Pride 30: Michael Thorner

06.03.2010 Filed Under: Canon 5D, Photos, Pride 30No Comments0

I remember my favourite Pride moment like it was yesterday. In the summer of 1996, I was just coming off the transformative high of admitting to myself that the wizard design genius I met in March of that year, I actually considered – in my mind – to be an actual boyfriend; and in that actualization could be presented to the world as such. It was a big step for me. Everything leading up to him was a grand, compartmentalized experiment. I was already 30. To say my personal evolution occurred at a snail’s pace, would be an understatement.

My coming out story started four years earlier, and was messy, difficult, complex and complicated; all the things many of my generation of repressed, small-town Catholic boys experienced, due to the era and environment in which we were raised. My surroundings as a child were very different from those of my urban contemporaries. I was a product of my environment. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in Sarnia, Ontario, I had no positive gay role models, other than comic television personalities such as Jonathan Harris (who was apparently straight; um, yeah), Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. At the time, I wouldn’t have been able to put a finger on what made them special though, other than their impeccable comic timing and wit. I buried myself in super-hero comic books until I hit art college.

For awhile, I was a fence sitter who believed – in my Kinsey scale-studied way – I had no aversion to the beauty of women. Clue #1: That’s not how straight men describe sex with women! Duh! My true orientation was buried, submerged in a muddy, oily, bisexual mess I now attribute to unwitting rural stupidity. Again, I was a somewhat slow but comprehensive learner though. Trial and error was how I got through my 20s. I now admit I was unevolved and selfish in how I discovered who I was, hopping back and forth over that orientation fence again and again with relish and abandon, unaware that I would most certainly pay a price for my actions later on. Toying with people’s emotions and bodies in the quest for self-actualization does not win anyone new friends, nor are many people influenced by one’s inability to drive a stake into the ground and admit to oneself who and what one is. For several years, I was an indeterminate man. That is what I projected. Sure, I was all for equal civil rights, free expression and free speech, yet I somehow couldn’t equate or advocate those liberties upon myself, because I couldn’t admit to myself on which side of the fence I truly belonged. I was conflicted, you might say. A familiar story to those of my generation.

Once I encountered my own gay role models as a young adult – shining stars and lifelong friends like Paul Bellini, Scott Thompson, Gary Ponzo and Noah Cowan – things started to make better sense in my mind, but those gals were so far ahead of me it took me years to catch up and find my queer equilibrium. Although I endured many a rolling eye (deservedly in some cases), thankfully, they were all quite patient with me, as I figured my shit out. I’m grateful to them for that. I did envy the clarity of thought and purpose Bellini, Thompson, Ponzo and Cowan seemed to enjoy as secure, out gay men though.

In the early years, my indeterminacy affected my ability to create and build a fulsome life, and create art and work that was honest. Instead, I supported the arts and artists as a facilitator, appreciator, and spectator, inert in my inability to reveal myself in my art. I watched my creative peers excel and grow, and a lot of that kind of progressive growth comes from a centered, confident self-awareness. It’s a high price to pay, thinking one can have his cake and eat it too, from a pan-sexual perspective, given we only live once, with a subsequent understanding that life is shorter than we think. Live and learn I guess. I eventually did evolve and grow into the proud queer man I am now, but my 20s were a complex and confusing time, and I was indulgent.

Coming to terms with one’s life actions as a result of how one deals with one’s sexual orientation is a completely separate issue from the actual orientation issue itself, and this was something I had to untangle over the years, to learn the true meaning of pride. I’ve come a long way.

But all this navel-gazing preamble leads my story to the year 1996, and to my favourite Gay Pride weekend. It was a turning point for me. The inimitable Paul Bellini had corralled a stable of talented friends to be his backing band on the Pride stage, including comic talents Gord Disley and his partner Samantha Bennett, straight boy drummer god Kirk Hudson, rawker lead guitarist dude Al Miller, and myself on keyboards. Bellini had just released his first album of music; a comic gem now considered by many to be a collector’s item. It was our role to translate his songs in a live setting. If I’m not mistaken, I believe current Mayoral candidate hopeful Keith Cole introduced the band on stage, wearing a deliciously colourful, patterned sundress.

