play in with the Tall Ships theme, in the event/activity room there were dog breeds that sailors used to bring on ships.
Since we seemed to fail at finding boats, we decided to go the island. It was somewhat cloudy so the sky in photos looked a bit boring.
Oh and here is Teddy checking out girls
and his reaction:
Camera Lens Mug
For Father’s Day I bought dad a mug that looks exactly like Canon’s 24-105mm lens. I placed my order on eBay but noticed that it was shipped from xcsource.com, so you should check them out if you want your own.
The details of the replica are pretty astounding. The AF and IS buttons actually move. For an extra buck or two you can actually have it say “Canon” where it is supposed to, I just didn’t realize it when I ordered.
We don’t actually have the 24-105 lens, so above is a photo next to the 24-70mm. Close enough eh? Hope dad doesn’t accidentally pour coffee in his real lenses!
Jack Darling Memorial Park
On Sunday I took Teddy to Jack Darling Memorial Park. The huge park by the lake also had a huge off-leash dog park. Teddy was pretty overwhelmed by all the other dogs but he did manage to make a friend.
Woofstock 2013
Yesterday I took Teddy to Woofstock for the second time. His birthday (which also happened to be yesterday) always falls close to the festival so it doubles as a celebration, complete with all the goodies!
There’s a dog version of everything you can imagine out there somewhere, including ice cream. Me and my sister actually tried some dog ice-cream ourselves (not pictured). Don’t worry, it was just a sugar-free vanilla, so perfectly human edible. Honestly, it was one of the best vanilla ice-creams I have ever had.
Dog cookies never cease to look delicious.
It’s Batman and Robin!
These pups are all blinged out.
More random photos from the festival:
Tiana Feng 