Pedantry Digest

I've trashed my personal rule about alterations. To start, I think it was good for me to force myself to accept my photos as they came out (sort of as a sanity-keeping measure). However, now that I am comfortable with the journal, I will crop and/or digitally alter my photographs as I see fit. I will still aim to take good pictures that don't "need" changing, but I'm now leaving open the possibility.

I was busy running errands today in the Lawrence Park and Bathurst Street/Lawrence Avenue West areas, then decided to take the bus home when I was done. I could have gotten off the bus much closer to the Saint Clair Avenue West, my destination at the time, but opted instead to get off at Eglinton Avenue West and walk through Forest Hill, along the more residential part of Spadina Avenue.

What resulted were the follow photos, all adjusted in brightness and contrast using the simple tools in iPhoto (they have not, however, been cropped). Looking at such vibrant colours now is inspiring to me. Even a construction site looks more interesting...





These LOOK/POINT signs have always seemed so peculiar to me, perhaps because I cannot imagine anyone literally standing at a cross-walk and pointing, as the sign suggests. When I see someone standing on a curb at a cross-walk looking across the street, I don't think I need someone to actually point it out for me. Call me clairvoyant, but I feel like I have a fairly good idea of what he or she is going to do next.





The bright green, the vibrant rust, the stark-white lettering...this high-contrast stuff makes me very, very happy. It makes me want to pull out my Canon AE-1 SLR (huge, manual camera with a fantastic macro lens) and go hog-wild with some high-speed infared or colour slide film, then lock myself in a darkroom for an afternoon with my box of glossy fibre paper and little box of filters...

...don't mind me. I'm getting photo-geeky and missing my high school lab.