We all dressed for the show at my place, and I can recall filmmaker Josh Levy complimenting my all-white attire. “Holy shit Thorner, I can actually see the outline of your dick!”, probably the nicest thing Josh has ever said to me. I felt like I belonged. I was wearing the tightest white jeans I’d ever managed to paint onto my body. I was a gay cliché, and I reveled in the moment.

I somehow talked local musician heartthrob Kirk Hudson into taking his shirt off after the second song, promising I would do the same. For some reason I chickened out when the time came. He’s straight, so he just went ahead and disrobed, no big deal. For some sophomoric reason, it was a big enough deal for me just to be on the Gay Pride stage. Public displays of nudity would have to come later. Thanks Steamworks.

I’m a simple man, ultimately. I just like to play complex sometimes for those invisible, delusional, imagined cameras I see following me everywhere I go, just like all seemingly well-adjusted, cinematically-minded gay men do. I’m half-kidding, but in all honesty, just for fun I still try to find that imaginary, well-placed “reaction shot” camera when a friend says something particularly funny to me. And I have a lot of funny friends. I am gay, and an admitted narcissist, therefore I feel like my life is a sitcom. A dramedy perhaps. I am a product of my time. Throughout the 70s, the “That Girl” theme song (written by Earle Hagen and Sam Denoff, natch) played in my head as I bicycled to elementary school every day. For many years, I appropriated that well-orchestrated, ebullient piece of music as my “life as sitcom” theme song. It ran through my head as the Bellini band made our way over to the Pride stage. So gay. Yay!

Bellini entered the stage wearing a black patterned shirt adorned from top collar to waistline with large yellow sunflowers. They bounced when Paul danced and sang, and seemed to grow larger and fuller when the sun shone down on them, and the sun shone brightly that day. As a band we were tight, well-rehearsed, and we killed. The audience went wild, they ate it all up with glee, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I hosted the after-party, which went late into the night. It was probably the best party I ever threw. At last, to paraphrase one of Bellini’s songs, my long dark twenties were over. I was out. The fence stood on the horizon for a few more years, but I had a better perspective on it from that point forward.

The design genius boyfriend couldn’t make this gig because he was in Vancouver visiting his family at the time, but he certainly heard all about it, and giggled over the phone when he could sense my wide-eyed enthusiasm for it all. He and I broke up later that fall for reasons too complex to share here, but our friendship endured. He became world-renowned and quite successful. He passed away recently, at far too young an age. I look back to 1996 and I’m filled with such joyful memories. In my mind I become one of those blooming sunflowers, reaching up to the summer sky with petals extended, reliving the endorphin rush of acknowledged self-awareness. How’s that for a flowery metaphor?

“Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes, that girl!” Great theme song. ‘Cause that’s how I roll.

- Michael Thorner

Pride 30: Jaime Woo

06.02.2010 Filed Under: Canon 5D, Photos, Pride 302 Comments2


Pride to me works best when it honours the theatrical, encourages the playful, and celebrates the unique. I had a chance to witness these qualities when I was filming the backup dancers on stage with Deborah Cox at last year’s festival. Maybe I’ve watched too many dancing shows, but it was a treat to follow them from practice, to mentally preparing before the show, and then to the performance. I’ve tried to learn dance choreography and, especially with hip-hop and r&b, it isn’t easy.

The night of the performance, I was backstage to capture the dancers hard at work. It was a long night for them as they did a solo show, then danced for Deborah Cox. The crowd was energized (before Deborah went onstage, the audience had been shouting “We want Cox! We love Cox!”) and cheered on every move, dip, and dive. Nothing feels better as an artist than having your hard work appreciated; as a storyteller, getting to capture that was an astounding opportunity.

Pride’s a massive undertaking, but I couldn’t appreciate that as an attendee. With the chance to chronicle the story behind the scenes, I not only got to share why others make an effort for Pride, but also created my favourite Pride moments too.

- Jaime Woo

Pride 30: James Fowler

06.01.2010 Filed Under: Canon 5D, Photos, Pride 30No Comments0

It wasn’t my first Pride Parade or even the first time I had been in the Toronto parade, but being convinced to dress as the cop in the Village People and ride a float proved to be one of my best Pride Parade experiences ever.

