Capt Mondo's Photo Blog

Was downtown in the afternoon, and I since I had my telephoto with me I shot this pic of Toronto’s Old City Hall clock face.

Gargoyle and Clock Faces on Old Toronto City Hall

Took a few panoramic shots this morning while down at the beach, and this was my favourite:

Long Contrail Over the Beach

The original is much, much larger, since it is composed of several shots stitched together.

This year I discovered that there was going to be a “pumpkin parade” in the east of the city, much closer to where we live than in Sorauren Park in the West End of Toronto where we have gone in the past.

This was the second annual event for East Lynn, and while the park is smaller than Sorauren there was a very good turnout and so plenty of Jack-o’-lanterns to see. I brought along my camera with it’s fastest lens and a tripod.

There was nothing as spectacular as the “pumpkin killer” or “pumpkin crocodile” that we saw at last year’s pumpkin parade in the West End, but there were a few stand-out carved jack-o-lanterns here too, so as this one of a bat which had been carved into the pumpkin:

East Lynn Park Pumpkin Parade: Carved Bat

Another one which got a lot of notice was this “Jack-O-Layton”, a tribute to the late Jack Layton:

East Lynn Park Pumpkin Parade: Jack-O-Layton

Here’s a selection of some of the other carved pumpkins that were on display:

Was walking down by Woodbine Beach and saw a few other birds instead of just the usual run-of-the-mill flock of Mallard ducks: a juvenile Green Heron Black-crowned Night Heron and a Brown Creeper. I had my f/2 200mm lens with me thankfully, and managed to get a few nice shots in.

Here’s a shot of the Heron in the water hunting for small fish:

Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron

And here he (she?) is flying away after getting spooked by my camera’s shutter:

Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron Flying Away

And just a few meters away from that last shot I saw something flitting and “creeping” up a nearby tree. It was a Brown Creeper. It didn’t seem too bothered by me and allowed me to take a bunch of photos. It moves quickly with it makes its way up a tree, so despite the fast lens I only had a few shots where it wasn’t a white-speckled brown blur. Here are a couple of the shots I took of it:

Brown Tree Creeper 1

Brown Creeper 2

Here are some shots of the initial leaders of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon as they were coming into The Beaches in the east end of Toronto. Here is a selection of shots:

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Mungara at the Front of the Pack Entering The Beaches 2

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Eric and Dylan

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Pacer and Yal

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Dibaba Coming into The Beaches

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Pacer, Abeyo and Chepkemoi Leaving the Beaches

Here’s a gallery of everything I processed, in the order I shot them:

Took the girls down to see some of this year’s Nuit Blanche late last night. We headed down to Nathan Phillips Square and basically roamed around the area and saw (and heard) what we could see.

Here’s a couple of my favorite shots from the evening:

Nuit Blanche: Cardiac Combustion Chamber 1

While you can’t really see it in this shot so much, the drummer was playing within an “exploded” car (think the technical drawing version of “exploded”), with all of its parts suspended by wires, providing enough space for the percussion equipment.

Was annoyed by another photographer who waded in past the crowd barrier and took close-up shots of the drummer. In so doing he managed to become a largely blobby blur in most of my shots, and worse, encouraged others to do the same. So this shot and one other were the best I could do.

I also like this shot of a kid pointing at something while visiting the sound+light display that accompanied the Chevy Volt ad display:

Nuit Blanche: Volt Promo Tent 1

Many more shots were taken, the rest of which you can see below:

Took the dog for a walk while on an errand to pick up some prints from the local camera store when the sun broke through the clouds for a few minutes, lighting up the flowers in Kew Gardens. For some reason a small flock of sparrows were interested in some lily flowers, so I started taking a few pictures.

While taking pics and focusing on a sparrow near the top of one of the flowers, another sparrow came fluttering in. I didn’t have the shutter setting on fast enough to freeze the flight of the landing sparrow, but the effect still looks cool:

Sparrow Landing on a Lily Flower

And here is that same sparrow perched on the plant:

Sparrow on a Lily Flower

Vanessa joined me for a trip downtown to see this year’s Word on the Street festival in Queen’s Park circle. Gotta love a city that devotes a day-long festival to all things book-ish. 😉

Word on the Street: Robert J. Sawyer Autographing a Book for a Fan

Word on the Street: Kids Checking Out Graphic Novels

Word on the Street: More Nouns!

A sure sign of Fall: the Sumac leaves turning in Woodbine Park:

Red Sumach Branch #1

Went for another walk in Woodbine Park, and saw that a lot of purple flowers (a type of purple daisy?) was attracting all sorts of pollinating insects.

Caught a nice shot of a Monarch Butterfly sipping nectar from a purple flower. Along with the details of the butterfly I also love the bokeh on this one:

Monarch Butterfly on Purple Flower

And here’s another of a bee on the same type of flower:

Honey Bee on Purple Flower