BURNING COALS

While I was at the cottage over the holidays, I took this closeup of the fire burning in the wood oven.

BRICKWORKS KILN [HDR]

This is another picture from the Toronto Brick Works, where I took three of the same pictures at different shutter speeds and merged them using Photoshop's HDR capabilities.

TITAN

Titan is a large German Shepherd that weighs about 100lbs. He's a big dog, but don't let his bark mislead you. Although it will make someone think twice about coming near the house, he is more timid than the average chipmunk.

DINNER TIME

For the last few weeks, I have been starting to take some pictures of dinner time... lol. I found that the lighting plays a big factor in the mood of the shot. In this case, I decided to take the picture without a flash and only use the light from the candles in the dimly lit room.

TORONTO BRICKWORKS

Another picture of an abandoned room at the Toronto Brick Works. This one is of a few pipes that were lying there untouched for years.

CONVECTION FAN

This photo was also taken over the holidays while I was at the cottage. The photo is of a convection powered fan that sits on a fireplace, or wood burning oven. Within a few minutes of starting up the fire and getting it going, it starts turning and sends some the heat further into the room. It's such a great idea, so I decided to take a picture of it in action.

COTTAGE FIREPLACE

Nothing beats the warm crackling sound of a fire over the holidays. I spent a few days up at the cottage in Penetanguishine last week and had one burning the whole time I was there.

AIR CANADA CENTER

This is a recent picture of the ACC while the Raptors were playing. I was downtown during this foggy November evening, and took a few random shots.

THE WINDOW

This obviously is an image that was altered using Photoshop. I made everything inside fake and looking out to the real world...

THE END OF THE LINE

This is another shot taken at the Toronto Brickworks. There were many of these 'tunnels' located here, but I'm not really sure what they were used for. Perhaps a storage area that they would wheel in newly made bricks from the kiln? Anyways, an interesting spot nevertheless.

BRICKWORKS GRAFFITI

This photo was taken on a recent outing at the Toronto Brick Works. An abandoned place that is brimming with photo opportunities.

FUTBOL

These are a couple of shots that I took this past weekend from a soccer tournament I was in. Our team did fairly well, but failed to take home the trophy after losing in the semi-finals. It was the first time that I used my 75-300mm lens for action shots, so it took a little while for me to get the focusing right. I also got quite a few blurry shots because I forgot to change the ISO to a faster speed at first. :S

HEINEKEN II

Just playing around with depth of field settings over the labour day long weekend... Now that I am saving up for a down payment on a house, I need to take advantage of all the frugal activities.. :p

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

Sorry, it has been a little while since my last post... I will continue with my Eurotrip soon. Just thought I would post one of my recent pictures that I edited from Paris, France. Ahhhh... The wonders of Photoshop.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

After finally making my way to the airport in Prestwick, I had a short flight to Brussels, the so called "Capital of Europe". It is known as this because the Head Offices of the European Union and NATO are both located here along with many other international organizations. I arrived to a pretty dull and overcast day in Charleroi, located about 45 min from the Bruxelles Midi train station and headed towards my friend Torben's flat. Finally around 5:30PM local time and after 17 hrs of plane, bus, train, bus, plane, bus, train... I got there... Jagshemash!! lol. I watched a bit of the England vs. Trinidad game before I had a shower.. then put on some fresh clothes and I was ready to go again.. :) I went out to La Terrasse for dinner with Torb and Anna, his room mate. It's located right at the Merode subway stop and is really nice place with excellent food and lots of beer. Needless to say, after a few pints we headed to a bar called Delirium where they happened to have a live band playing. It was a small place that has plates covering the entire ceiling... It was awesome, and I forgot to mention that they serve 2500 different types of beer there and promise over 2000 in stock at all times!! Thats impressive.. :) I tried all kinds of different beer, some that I had never even heard of before. Some different lagers, pilsners and even strawberry beer. Anyways, the next day I slept in a little.. lol.. and when I woke up I took the picture of the view from their window. I was leaving for London later in the afternoon, but managed to head down to the Grand'Platz for an hour to see whats regarded as one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. They also happened to have a garden of lavender growing in the middle of the square for some reason that they were burning in an oven. As for the random dog picture on the sidewalk, I haven't been able to figure that one out yet.. lol. If anyone has any ideas.. please let me know!! haha. Anyways, after walking around for a bit, I had to hurry back to meet Torb so we could head to the train station and pick up our tickets to London for the weekend. Then it was off to London on a high speed train through the Channel Tunnel....

