TigerSalad

Ideas-Photographs-Sounds: Home and Away

Posts in Category: Toronto

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.

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

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.

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.

Philosophers Walk beside the Royal Ontario Museum

My daughter beside the old wall of the museum

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

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 : )

If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here.

photography, toronto

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

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.

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.

If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here.

photography, toronto

TTC: Line 2 Towards Kipling

On February 12, 2025 0 Comments - Toronto

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) runs a few subway lines and many bus and streetcar routes throughout the city.

Line 1 runs north/south along Young Street which bisects the city into East and West and many streets are named accordingly. For example, St Clair Avenue is St Clair West on one side of Yonge Street and St Clair East on the other. Line 1 runs for 38 kilometres with 38 stations.

Line 2 runs east/west along Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue covering 26 kilometres and 31 stations.

Shorter lines make up the rest of the system and get people from city suburbs onto the main lines.

A few weeks back I took the subway west on line 2 to Keele then walked back in the cold taking a few pictures of subway stations that I passed. I like the otherworldly white light they give off at night. They look like portals to another dimension. Lansdowne is my favourite.