:: W4B photography's companion blog ::

:: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 ::

It was a photographic weekend. As I mentioned I had it off and I Saturday was gorgeous for weather. light jacket weather. in january. while it is bad for farmers and snow plow operators, I am all for this global warming thing. I drove and wandered around an industrial section of London on Saturday. In an area bounded by on the West by Quebec/Egerton and East by Highbury and the rail line north of Dundas, and Trafalgar to the South, I found lots of interesting things, such as on the left.

This building is located north of Kelloggs on the rail spur that you cross on Dundas East. It's official address is 471 Nightingale and is a warehouse built in 1917. Completely closed off, surrounded by razor wire, the structure looks sound but is full of pigeons roosting on at least the top two floors. Think of the bird crap in there!

On the rail line at the top end of McCormick near Princess, I started to think trains. There was a long freight train on the spur there with no fence so I went for a look see. Nice pleasing curve of cars and I got a couple of close ups in the sun. I was thinking to myself as I walked away from the train that if the thing had started to move while I was inches from it taking pics I would crap my pants. And then all of a sudden, the rippling bang-bang-bang-bang of the cars tugging on each other started as some far away engine pulled them to life. :)

Now being in a train mode, I recce'd the rail yard that you cross on Egerton. I parked at the Western fair ice rink and wandered over. This was after Western Fair security asked me what I was doing in the closed off harness racing prep area before that... :). I was shooting pics of the lone engine from the crossing area there when someone from CN rail came up to me. With 9-11 not too far in the past, he said security is on everyone's mind. We chatted for a bit and when he found I was no harm to anyone, he told me the best location to watch some movement of engines and cars would be down at the East end near Highbury in about 20 mins. He offered to give me a lift down there, but since I had the CRV, I declined the cool offer. Nice of him to provide the info though.

I grabbed a Timmies and headed over to the south section of Oakland ave. I waited for a bit, watched a Via Rail train blur by ( when I had the wrong ISO setting on the camera...) and then a lone yard engine came by and was taking some shots for a bout 45mins. First time I had watched the, I was going to say ballet, but that is cliche and not completely right. The coordinated movement of engine and car over a dozen branching lines, grabbing and releasing single cars or a half dozen at a time was fun to watch from different angles.

On Sunday, I headed to Toronto in a heavy driving rain. I stopped in Brantford to get some pics of St Andrew's Church which burned the other week. I Googlemapped it and found it without issue. It was raining hard so some of the shots were spotty. I wanted to get a couple of different angles, and I asked the police officer on point duty in his car if I could get closer. He initially said no that I had to stay in front of the line. Then he waved me over again and told me that if I went down an alley that paralleled the back of the church between Market and George I could get some shots there. I crossed the police barricades at that point and grabbed the through the window and collapsed wall shots posted on flickr. I know it isn't something really special, but I am amazed the places I get to go now and then.

Later in Toronto, I met up with the Scarlet Sins at Stephanie's place. They were already looking awesome in their Victorian dresses and pretty much good to go. They had just come back from hair and makeup and we headed out to the location. Despite the rain and poor light, we made it work. It was a lot colder for them than me, and I was reminded of a ANTM shoot on a roof top in bikini's in winter. In both cases, the photographer was warm enough... :) We did some cool group shots and some individual portraits as well before heading over to a second location that had promise but was not what I had in mind. I have barely started to go through the 200 odd shots and will post some in a few days, but this was certainly a fun experience. And spending time with the girls over dinner after was good. More when I post some pics...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:42 [+] :: 0 comments
...

0 Comments:

Post a Comment