Yesterday we had a BBQ with a fellow member of the TPMG – Toronto Photography Meetup Group. Her living in Georgetown, it was quite the change of environment from the every week gatherings in town in Toronto.

Nonetheless it was a great day as almost 15-20 people gathered about – most with cameras in hand – and chilled outside on her deck, some playing with cameras, some bouncing around on her trampoline, and others just drinking and eating about.

No shortage of food, drinks, and fun, it was a good time for us all. I even got to meet a few new faces in the process, which isnt’ all that bad. Early in the afternoon the bulk of people decided to go to the Brampton Badlands and Bellfountain to take a few shots.

As I came fashionably late, I missed the first batch going there by mere minutes. However, soon after my arrival, Rannie and bunch came in. We then made our own way to the Badlands. In making our way there, we passed by this gorgious sunflower field that stretched for as long as you can see. It was indeed a picture perfect moment. The last time I saw a sunflower field that big, I only had my Kodak DC265 digital camera with me, which was capable of taking oh so limited types of shots. This time, equipped with a 24mm, 50mm, and a 70-300mm lens, I shot to my heart’s content. The lighting couldn’t have been better either, with the late afternoon lights shining behind the sunflowers, making each petal emit a soft, orange glow.

After venturing off to the Badlands and taking the necessary shots there, we decided to head back because of our hunger and thirst. On our way back we passed by this uniquely designed wooden church where we just had to stop by and look. It turned out to be St. Elias, a Catholic Church in the Orthodox tradition. As luck would have it, people were just coming in – including the priests, getting ready for their 7pm mass. Everyone we met welcomed us in and one priest even invited us to stay for a while for the first few minutes when they sing.

I have to admit, their friendliness was nice and once the church goers sang, it gave me a surprise as their unison and perfect harmony rang throughout the church with such beauty. No chairs in this church. Everyone stands.

We left after a while of soaking in the song.

Back at the BBQ, I had my first try on a trampoline. It was indeed a tiring experience but a fun one at that. I believe I got some good height.

And what would a BBQ be without a night shootout of the stars? The night sky was clear as can be. Around 1am, we all headed back out to the Badlands where we hoped to get some pitch blackness – away from the city light pollution. It was a good choice although the sky was still lighter than we all wanted.

Me always wanting to try out star-trail shooting, I tried out my cable-release for the first time. Longest exposure I took was about 25 minutes. I took about 4 varying shots of the sky, some with the surrounding trees. Hopefully they will turn out.

All of these great photos I will develop soon and will post on my flickr account so be sure to come back soon!

Tea ceremonies, games, a wedding ceremony, and 7.5 rolls later, I am back home. I am quite tired as my morning started at 6am. A good highschool friend of mine got married earlier today. It’s always nice to see weddings. While I don’t shoot weddings professionally I do like to shoot them on occasion as it gives me more practice in candid photography – or photojournalism.

I got home and started editing my pictures that I am going to be exhibiting later this week. Halfway through that I fell asleep while waiting for a Transform function to finish in Photoshop. Now that I’m somewhat awake it is time for me to head off to the reception. It’s kind of far seeing as its all the way at Hwy 16 and Bayview. Nonetheless I will try and take some more interesting shots then.

I’ll update more when I get the chance.

I’m back from my relaxing days in Montreal. Apparantly the weather here in Toronto was a hot, scorching one. I’m glad I missed it as Montreal weather was just gorgious.

Getting back into the swing of things, work is still a bit slow, but I have no shortages of things to do with my new venture in production. While I have garnered a fair amount of interest from people here and there, I am hoping this interest will actually amount to something substantial.

I think I have found a printer of choice for my Canadian customers, which is great since I am realizing now that I do need to distinguish my international customers from my Canadian ones for tax purposes.

I can now safely sigh with relief since I have almost crossed off one major point off of my list. From now on in though, is where I have to really get my gears going in terms of getting content.

I am happy to see though, that I have already received some emails from strangers wishing to help me out with my new venture. These came as a complete surprise and I am grateful in them, however, at this point in time I believe I still have a fair amount of administrative things to take care of before I even come close to seeing whether I need help with the production of the magazine. Thanks for the offers though; I will keep you in mind as in the future, I may end up neeing some help!

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A few weeks back I was approached by someone from the TPMG to see if I was interested in exhibiting some of my photographs at a product launch for a home furnishings company. It was nice of her to suggest that to me as I had never thought about exhibiting my photographs. I will have to take this into consideration as it would really be nice to see my work hanging on a wall.

One more thing to add to the list of things to do!