Usually I had danced around aimlessly with water bottle in hand with the rest of the lookie-loos and dancing queens, but a few weeks before the big day in 2006 after a bad break up, a friend asked me if I’d volunteer some time to help build the Casey House parade float. Thinking that the best way to get over my own misery was to help someone else, I agreed. Over the next two weeks, I got to meet some pretty exceptionally generous and talented volunteers and it inspired me to help more. With some coaxing, I was going to be in the parade! The day arrived and I got to meet the late June Callwood who I remember to be kind, graceful and in great spirits. If you haven’t been in a pride parade on a float, nothing can prepare you for the overwhelming feeling one gets when turning the corner onto Yonge Street to make the trek to south of Dundas. “We’re up!”, I heard so I followed the group up the ladder to the performing area that was build over the cab of the transport. Fifteen feet in the air and lip-syncing YMCA was a moment right out of Tales of the City. ‘Wooowww’ I remember thinking. My friend looked over at me with a huge grin on his face. “Pretty neat, huh?”. “Yeah!” I said over the music. Seeing thousands of cheering and smiling faces in one days is something I will never forget.

A week before the parade when I was convinced by the other volunteers to learn the YMCA song and ride the float, I was told something that is really true about the Pride Day Parade and that’s that the best way to see it is to to be in it. Happy Pride!

- James Fowler

Pride 30 Portrait Project

05.27.2010 Filed Under: Blog3 Comments3

So this year, Toronto Pride is celebrating it’s 30th year.

I wanted to do a portraits series of 30 queers in the community. Of course time and logistics got the best of me. I still want to do the project, but figured I’d make it more personal and shoot 30 of my friends. With each portrait I wanted to post their own personally story about pride. Could be about your first pride, a funny anecdote, whatever, as long as there is a positive spin too it.

So the original idea was to shoot only 30 people, so this afternoon, I started sending out facebook mail to all the people I knew, claiming a first come-first serve arrangement. I haven’t even finished sending out all my notes yet and I’ve already filled more than 20 spots. So I’m considering expanding and doing 140 portraits instead, for my new “140 characters” site coming soon.

So let me know if you want to participate and tell me, What’s your favourite Pride story?

Portrait of a Photographer: Louis Helbig

Louis Helbig is an ariel photographer. His CONTACT exhibit, Beautiful Destruction is showing this year at The Rivoli. I was on hand this past weekend at his opening. If you get a chance, you should drop by tomorrow evening (May 4th) at 7pm for his artist talk.

Portrait of a Photographer: Jalani Morgan

04.30.2010 Filed Under: Canon 5D, Contact, Photos, Portrait of a PhotographerNo Comments0

Jalani Morgan is a photographer who works out of Hermann & Audrey. He will be a part of a featured CONTACT exhibition at the Bait Shop next Wednesday, which explores collaborations between photography and other mediums. You can also follow Janani on Twitter

Looking for #140 characters in Toronto

04.16.2010 Filed Under: Blog5 Comments5

I’m going to be starting a new portraits series in the city. I’m looking to capture 140 twitter users around Toronto. I want to capture a mix of known and unknown people, artists, celebrities, people from different walks of life doing interesting things in the city. Who are some of your favourite Twitter users in Toronto?

If all goes well, I’ll likely do a Canada wide version of this project as well.

You can leave your suggestions in the comments or email me at 140charactersproject@gmail.com

Creep – Open Mike styles at Podcamp Toronto

02.21.2010 Filed Under: YouTubeNo Comments0

Photos from Podcamp Toronto 2010

02.21.2010 Filed Under: Blog1 Comment1

I posted the Podcamp Toronto 2010 Portrait series on my portfolio site. The following are a few other images that I took that day.

Gotta Have Faith

02.19.2010 Filed Under: YouTubeNo Comments0

Toronto Cupcakes?

