Posts in Category: Toronto

Losing Focus: Finding Interest in Blurry Photos

On July 11, 2025 0 Comments - Photography, Toronto

***If you are looking at this on your phone you probably won’t see the blur in these photos. Your phone will crush the images to the point where they will probably look in focus. Of all the posts so far, this one needs to be seen on a bigger screen to make sense…

***photographers: this article is not about using diffusion filters to soften focus.

Finding something interesting in “mistakes”

Over the years, I have taken thousands of pictures. Sometimes they turn out great. Often times they don’t. Sometimes the image I was seeing in my mind didn’t translate well with the camera or, other times, the photos are technically flawed. My camera is older and the auto-focus system is not perfect. It struggles with difficult light and reflections, especially at night. So, I tend to get a few photos that are out of focus from time to time. These blurry pictures are impossible to fix and I always delete them first, without any thought, to save space on my computer.

Lately, I have found a few of these pictures that escaped getting deleted. While they are not what I intended, some of them are still kind of interesting. Unfortunately, only a few of these “mistakes” have survived. So, I decided to go out and try to take some out of focus pictures on purpose and see if I could come up with some good shots.

This project turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. My idea was to just go out, find an interesting scene, manually de-focus the camera and shoot away. I shot hundreds of photos and the majority looked terrible…not interesting…just BAD pictures.

But, over a couple of weeks, I managed to figure out which images are more likely to make a good blurred photo. Here are the ones that I think turned out pretty well.

Shooting through moving water

blurry shark at COEX aquarium in Seoul
This was a deletion-survivor from a recent trip to Korea. It is a picture of a shark in a big tank at the COEX aquarium in Seoul. I took the photo from above through the rippling surface of the water, so all the light is bent into these unnatural shapes. While it isn’t the best picture of a shark, I like the way all the colours are swirled together to make this abstract image.
I tried to recreate this phenomenon in my kitchen sink with these coffee cups. I like the way the water distorted them and I may try some more like this in the future. Maybe not as interesting as the first picture but…they are just coffee cups not sharks : )

Manually de-focussed still life shots around my apartment

These photos have a dreamy quality about them: you know what they are but all the details are missing. Like…you know there was a person in your dream…you know what you said, you know what you did…but you can’t see their face no matter how hard you try to remember….these pictures have that kind of feeling for me.

out of focus book looks dreamlike
A paperback book: what’s inside is obscured. You can almost make out a word or two but not quite.
water glass in strong morning sun
Water glass in morning sunlight…the light is strong and direct and the glass is a cold hard object. But…the slight blur softens and warms the whole image.
fern leaves backlit by morning sun
Sunlight filtered through fern leaves: if I stare at this long enough I feel relaxed…there is a calmness in this photo that wouldn’t be there if it was razor sharp.
out of focus moon jar
White porcelain vase: The plant is mostly in focus but, because it is off to the side and dark, the white porcelain jar becomes the main subject. All the hard reflections in it are smeared together giving it a liquid softness. Having a small portion of a picture in focus turned out to be a good technique for keeping the image interesting.

Out in the city at night

I thought night shooting might be a little easier but it was just as difficult to get an interesting shot. Here are a few that I did like. In the city at night, there is a lot of hard contrast in the lighting which I found helps to give some structure to de-focussed pictures.

fox family with green filter
I really like this one. It is a survivor from our green-photo project. We were taking photos around Philosophers Walk near the ROM and a mother fox with 4 pups came out to dig for food around the trees. I didn’t have the camera set up for this kind of subject but this is what I got anyways. This one looks otherworldly to me. Because of the green light and the motion blur. This could be another planet.
de-focussed karaoke neon sign
Colourful business signs lit up at night make good photos anytime. After many bad shots, I learned that for a de-focussed photo, it helps to be able to read the words.
out of focus city skyline
This is a pretty severely de-focussed shot of the city skyline. It works because the subject is obvious and the contrast between light and dark is strong. I like how all the points of light become circular here.
food trucks at night
Food trucks on the university campus. Great light, colours and graphics add to the interest of the blurry image. I don’t know why but it makes me think of those iridescent puffy stickers…
These two photo-bombed me. I am including it just because they are cute (and blurry)
ghostly looking backlit cyclist at night
There is some motion blur here and the cyclist is also strongly backlit. It gives the picture kind of a ghostly appearance.
woman studying at night in a field by lamplight
This is just a good image. The blur adds a little to the strangeness of this student studying by streetlight under a tree in the middle of the night. This is not really even near a building…she is in a field.

Time Travel

manicured garden in front of old low rise building
This one has a nice warm light. The manicured garden and the building itself give it a vintage vibe. It looks to me like the 1950s. Like, if you backed up the camera a little, you would see big american cars with fins and lots of chrome parked outside. Dreamy.

