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There it is – the Toronto skyline at night. I was lucky enough to be staying with a soon-to-be brother-in-law, who has a nice pad across the bay. I was thrilled to discover this view! And yes, the saturation is a little intense here, but what can I say, I like the look of the bright, glowing city.

Here is another view of TO, but from a particularly interesting foot bridge, which was a joy to shoot. Oh, the leading lines, and the green, Gatsby-esque light at the end, so awesome! Pulled off this shot with a wide angle lens and a gorilla-pod attached to the bridge’s railing.

Voila, a day-time shot. This was taken during a fantastic walk around a lagoon and the beach by the lake. To pull off this shot, I tried my hand at some manual HDR. That is when you use multiple photos taken at different exposures to get more of the shot out of the shadows. Here, I used three photos, stacked them in photoshop, erased the portions that were too light or too dark, and then blended them all together. I’m just starting to do this process manually, so it’s a little rough, but I like the result so far.

Here is another HDR shot using the same process. Without using multiple exposures, I would have had to settle for a photo that was either nice and blue in the sky but pitch black at the bottom, or properly exposed at the bottom, but totally whited out up top. At the same time, I am trying to conserve some shadows to keep the photo looking real rather than a rainbow of saturation with no darkness anywhere.

As much as I like complicated photo processes, and I do, sometimes it’s the simple stuff that works best. Here is a photo of a willowy piece of grass, backlit by the sun, with a really shallow depth of field. Though the shot may be simple, it’s still really important to get the basics right, like having your subject in focus, and making sure your camera settings are right so nothing is blown out.

Here is the last shot, and maybe my favourite. The bridge was just so interesting, and having the glowing city at the horizon was really cool. I think the bridge kind of looks like a spine. What do you think?