Toronto International Film Festival 2013

This year’s TIFF may be my last, never say never but I think I’m about to retiring my milk crate (I stand on one to elevate myself over the heads of the PR people and security personnel on the carpet). If I don’t retire I’ll trade in my milk crate for a ladder and show up much later than the 10-12 hours that are required to secure a decent spot on the carpet rails these days.

When I first looked at the schedule this year I thought it was terrible, but after I put my list of galas together it wasn’t so bad. This year TIFF surprised us with some substantial changes to the venue layouts. The Prince of Whales (POW) theater was one of the worst venues for us fans in the past, so much so that last year Tom Hanks even said that he felt like cattle being lead to the slaughter. TIFF appears to have heard this criticism and put up barricades along both sides of King street and went so far as to completely close down King street while talent was on the carpet, halting even street car traffic at times. I was told that an area for fans was created at the Elgin/Winter Garden theater this year too. Roy Thompson Hall (RTH) was even changed up this year. Bell the largest corporate sponsor added the "Bell Fan Zone" an area across the carpet from the traditional fan rail. This new area was to be used for viewing older movies after the carpet closed at 09:30pm, but it soon became a fan area that proved to be a good location for normal autograph seekers, but even the hounds were using it as the week progressed. 

The festival started Thursday with a 30th anniversary reunion for the “The Big Chill” cast members, with most in attendance minus Jeff Goldblum and William Hurt. Tom Berenger showed , but some how I missed him, DAMN!! I’ve seen some of the cast before, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly and Jobeth Williams were new for me. 

I was able to update some older images of a few stars like Nicole Kidman who I capture back in the old days of point and shoot. Managed a nice full frame head shot i’m really pleased with, not looking at the camera but a really nice 3/4 profile in really good light which is often hard during the early gala at RTH due to the sun’s location. Another update was Kate Winslet who was looking very nice and very pregnant. 

 A lot of new talent for me this year too, including Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Collin Hanks, Benedict Cumerbatch, and the Hemsworth brothers Liam and Chris. A couple of other stand outs for me were Brendan Glesson who I’ve alway like in anything he has done and Taylor Kitsch for his portrayal of the Pulitzer prize winning South African photographer Kevin Carter in “The Bang Bang Club”.

Three new Oscar winners were added this year including Julia Roberts and the director/producer team of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Six other winners were also updated this year Colin Firth, Chris Cooper, Nichole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Tim Robbins and Director Paul Haggis. 

Not a bad year overall, but the waiting game is getting to be too much for the quality of the images I’m getting. I may look at getting a decent ladder and then pick my battles a little better by limiting the number and locations that I attend. New talent only and then only the people that interest me. I found myself giving up early on locations this year because I wasn’t interested in the talent, as was the case of Daniel Radcliffe. I could care less to see Harry so I gave up my front row spot to a young woman who was clearly a Potter fan. It worked out as I got to see Matthew McConaughey who was at POW later that night, someone who was more interesting to me and I didn’t plan on seeing when I put my schedule together. The fan friendlier venue change at POW had a lot of us rethinking our locations this year. Next year, maybe???

Canon Rebel SL1.. Good things do come in small packages

  I have always carried a small point and shoot camera in the bag I shuttle to and from work, but never really liked the results it produced. It may be just me but I like a view finder and hate using an LCD to compose images. So when Canon release the new Rebel SL1 I thought this might be the solution I've been looking for. It is small, very light weight and accepts all of my current lenses, although it looks a little strange mounted on my 70-200mm.

 My 1st real outing with it was the Serena Rider concert at this year's Luminato Festival and I was impressed with the results. There was only the stage light, flash wasn't an option so the ISO had to be cranked up to 3200 at times and I was surprised how well the images looked. Noise was impressively low considering the ISO and holding the camera was a dream. It is big enough that you could hold it (unlike most point and shoots) but light enough that you hardly knew it was there.

I was a little skeptical of the Rebel's button layout and had never used an LCD touch screen to control a camera, but I was soon sold on this feature. I really liked being able to switch settings with the LCD, without my glasses I could easily make changes and being dark the LCD helped there too. I hope this feature is added to the 7D II which is supposed to be released soon, in fact I hope the 7D II also handles noise as well as this little SLR.