02.16.2010 Filed Under: Food, Toronto2 Comments2

So I’m doing a Cupcake crawl today with a friend and this is the list I came up with. So I thought I would share. I doubt we are actually going to hit up every single place, but I do want to get in a good balance of east and west cupcakes. Thanks to everyone on Twitter who helped me compile this list.

EAST

Life is Sweet
2328 Queen Street East
416-698-0555
http://www.lifeissweet.ca

Sweet Bliss Baking Company
1304 Queen Street East
416-916-7895
http://www.sweetblissbakingcompany.com

It’s The Icing on the Cake
1238 Queen Street East
416-469-4973
http://www.itstheicingonthecake.ca

Babycake (in Lil’Baci)
892 Queen Street East
416-406-5910
http://babycake.ca

LPK’s Culinary Groove
718 Queen Street East
416-461-6440
http://www.lpkculinarygroove.com

Sweet Tooth
508 Danforth Avenue
416-778-8800
http://www.sweettoothpastry.com

WEST

Miss Cora’s Kitchen
69 Kensington Avenue
416-593-2672
http://www.misscoraskitchen.com

Wanda’s Pie in the Sky
287 Augusta Ave
416-236-7585
http://www.wandaspieinthesky.com

Madeleines, Cherry Pie and Ice Cream
1087 Bathurst Street
416-537-3131
http://www.madeleines.ca

Sneaky Dee’s
431 College Street
416-603-3090
http://www.sneaky-dees.com

The Wedding Cakes Shoppe
859 College Street
416-533-9575
http://www.theweddingcakeshoppe.com

OMG Baked Goodness
1561 Dundas Street W
647-3485-OMG
http://omgbakedgoodness.com

She Takes The Cake
1600 Dundas Street West
416-538-2253
http://shetakesthacake.ca

Frostitution @ The Beaver
1192 Queen Street West
416-537-2768
http://www.beavertoronto.com

For The Love of Cake
171 East Liberty Street
416-306-6446
http://fortheloveofcake.ca

Yummy Stuff
1660 Queen Street West
416-531-9732
http://www.yummystuff.ca

NORTH

Dessert Lady
20 Cumberland St
416-924-3223
http://dessertladycafe.com

The Cupcakery
1034 St.Clair Ave W
647-430-7409
http://www.thecupcakeryto.com

Lollicakes
559 Mount Pleasant Road
416-484-2253
http://lollicakes.ca

The Designer Cookie
292 Eglinton Avenue West
416-619-1197
http://www.thedesignercookie.com

The Cupcake Shoppe
2417 Yonge Street
416-322-6648
http://www.thecupcakeshoppe.ca

Happy 40th Danny Michel

01.31.2010 Filed Under: Blog, Music1 Comment1


Photo Of Danny Michel from a May 2009 performance at the Don Mills Centre.

Today, Canadian Singer/Songwriter Danny Michel is celebrating his 40th birthday. As a special treat, all his cds are going to be free to downloaded from Zunior.com

Introducing Chelsea

01.27.2010 Filed Under: Blog, Chelsea1 Comment1

On January 12th, the day before I left for Korea, our household gained a new tenant. A Vizsla-mix dog which we have since named Chelsea. Totally adorable, I usually take Chelsea for an afternoon walk, if I’m around the house. Of course, living in a geeky home, Martin, her owner has also setup a twitter account for Chelsea. You can follow her at @vizslaish.

Christmas 2009

01.24.2010 Filed Under: VimeoNo Comments0

Was checking out some videos on Vimeo and noticed that my cousin put up the Christmas Video from this past Christmas. It’s comprised of all the family portraits I took exactly one month ago. The theme this last year was black and white.

There comes a time…

01.22.2010 Filed Under: Blog6 Comments6

In everyone’s life there comes a turning point where one must make hard choices and where one faces hard circumstances. A time where life gives you lemons and you must make lemonade. Of course it all sounds cliche, but you have to believe there is some truth in all those sayings. And the most resounding of those truths is that you have to find happiness and love in yourself, before you can find it in others. Things are not just handed to you on a silver platter, but you must actually work for those things that you want in life.

I’ve come to a point in my life, where I can’t idly ponder about the past, what could have been or where I went wrong. I’ve come to a point where I must look to the future and bravely decide what I want that future to be. I’ve come to a point where I have to focus on my actions, take the steps forward and build the foundation of the new me.