Photos that look like paintings

Scenes with strong texture and clear structure can make good unfocussed images. Because of the large grain and the soft transition between colours, these ones look like oil paintings to me.

tiny house with river rock facade
This is a tiny house in Cabbagetown with a white picket fence and a river-stone facade. This image has great texture and no clutter. Nothing extra: house, tree, fence. With the slight blur and bright sunshine it looks more painted than photographed.
U of T Convocation Hall
Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. The massive pillars of the building along with its imposing size and the night lighting make it look painted here.
Old couple and fisherman at Brickworks pond. This image has strong lines that help it stay together even blurred as it is. This could easily pass for a painting.

Ghosts…

Images with people in them turned out to be some of the most interesting ones. They all look like dream scenes to me. They are clearly people but their limbs are distorted and their faces are obscured. This is how I tend to remember characters from dreams. I don’t think I have ever seen a ghost but, if I did, I imagine that this is what they would look like.

After dark at King’s College Circle. Night time ghosts.
Sherbourne Subway Station at Glen Road. Daytime ghosts.
Beltline Trail ghosts
people who look like ghosts in forest
Ghost couple leaving the forest

What’s next…?

This was a difficult project and I am kind of glad that I can get back to taking “normal” pictures again. I am really happy with these few good shots that I did come up with. I hope you like them too. Working on a project about shadows…

As always, you are welcome to leave questions or comments below. I am always happy to hear from you. Knowing you have been here motivates me to keep at it. Thanks for looking!

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Midori: Experiments in Green

On June 29, 2025 2 Comments - Photography, Toronto

Please try to look at this post on a laptop instead of your phone. It will look much better.

The World of Wong Kar Wai

I recently found a big picture and essay book about Wong Kar Wai on my bookshelf. I must have bought it years ago and, because I was so busy, never got around to reading it. These days, I have been sitting on the floor every morning and reading it cover to cover as I drink my coffee. The book inspired me to see his films again and I have been watching them one by one in chronological order.

One of the things I love about Wong Kar Wai and his cinematographer Christopher Doyle is the way they use strong colour casts to emphasize mood or setting or time. Often it is a prominent green, especially noticeable in Days of Being Wild, Fallen Angels and even In the Mood For Love. The photography in these films is so striking that on the first viewing, I end up misunderstanding the story because I am so focussed on the images alone. I have always loved these green steeped scenes the most.

Here is a famous example from the end of Fallen Angels:

a green scene from Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels movie

My Fujifilm X100T

This 10 year old camera is the only digital camera I have ever owned. By today’s standards, it is pretty old technology but I still love it. I have always been able to capture any picture in my imagination with this little machine. If you are interested, I describe it in a more detail at this link.

A few days ago, I decided to try to take some green toned pictures. I wanted to see if I could make some images that come close to the ones I love in the Wong Kar Wai films. I did this by manipulating the white balance of the camera and pushing it hard to the green side. How to do this is not really that interesting so I won’t go into it here but, if you want to know more about it, there are lots of good articles on the subject. Usually, you manipulate the white balance to keep your colours more natural under different kinds of light (like sunlight vs LED lightbulbs indoors). I did the opposite, manipulating white balance to get unnatural colour tones.

Here are a few of the pictures I like the best

I just took pictures of regular things..no extra effort to make cinematic compositions this time…

This photo started me on this idea. I took this picture accidentally with the wrong white balance setting which gave it a mild green cast. It started my thinking in that direction….that’s my Wong Kar Wai book on the table.
Brickworks Pond…rabbit hand
The green tone gives the red of the lifesaving ring an unusual hue…I don’t even know what to call that colour.
These are wild raspberry flowers…this shade of pink seems to be mostly immune to my green filter
Plant and wing lamp
Tiny kitchen…I really like the colour of this picture.
Rice Ball stand at Dundas and Bathurst…waiting for snacks. Great daylight green tone here too.
This is a hard push towards red just for comparison with the green. It has a much different feel…it looks hot and a little angry to me..compared to cool green
Celadon green is one of my favourite greens. Whenever I go to Korea, I try to find a piece of celadon pottery that I like.
If you ever brush your teeth in my apartment, this is what you will be looking at.
McDonald’s in Pride month colours
Strong incandescent lighting will often balance the green and look a little closer to normal. This is a fast food place on Bloor Street. Still, good green overtone.
The interior looks almost balanced but the green cast outside is good. The red colour is diluted by my green treatment.
Rolex store on Bloor
Philosophers Walk beside the Royal Ontario Museum
My daughter beside the old wall of the museum
Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown
Near Spadina underground parking garage in Chinatown
Spray paint and stencil signs…I love them
Waiting, waiting for the light to change…
Near the El Mocambo on Spadina. Tony Leung could easily be buying cigarettes in there.
Tap Phong: every cook and restaurant owner has bought something in here
College street car
St James Town around midnight
Walking home through St James Town
Parliament Street patio after hours
Gas stations always look amazing at night with a green cast. They are one of my favourite places to photograph especially when they are busy.