 The only draw back I found and I knew this going in was the RAW frame rate, I was bumping into the buffer more than I'd like but I didn't buy this camera for wild life per se so I can live with it. Overall a good little camera.

Open Doors Toronto - Photographic Possibilities

Looking to photograph something different? Maybe you like architectural photography and are looking for new locations. Next weekend (May 28th & 29th) is full of possibilities as Toronto throws its doors open and allows you to tour some often closed areas of our city. Nearly 150 buildings of architectural, historic, cultural and/or social significance open their doors to the public. Admission is free. And this year the theme is Photography.

 Check out the link for a list of locations participating this year. I also suggest you drill down into the links for the  sites that interest you because some have limited access or times. The details for each site will also provide any photographic restrictions. Some sites may not allow flash, tripods or in the case of Old City Hall no photography of any kind is allowed.

Open Doors Toronto 

Remember to wear comfortable shoes, bring your tripod, a remote shutter cable and plenty of memory cards. There are some great opportunities to experiment with HDR too, some of the churches have beautiful stained glass.

Purple Martins in High Park

 Purple Martins have returned to High Park here in Toronto after an eight year absence. The largest of the swallow species are obligate aerial insectivores, which means they eat only flying insects, and they take them only on the wing, not off the ground. The local population suffered from starvation during a cold spell back in 2002 which killed off their food source.
(Male)

 Their old High Park residence had become overrun with house sparrows and had been closed in by the surrounding trees, these birds like an open space around their home.  In 2007 the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority erected a new house located on the south shore of grenadier pond, part of a shoreline restoration project. It took them 3 years but this May two nesting pairs have returned to the park. Lets hope they are successful at breeding here, Martins develop a strong loyalty for a nest site which they successfully breed and will return year after year.

 (Female)

Overlooked Photography and Photoshop Learning Resource

 There are plenty of online resources for learning about Photography and Photoshop some are free others like Lynda or Kelby will cost you some money. I'm a member of Kelby Training and although it's expensive i've found it to be worth every penny. I've managed to take advantage of some of the member discounts with Kelby's partner companies, which has reduce the cost of my membership by more than half. The first couple of videos of each course are free to review so you check out the content before paying for a membership.
 
  One of the free resources that you may have overlooked is your local library. Here in Toronto the public library has an arrangement with "Safari Books Online" to provide online access  to approximately 4100 of the 9000 books in their electronic catalog. These books are mostly technical reference books dealing with software and IT subjects, but there is a decent collection of photography related items also. Although these titles are only available online, it makes perfect sense for the library to provide this type of access. How often does Adobe release a new version of Photoshop? If they were to buy a dozen copies of each newly released book to circulate amongst their branches it would cost them thousands of dollars, and they would be out of date in less than 2 years. This way they can provide the latest version with unlimited copies and all at a fraction of the cost. 

  Some examples of the resources available here in our library are Digital field guides for most camera models including the newer models (ex: Canon 7D, Nikon 300s). Newly released photography books like "Mastering Canon EOS Flash Photography", which was just released 15-Mar-2010 (13 days ago as of this posting). There are 144 books and 66 videos on Photography and another 68 books and 92 videos on Photoshop related products (Elements, CS4, Lightroom, Camera Raw etc..)

  So CS5 will be released soon, and you will be looking for a book to help you along with the new features. Before you buy get a library card if you don't already have one (they're usually free) login and take a look at what your local library has to offer first.

Rosco Strobist Kit

The Rosco filter sample kits have become very popular with users of Speedlite (Canon) / Speedlight (Nikon) flash units. So much so that Rosco was going to stop their free sample program completely due to the overwhelming demand. Strobist blogger Dave Hobby approached Rosco and together they created a "Strobist" kit which contains commonly used color correction and tinting filters. For a small fee (approx $10 USD) you receive 20 1.5" x 3.25" different colored filters. Multiple pieces of the more commonly used correction filters CTB, CTO, Plusgreen for fluorescent correction are supplied along with numerous tinting filters for special effects, a total of 55 in all. No longer a free solution, but better than having to purchase separate larger more expensive individual sheets and building your own kit.
Here in Toronto you can still obtain the free filter kit at The Source Shop (as of Nov'09) and you can purchase the Strobist kit at the DV Shop for $16 CAN.