Of course it won’t be a total change, but possibly just a smarter change. I’ve already accomplished so much, but that doesn’t mean I can’t accomplish so much more. It’s a matter of stirring up the right motivation and inspiration within myself.

So today I move forward, today I believe I can take on the world and today I’ll take the first steps to building that future. Wish me luck.

The Future of Mobile? Making Life Good.

01.13.2010 Filed Under: Blog, GadgetsNo Comments0

Back in November, LG Canada asked me if I wanted to be a part of an international blogger forum happening in Seoul, South Korea. With the launch of their first smartphone (The LG Eve) recently behind them, they wanted to engage with bloggers about the future of mobile, with the LG Eve as their stepping stone. So over the last month and a half, I’ve been using and playing with the LG Eve to see what I liked and didn’t like, taking into consideration as to what the next steps might be in terms of future mobile. This led me to list of of features that I think will grow and develop over the next few years. The three things that come to mind for me are handsfree/speech recognition, docking your phone and universal bluetooth/networking functionality.

Handsfree/Speech Recognition

With more and more governments, banning the use of mobile devices while driving. Being able to use your device handsfree is becoming increasingly important. There are already devices on the market that allow for very basic forms of speech recognition. I can only assume that these technologies will likely improve over the next few years, allowing consumers to do more than just dialling pre-programmed numbers. Ideally, you’ll be able to tell your phone to update your twitter or facebook feed. Perhaps you’ll be able to even write entire emails simply by dictating into your phone. Imagine describing an event you are witnessing and posting it into your blog, via your smartphone, without actually typing anything into the device. That would be amazing. Perhaps this is still a few years down the line, but all ideas have to start somewhere.

Docking your phone

Currently, I’m an iPhone user and I love it because it can do all the basic computing things that I can do on my home computer. I’m able to read, and send email with ease, browse websites, listen to music and access all my social networks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply dock your phone, just like your able to dock a notebook computer to larger monitors and full keyboards? Having one device instead of two, would definitely simplify things. And everything now is bluetooth enabled, so set up should be a breeze. Which leads me to my last idea.

Universal Bluetooth/Networking

Just like the Lord of the Rings, with one ring to rule them all, imagine one device to control them all. So many devices are bluetooth enabled; keyboards, mice, controllers for video games, computers, headsets. Now imagine if all your household devices had bluetooth, or even simple network capabilities. You walk into a room and you can turn on your entertainment system. Your laundry finishes it’s cycle and you receive a txt or an email from your washing machine, telling you it’s done. Imagine not having to deal with half a dozen remote controls, or programming your PVR from your phone. Slowly these systems are becoming a reality, and with standards in bluetooth and wireless networking, it only a matter of time before every electronic device in your home will have the ability to connect to the home network.

Perhaps my ideas are a tad futuristic, but is it really that far off into the future? When I was growing up, we were still using film to take pictures with our cameras, and now we live in a world where my phone, can take a picture, shoot video and access the internet all in my pocket. I’m sure it won’t take long for that same device to take charge of many other functions in our day to day life.

So today, I’m hopping on a plane and travelling half way around the world to meet up with a bunch of other bloggers from 8 different countries. Sure we’ll get to tour around the beautiful city of Seoul, but we are also gonna get the opportunity to meet with LG engineers to see what’s coming down the pipe and perhaps plant ideas of flying cars and and universal devices that were once known as phones. How does your future look?

LG Eve: A smart beginning for LG

01.12.2010 Filed Under: Blog, Gadgets4 Comments4

Rockin the LG Eve

So for the last month, as a part of a blogger outreach program, I’ve been playing with the first Smartphone put out by the South Korean company LG, appropriately called the LG Eve (aka LG GW620). The phone features include a resistive touch screen, a tactile slider qwerty keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera (and LED flash) which shoots both photos and videos. Touted as a Social Media smartphone, the LG Eve runs on the Google Android OS, which allows for the download and use of any Android based applications.

