Murphy is watching..

May 2, 2010 · Posted in Light Writing · Comment 

It’s midnight, and I’ve just come back from a wandering set of shoots throughout the Toronto area.  I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and just needed to get out and shoot some locations that I’d been thinking about.

It all started off well, I stopped by the Humber Bay park near the foot of Park Lawn and drove out to the point for a few long exposure cityscapes, matching the dawn cityscapes I’d taken last week..

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The Toronto Skyline At Dawn

The shoot went alright, but as I decided to do some long exposure water shots with multiple flash light painting, I got two pops off before my flash batteries went kaput. Now I did have a spare flash with me, but there were some sketchy folks around, and I didn’t really feel like displaying more gear, or even spending THAT much longer hanging around, So I merely chose to move on to location 2 and settled for what I HAD gotten.

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Reflections on Toronto

That all being done, I headed downtown as I’d had it in my mind to shoot from a top the Eaton’s Center Parking Garage.

I hadn’t been up there in years, and with all the development and the growth of Yonge-Dundas Square, I thought there might be some opportunities. Not so much…

Firstly, the parking garage is under construction, so there was a bit of snow fence jumping to be done to explore my angles.

Several of the “perches” I chose allowed me intriguing views of the street, but alas, the low light quality of the EOS Rebel is not renowned, and little was even salvageable (we’ll see what Lightroom 3 can do with this old Camera noise once its out of beta, but I’m not expecting miracles.)

Still, I wasn’t disheartened, as I’d a final plan that would have me driving back down Queen St, through the trendy areas, with a window down and my camera on a tripod shooting out a window at the action with a remote shutter release. (Note: This is probably illegal under the new hands free laws, but I hope to never find out.)  Unfortunately, as I was switching lenses and futzing with my tripod to get it stable in the back of the mini van, I discovered it no longer wanted to turn on…

Swapped batteries, reseated lens, reseated CF card.. Changed lenses… *Sigh* No luck, retried a few previous things, just in case.. *sigh* A short drive home later, batteries in the charger, CF card dumped and remounted, coffee (decaf) in hand, and the camera works…

The moral of the story is, Not only should you carry your spares with you, but REMEMBER you’re carrying them and where they are.

As an aside, I realize I’ve been horribly under utilizing this website, and I do hope to correct that, For those who would like to hear more and keep up when I DO managed to update, you can also keep track of me as Darkelflx @  Twitter & Flickr