I’ve been meaning for a while to put up these photos. I had a great time taking them.  Street photography will always be one of my favourite aspects of the medium and its always something I fall back to connect with my surroundings, practice, or experiment. Read the rest of this entry »

Halloween can easily be my favourite ‘event’ of the year in the city. Why? Because it’s easily the most social, colourful, scary, and engaging event. A photographer’s dream, a street photographer’s dream even. For one night, you see a dramatic shift, almost everyone dresses up, roaming the streets all night with plenty of parties to crash. Everyone loves to have their pictures taken!… Read the rest of this entry »

As much as I hate the winter, I realize that it’s just a countdown to Spring. But it’s days like today, that really get to me. Absolutely no sunshine. It’s not just today, the last few weeks, there has barely been any sunshine in the city. It’s depressing. You remember the little things that summer represented, and miss dearly.

Can’t ever get used to this, not even after 18 years in the city.

It has taken me a few days to able to digest the closing of 2007. Due largely to the fact that I was overseas — in a place where you can truly lose track of time and day – I abstained from thinking about the end of the year, and everything to do with Toronto. Perhaps it was because 2007 was the most emotionally charged and challenging year to date. We all need a break from time to time, well, I needed a break from 2007 and Toronto. The concept of vacation seems to be dwindling in the city’s fast paced corporate society.

The 2008 train is in full speed, time is flying by already, let’s reflect quickly. This post is guaranteed to be all over the place.

On a business note, this year started off on a stump but then grew in leaps and bounds. Spotlight lost a valuable staff member, and as a result the responsibilities piled up on my plate. If you got to do something right, well you got to teach yourself.

On a personal note, this year was mostly tumultuous. The ending of what could have been a lifelong relationship mixed with ostracizing of friends set a base for ups and downs. If there was a resolution to be made, it would be that in 2008 I need to focus more on real life social networking.

On Toronto, this year was interesting to say the least. We as foodies, dished out more money to eat at chic restaurants, but we ate less. Tapas went mainstream and as a result, every new restaurant took the advantage of serving smaller more ‘complex’ dishes at double the prices. People ate it up. I hope this trend doesn’t stick around, because there’s nothing appealing about this. It’s a fad and it must disappear. If it ain’t Spanish, don’t call it tapas.

In the online world, more local blogs launched, with more emphasis on restaurant reviews and food. Then something really sinister happened, maybe a page out of ‘lord of the flies’, we started to not only review (or try to in a lot of cases) restaurants, but we also became critics of other blogs and sites. Maybe we’re all starved for some web traffic, but lets try to focus on some meaningful content in 2008. Let’s not knock the fellow blogger, hack websites, spread rumours or post personal pics online. That’s very un-Toronto.

On Music, Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero), Radiohead (In Rainbows), Velvet Revolver (Libertad) did it for me.

On Food, I discovered that I have a sweet tooth, particularly for imported chocolates.

On Movies, I didn’t see as many. But I do recall Juno, Eastern Promises, American Gangster, Knocked up, Transformers,  No Country for old men, and some other mainstream crap.

On Visual Tirades, I had an incredible year. Shooting weddings, big events, fashion, portrait, food, you name it. Getting to do what I absolutely love, and getting paid for it.

On Spotlight, I think the site speaks for itself. Take a look and see for yourself. We’re kicking ass. We’ve raised the bar on many things. People don’t copy us for no reason.

2008, bring it on.