Upon initial inspection, the LG Eve looks like a slightly smaller, slightly thicker iPhone wanna be, featuring a 3 inch screen (dimensions 106 x 55 x 12 mm). But you soon discover the discover a slider tactile qwerty keyboard and the impressive 5 megapixel camera. The phone was initially loaded with a limited number of basic applications and upon my first use of the phone, I wasn’t all that impressed. Being a full time iPhone user, Apple has done a very good job of training us to use our phones in certain ways, and using the LG Eve requires a bit of unlearning to get a full sense of the three available buttons available on the LG Eve. Underneath the touchscreen, there is a home button to the left, a round menu button in the middle and a back to the right. Once you figure out how each button works, the ease of use on the LG Eve increases massively.

Sample Video from the LG Eve

Out of the box, I wasn’t all that impressed with the applications built into the LG Eve. Being an Android phone, it came preloaded with all the various google applications, a very functional GPS application called Telenav (subscription extra), and a few other basic applications for email, web browsing etc. Also included was a Social Networking application called linkbook, which is supposed to be your one stop shop for all your social networking needs (I’ll get into this shortly). It wasn’t until I found the Marketplace application and started downloading various applications when I started to truly enjoy playing with the LG Eve. In the marketplace I was able to find apps for all my social networking needs. Twitter, facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, they had them all covered. I was also able to find Android versions of my favorite iPhone apps like Bump and Shazam. I think it was a very smart move on LG’s part to hop on the Android bandwagon, as opposed to building their own operating system for the phone. There is a whole community behind the Android movement and lots of apps being developed for it.

Linkbook

One of the biggest things they are marketing about this phone is it’s ability to connect you to your social network’s. The built in application made for that purpose, on the LG Eve is called Linkbook. The application allows you to connect to various social network from one central place. In theory, it sounds like an amazing idea, but in execution, LG does a poor job. When shown the application for the first time, I was deeply disappointed with it lack of features. The app, only provides support for Facebook, Twitter and Beebo (who uses that?). The software only allows you to access one network at a time. And there is a very limited number of things you can do from the application. Basically from a Social Network Manager application I would expect to see a number of features, which would include, but are not limited to; a large selection of networks to plug into (FourSquare, Flickr, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, MySpace etc), the ability to update my status once and have it posted to all (or selected) networks, and the ability to access more information like facebook events, or other information you might find useful while you are mobile. Of course, the redeeming feature of the phone, which I mentioned above, is it’s Android platform, which provided me with many application options for my various Social networking needs.

The Camera

When handed a phone to try, my first thing to check out is it’s camera capabilities. The photo of Wall-E above is the first I took with the camera and instantly I was impressed by it’s ability to take decent macro shots. But the real strength in the camera is built into the camera application itself. When you dive into the camera’s menu screens you soon discover, exposure compensation, flash and macro controls, shooting modes, white balancing and a whole slew of other settings you can control. Also in playing back the images on the gallery application, there are a number of edit features that you can do in-camera. Many people have asked me if I would trade my iPhone for the LG Eve. And for the camera alone, I might.

Photo Gallery of images captured with the LG Eve

Overall the LG Eve is a excellent initial effort by LG into the smartphone market. They’ve made a lot of good choices with this phone. The keyboard and touchscreen combo is a great feature especially for those who are fans of tactile keyboards, and I know there are a lot of you out there. The built in camera is a joy to play with. and the Android platform provides a ton of applications, for productivity, to games to social networking. The LG Eve is available in Canada on the Rogers network.

Photo Service Ltee

11.10.2009 Filed Under: Canon 5D, Photos2 Comments2

Photo Service

Walking the streets of Old Montreal.

The Cubes are in Toronto

05.22.2009 Filed Under: Blog, Hypercube, Panorama, iPhone4 Comments4

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Visited a couple of Nissan Dealerships cause I got a call from a dealer saying that the Cubes were in town. It was great to finally see one in person. Now I just need to wait to hear if I’ve won one.