On my way home to write this post today, I was thinking..

Ever since I was little, if you asked me what my favourite colour is, I would say “green”. Always. The green of the sea, the green of the forest, the green of kelp and algae, the green of moss. Always green.

As I was walking home and thinking about writing this, I was listening to Luminescent Creatures, Ichiko Aoba’s new record. I only know a few words in Japanese but, every now and then, a word will pop out and stay with me… most often just because I like the sound. On the last track, which is so beautiful that I listened to it twice today, the word was “midori” 緑. When I got home and looked it up, it turns out to be the Japanese for word for “green”.

When I rolled that word around in my mind a little further, I realized that I had heard it before. In the movie Norwegian Wood (adapted from Haruki Murakami’s novel of the same name), lead character Toru Watanabe’s true love interest is named Midori. This film, directed by Tran Anh Hung, is full of vibrant green…just like his other famous film, The Scent of Green Papaya. And the cinematographer for Norwegian Wood was Mark Lee Ping-Bing who also worked on Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love. So many connections…

This is the character Midori from Norwegian Wood. Her personality and influence in the movie are also very green…in the sense of being fresh and full of life amidst mostly very dark characters. Of course she is dressed in green…I hadn’t noticed that before!

Green, my favourite colour. Green, the colour of summer. Midori…something beautiful. Green has been in my heart for the last few weeks. Maybe because it is mid summer after a rainy spring and the whole city is flooded with shades of green. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I really like them. I will keep working on it.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below. I am always happy to hear from you : )

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Tommy Thompson Park in Early Spring

On April 15, 2025 0 Comments - Toronto

An accidental nature refuge

Tommy Thompson Park is a 5km long spit of land that stretches into Lake Ontario at the south east end of Toronto. It is entirely manmade, consisting of silt dredged up from the harbour as well as construction and demolition material produced over the last 75 years as the city grew. The shores of the park are made up of mostly broken concrete, tile and brick which have been eroded by wind and water over time. Shanks of twisted iron rebar jut out from the shoreline like rusty branches. Although it doesn’t sound so picturesque, it is actually quite beautiful.

Nature has taken over as this pile of dirt and rubble has sat here mostly undisturbed. It is now home to indigenous plants, animals, birds and insects. Some rare migratory birds make Tommy Thompson Park an annual nesting ground and there are areas of the park that are closed off during most of the year to allow them to nest in peace. Cars are not allowed. Even dogs are not allowed as the permanent residents of the park see them as predators.

Because it is remote from the city and protected by environmental laws, it is a great place for spotting beavers, minks, martens, coyotes, geese, swans, all types of ducks, birds of prey, insects, turtles, snakes, frogs…. Even Snowy Owls and Bald Eagles make stops here.

Since there are no cars it is also an ideal place for a walk or bike ride when you feel like escaping from the noise and hustle of downtown. For more detailed info here is the official website.

Photos and sounds from an early spring visit to Tommy Thompson Park

Leslie Lookout Park
Brand new Leslie Lookout park with white sand beach overlooking part of the harbour and city skyline. This is on the way to Tommy Thompson Park.
Couple walking in Tommy Thompson Park
Haraboji and Halmoni out for a Sunday walk (I heard them speaking)
Cycling in Tommy Thompson Park
City bikes are available to rent. Walking the whole park takes hours so bikes are a good alternative for a quicker tour.
Fishing in Tommy Thompson Park
Fisherman trying the ponds that form between sandbanks of dredged silt.
I spotted a little Mink (a type of weasel) eating a fish hidden in the grass near shore.
Sand banks in Tommy Thompson Park
Naturalized sandbanks host many nesting birds
Don’t assume anything…
Birds nest hung in Red Dogwood branches in Tommy Thompson Park
You can spot last years bird nests in the bare branches.
Tommy Thompson PArk shoreline with water and broken brick
Shoreline made up of naturally tumbled concrete and bricks.
Lake Ontario beach sounds…also the sound of nature eroding all the construction debris
Dry flower with shadow
Concrete, brick, stone and flower
Toronto skyline viewed fro Tommy Thompson Park
Skyline from the silt ponds
Red dogwood in early spring
Leaf buds are not quite open yet but early spring has its’ owns colours..the dogwood branches are bright red against the brown vegetation of last year.
Red Osier Dogwood and Sumac

I expected it to be noisier, but except for birds quietly nesting and people cycling and chattering away, it was almost silent. Below is a sound sample from late summer. In contrast, the sounds of cicadas, crickets and bees is LOUD! You can also hear a Porter Airlines or Air Canada Dash-8 flying over. This is a typical sound of the park which is at the end of one of the Toronto Island Billy Bishop Airport runways.

This park changes dramatically with the seasons…let’s come back later and see what’s going on.

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