PAISLEY, SCOTLAND

I recently got back from an amazing 16 day trip through Europe covering six different countries. I'll be posting many pictures over the next few weeks from cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Brussels, but these first three are from a small Scottish town called Paisley. I started my trip flying from Toronto Pearson on June 14th and arrived the next morning at Glasgow International after a 6 hr flight and 5 hr time difference. I had a connecting flight to catch to Brussels in a few hours and after wandering around the Glasgow airport for a while looking for the RyanAir check-in counter, I finally found out that it was at a completely different airport that was over an hour away in Prestwick :s The discount airlines don't tell you this.. they list the airport as Glasgow Prestwick (It happens to be two different cities) lol.. I guess that's what you get for a $28 flight. I had to take a bus and a train to get there.. so luckily I had a 4 hr layover :) Anyways, it was a beautiful morning so I stopped off in Paisley for an hour and walked around for a bit. It was around 7:45 in the morning when I took these and my trip was just beginning....

BLUE EYES

This is a picture of my sister Fiona's eye that I took with my new 300mm zoom lens. I made it black and white and used photoshop to leave her natural eye colour.

CURIOUS PEPPER

TWENTY AFTER SIX

This is a clock located on Main St. in Unionville, Ont. This is a really nice area with old mills, churches and street-front cafes. Its atmosphere attracts tons of tourists from all around each year and is a great way to spend a sunday afternoon.

PNC PARK

I was in Pittsburgh last week for a few days and took this picture of PNC Park, the Pirates' home field. They played earlier that night, so the lights were all still on which was cool. The team is terrible, but at least they have a nice ball park :P

CALEDON BADLANDS

This picture was taken in Cheltenham on the S/E corner of Peel and Chinguacousy Roads. Badlands are rare in Ontario and are basically clay hills, devoid of vegetation and soil. They also have a dark red colour due to high iron oxide levels. If you ever decide to go there, make sure not to wear white shoes.. lol

FORKS OF THE CREDIT

These were taken at the Forks of the Credit just north of Brampton on Hwy 10. The credit river flows through a very small town here called Belfountain. A very cool place to go hiking too as it is a part of the Bruce Trail.

BOSOX

This is just a picture of my hat that I edited in Photoshop... Wow, I'm a geek :P Anyways, I also just booked my flight to Europe today. I can't wait.. spending some time in Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and Germany for the World Cup. Did I mention Paris.. lol.. Looking forward to meeting you there Steph.. :)

TEDDY

This is a picture that Steph took of her teddy bear yesterday. I love the blurry look with the contrast of the red scarf. What an awesome weekend :)

GRAFFITI 101

This image was taken at an abandoned house in King City. It seems like some kids found this place as a hangout and there was random graffiti throughout the rooms.

TREE AT DUSK

This picture was taken in Caledon as the sun had just set behind me. I used a longer exposure time to capture as much light as I could and the glass-like water offered an almost perfect reflection. I decided to use a black and white image as the original colours were not that exciting.

SECRETS

I just recently purchased a new camera with the advice of Dave, a friend at work. He has been getting into photography for the last couple of years and has quite the collection of equipment now. After seeing some of the pictures on his blog and screensavers at work, I decided to take the plunge and get my first SLR camera. I picked up a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT and was amazed at the quality of the pictures that it produces. This picture was taken a couple of days after getting the camera of an ornament in my room.

SCOTTY BOY

Just testing out the new blog with a picture of my dog Scotty...