300 Toronto Panorama Images

05.20.2009 Filed Under: Hypercube, VimeoNo Comments0

The Canadian Explorer and I

05.05.2009 Filed Under: Blog, Blog on Blogs, Hypercube, Panorama, Vimeo, iPhone1 Comment1

So last week I met up with Keri who runs an awesome site at TheCanadianExplorer.com. She had suggested I do a hypercubepano at R.C Harris Water Treatment Plant. So I did a panorama and she did a video. If you haven’t done so already, check out all her videos thus far at Vimeo. Way too funny, but really she needs to pump these babies out faster, like one a week, or every two weeks.

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If you are reading this, yes I back posted this entry. This is what was bleeped out of the video above.

Proud FM Panorama

04.30.2009 Filed Under: Blog, Hypercube, Panorama, Photos2 Comments2

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Mark Wigmore and Shaun Proulx

Yesterday afternoon, I dropped in at the Proud FM studios to do a panorama shot of my favourite radio show hosts, Shaun Proulx and Mark Wigmore. It was the perfect ending to a panorama filled day. If you are enjoying the panoramas, please take a moment to vote for me on my quest for a Nissan Cube.

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Kew Gardens at Queen Street

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R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant

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Scarborough Bluffs

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Broadview Lofts

Toronto Panorama Pix on Breakfast Television

04.29.2009 Filed Under: 15 minutes, Blog, Hypercube, Panorama, Photos, iPhone2 Comments2

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Yesterday morning, I woke up extremely early (for me) to check out the Breakfast Television set. While I was there I took a bunch of panorama pix. Apparently, this morning they were features on BT. Thanks for sharing them with the city.

Currently, I’ve shot over 170 panorama pix across the city, with the series growing everyday. If you like them, help me win a Nissan Cube by voting for me.

Here are a few favourites from the series so far.

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Cherry Beach

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Roy Thompson Hall

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Todmorden Mills

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Liberty Village

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Queen and Roncesvalles

Molson Panorama

04.24.2009 Filed Under: Blog, Hypercube, Photos, iPhoneNo Comments0

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Yesterday morning, I had the opportunity to visit the Molson Brewery here in Toronto. I was able to smell the brewing beer and watched as thousands of bottles flew by me to get labelled and packed.

Here are a few of the Panorama pix from the brewery.

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Nissan Hypercube Panorama Project

04.16.2009 Filed Under: Blog, Hypercube, Panorama, Photos, iPhone1 Comment1

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Nissan Canada Inc. has launched ‘hypercube’, a unique social media campaign to promote its all new cube® vehicle. hypercube celebrates, recognizes and rewards ’social creativity’ in Canada. The company behind the newest example of modern mobility is offering an online stage for 500 creative thinkers and talented individuals from across the country to demonstrate their social creativity and audition for a chance at driving away in one of 50 new cubes.

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I’ve been chosen as one of the 500 Finalist and have decided to do a huge series of panoramic images from in and around the city of Toronto. Everyday for the next month, I’ll be adding panorama shots to this gallery, based on places I’ve been in the city, as well as suggestions from people like you.

What can you do to help?

- Send me location suggestions via twitter @photojunkie or email at photojunkie@gmail.com
- Visit my Canvas page and vote for me DAILY at http://www.icanhaz.com/hypercube
- Join the Facebook Group and tell your friends about the great panorama images.
- You can Add to Faves on Flickr

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About the Panorama Images

All the images are shot using the iPhone Panorama App by The iFone Guys. The app allows me to shoot and stitch my panoramic images together on my iPhone.

The Whip at Koolhaus

04.13.2009 Filed Under: Canon 20D, Music, PhotosNo Comments0

thewhip

I was invited to shoot The Whip at Koolhaus on Friday night. They played an amazing set to a hyper all ages crowd. Shooting was nearly impossible, as there was no lights on the band, but I did manage to capture a couple of shots.

Download: The Whip – Trash

Mesh Panoramas

04.12.2009 Filed Under: Panorama, Photos, iPhoneNo Comments0

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Ryan Singer talks about Value Judgements in Interface Design at Mesh U

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April Dunford talks about Segmentation, Positioning and Storytelling: How a Smart Market Strategy Can Drive Growth at Mesh U

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Keynote with Mike Masnick at Mesh

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Keynote with Bonin Bough at Mesh

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Keynote with Mayor David Miller at Mesh

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