picture my realia

photo project moving to my main blog space

I started this photo journal for the purpose of feeding my creative hankerings, enhancing my ability to see.  To see if I could commit to a daily act for a year.  I wanted to enrich the Realia project, add more layers and depth to it.

But my participation in this one has distracted me from the writing Realia efforts.  I remain committed to putting up a photo a day, and I am still really enjoying it.  But I miss living in my original blog space.  I still want to make stories about my life and experiences the main thrust of my creativity.

Some time ago I came to the conclusion that I never should have started this second blog, that I should have just incorporated the project into Realia.  Why did I feel the need to keep them separate?  It was a brain fart.

So this photo blog is moving back over to Realia, and the two projects will become one.  The photos will continue to be posted daily, and they will be accompanied more often with the stories.

I hope this won’t alienate the people who come here to see the daily photo.  If you update your feed reader to Realia, I'll be glad to see you there!  And I hope those who subscribe to the main blog enjoy the increased visual aspect.

Live and learn.  Onward!

Duncan Street at Adelaide, Toronto

broadview avenue and a supportive cough drop wrapper

 

Walking back to Mia's today after the streetcar turned around at Dundas.  I knew there would be some photo ops as I walked the rest of the way back. 

Do you have parks at your jails? Not just parks, but parkettes! They're so much cuter, no?

Toronto Jail (Don Jail), Broadview Ave., Toronto

Toronto city core from the vantage point of Riverdale Park East. Love those clouds.

I've had a nasty cold since Monday. This from the second package of cough drops I bought, trying to make my presence less felt at work; wherein I happened to notice the supportive messages in the candy wrappers. I like that. I will buy those cough drops again next time.

viaduct

 

The Bloor Viaduct (Prince Edward Viaduct, officially), completed in 1918,accommodates pedestrians, bicycles, cars and the subway train.  I shot a distance view of it the other day.

Looking down into the Don Valley.  I am not a fan of tall bridges. But even to me, walking over it is preferrable to making like a sardine in the subway train at 5:30. Especially on a day like today.

westinghouse building

 

There are so many of these beautiful walk up office buildings downtown. So many of them coming down to make way for condos. This is a particularly beautiful one. Most of the historically significant ones are being sacrificed, their fronts pasted on the front of the new towers to circumvent the heritage protection of them. I must say, the design to incorporate this one looks interesting. For a change. At any rate, the fencing is going up and the windows are being covered with paper.  King Street West, Toronto

 

New restaurant/club going in an old building on Pearl. I like that sign, which I saw for the first time today.  Pearl Street, Toronto

 

Rainy day. Pretty green leaves on the sidewalk. Spadina Avenue, Toronto.

 

pearl street again

I think this is a nice view up Pearl Street, looking east.

A steel door. Pearl Street, Toronto.

Walked into work via back streets again this morning. 

 

beauty on the way to work

These beautiful blown glass flowers are encased in the ceiling of the entrance outside the Soho Hotel - camera pointing straight up. Just walking under them gives me pleasure. Wellington Street, Toronto.

I was enchanted with that sprinkler alarm. Pearl Street, Toronto

Wondering if this blog should have extra categories: gates, and brick. Pearl Street, Toronto.

This morning I took a windier route to work than usual, sticking into some smaller, less busy "back" streets.

variable like spring

 

Overcast, and streetcar cables at King and Spadina, Toronto

A basket of wine bottles with fun orange labels.

Fresh mown grass. FRESH MOWN GRASS. How uplifting is THAT smell the first time you smell it in the spring?

Thunder-stormy sky. It started raining just as I got to this corner. I got a little wet, subsequently, but I didn't mind.

Hugh MacLean

The last couple of days I've not taken particularly good pictures.  So that makes me feel a little freer to play with contrast and light.  Real photographers do this with lenses, stops, apertures and stuff.  I do it with software.  I play with the dials until a picture looks pretty to me.  Humour me; it's fun.

Here's what a quick search of ol' Hugh MacLean on Adelaide Street dug up.  Another little tug at the heart thinking about the buildings being razed on Adelaide Street these days.

345 Adelaide Street, Toronto.

 

walking day, walking night, handmade gift

The Westinghouse Building, 355 King Street, Toronto, 1927. The building's beautiful front (not shown) is slated to become facade on the front of a tower. What is [not] lovingly referred to as "facadism" is preserving the facade of an historical building on the front of a tower, as opposed to preserving the building itself.  In other words, skirting the historical preservation laws.

 

Walking later. Spadina Ave. at Lake Shore Blvd. / Gardiner Expressway, just north of Queens Quay

 

 

When I get home I find in the mail a beautiful hand-painted card from Sherrill, thanking me for giving her some books I didn't need anymore. Thank YOU Sherrill.

 

adelaide and bay

 

Adleaide Street, looking east from the Bay Adelaide Centre, Toronto.

Adelaide Street, looking west at the Canada Permanent Trust Building from the Bay Adelaide Centre, Toronto

Friday; out finding a cup of tea in the afternoon; looking through these cool windows in one of the MANY glass towers that are eating up the old buildings in Toronto.  I think eventually Toronto may look like the Emerald City did to Dorothy and her pals from that field of poppies.  Yeah, land of emeralds and all that.