The city of Toronto at night..HDR version

Second attempt at HDR, this time I did it right. Much more satisfied with this one then the previous. HDR makes it much more colourful and vivid compared to the original in a few posts below.

Pretty pink butterfly flowers

Some little pink flowers I found in the backyard. I generally prefer little flowers over big flowers, love these especially.

My first HDR attempt

This was my first HDR attempt. Some flower bushes in the backyard I shot right after work. First 3 pics from top to bottom are 3 different pics shot at different exposures (though, I think I should've shot them at a even bigger difference in exposure). The last picture is the end result.
Not really happy with the end result quite frankly but I think to get a better effect, I'll try this effect on a solid structure like a building or a car.

The City of Toronto at night...

Took this pic from my Mitch's balcony. Too bad his railing is kinda high, I wanted to point the camera down and take shots of Church & Wellesley.

I took a few shots of some tulips at Rich's house. Lighting wasn't preferable but meh. Not too sure what that yellow flower is called..

Pink flowers I took in front of my house.

A couple of Amsterdam pics

Here's a couple of pics I took in Amsterdam. I have a lot more but just been too lazy to play around with them. I just want to get out there and get fresh new pics..

One is of a small street, I took the shot in black and white and made some mods in PS to make the flag red.

The other pic is of some random grafiti I walked by while heading back to the houseboat from the Rembrandt museum. I thought it was pretty interesting. Something different from the rows and rows of 3-4 storey houses all glued to each other..

Another pic from the other day by the Lakeshore. Not too hapy with this one, too grainy..

Another pic from the other day with Soto. Nice bridge by the lakeshore, always wanted to check it out, glad I had a chance.

Night Photography 04/20/10

Soto and I went downtown and played around with night photography.

6 hours and I'm only happy with 4 pics... I tried my best lol

First time that I actually sat down and played around with my camera. Fully manual, no flash.

Fooled around with light streaks at the CNE. Too bad it wasn't too busy, kinda hopin there would be more cars but whatever.

Amsterdam November 2009

It was a trip to remember, it was a trip I will relive again. The anticipation, the excitement and the pure glee engulfing the three travellers. Three happy faces packed with bags like they were planning to have a camp out in a candy store. I look out the window, I can see it. The plane with the baby blue "KLM" written on its side sitting in a sea of Air Canada planes, thats it, that has to be the one. They board the plane, ears pop, 10 minutes of "Bruno" (terrible...) followed by seven hours of clouds after clouds, after clouds...oh I wonder what's out the window? Oh right... Clouds... BUT... What is that?, a piercing, a spark of light, life, civilization, lions and tigers and bears oh my! The sudden view of beautiful green Dutch farms, perfect massive rectangles divided by small streams of water. The plane dips, still with 3 faces pressed against the window and before you know it, here we are. But this time, we're surrounded by giant airplanes with the baby blue "KLM" printed on its sides as opposed to the familiar red maple leaf. Next thing I knew, I was walking through the airport finding myself staring at every sign that has some sort of Dutch writen on it. All the stores look so Ikea-ish... Even though I was not able to sleep for 36 hours, I could not contain my excitement. We are here, we are home, I can sense it, I can smell it. I walked out the front entrance, turned back and saw a gigantic sign that read "Schipol Airport". Fantastic, first piece of good news of the morning, I didn't board the wrong plane! It was a cloudy, rainy day in Amsterdam, but I knew that it mattered not...

Stone Temple Pilots in Hamilton 11/18/09

Hamilton...ugh

Soto, Joe and I got there and it was dark, immediately we're runnin into psychos and crack heads on the street. WTF is going on in this place... Either way, we had gotten tickets to STP a few months ago and a few weeks after they announced a show in Toronto. Ugh.. Still, it was a smaller venue at Copps, as a matter of fact it looked like they only used a quarter of the actual arena.

Sound was awesome, they had a huge screen right be hind them showing all these trippy effects. Scott Weiland came out and he was already mashed. Hell he was already sweaty lol. Either way, he still put up a wicked show, all their best songs. We had floor tickets and we're pretty close to the stage. I can't wait for their new stuff!

Here's a youtube clip of them performing Plush that night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMOL5GnEuSw

One of my personal favourites Big Empty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYi8zT04DqA

Pearl Jam 08/21/09

Pearl Jam 08/21/09 Molson Amphitheater

Pearl Jam has a reputation of putting on a good show and of the quality of the sound and they certainly lived up to it. The sound was just fantastic, the atmosphere was unbelievable. I was with my friends Mitch, Chris and Rich and we got there a bit late, we had originally planned to miss the opening act because they were a couple of no name bands. Well it turns out that they got caught at the airport so Eddy Vedder came out and did solos the whole time. Oh man I regret it... :( But regardless it was a wicked awesome concert!

The picture above is a poster I bought at the concert by Brad Klausen.

Here's a youtube clip of them doing Black that night, OMG Pearl Jam is unbelievable!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzjyf3QKt7g

Here's them doing Alive, probably one of my favourite Pearl Jam songs of all time. Brings back so many memories from high school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPBNTo1Ncf4

Muse & Silversun Pickups 03/08/10

My latest concert, my favourite band in the world right now. Muse at the ACC March 8th 2010 I think. Wicked awesome! We had floor tickets and it was so worth it! Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so the pic is from my Blackberry. I will definitely go again when they come back. I must say its my favourite concert so far. In the last 2 years I've gone to see live the Smashing Pumpkins, the Killers, U2, Coldplay, Metallica and Stone Temple Pilots but Muse was definitely the best for me.

Opening band was Silversun Pickups and they were also wicked awesome! Lazy Eye, Panic Switch, they sounded so much better live it was amazing.

Poor Mitch he had agreed to come along with me a while ago. Day before he had gotten a concussion playing hockey and he still came out. He's such a trooper *cries*!

Here's a youtube video of their opening, pretty awesome setup, opened with Uprising too, my point of view is pretty much the same as the guy filming this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSS0K1CCWHI

Here's another youtube video of them performing New Born, the lasers were really cool from my point of view where I was standing on the floor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgxMqdqdnDM

Silversun Pickups played Lazy Eye as their second last song that night, love it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JF_6PBNXyg

And their last song Panic Switch, fantastic live band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_JvvHW7Erk

ZOMG BONO! 09/18/09

U2 Concert September 18th 2009 at the Skydome. Wicked concert, massive stage, wicked effects. Sound quality wasn't as good because of the size of the Skydome but still awesome. I was glad I was able to see them this time. In high school I had tickets to their concert, they were doing the Pop tour at the time. Mitch and I ended up selling our tickets for beer money lol. I regretted it after. But at least I was able to catch them and not during the Pop tour...

Here's a youtube of them in Toronto performing With Or Without You, my favourite U2 song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUXqxRAQXc4

Smashing Pumpkins 11/04/08

Smashing Pumpkins, Massey Hall November 4th 2008 with my friend Mitch. Kinda sucked for us, there was a huge dude sitting, I mean, standing in front of us half the time. But it was still awesome and I believe it was my first real concert ever. One of my favourite bands of all times. Very shitty seats though lol

Here's a youtube of them that night performing Disarm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLN_eDvDAvo

Throughout the whole concert, some dude in the front kept yelling Cherub Rock! Billy Corgan makes fun of him at the end of the concert lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXqYOMFM_A

The Killers 01/23/09

January 23rd 2009 at the ACC, I think... Soto and I went to see the Killers. It was a pretty awesome concert I thought. They need new stuff soon... I don't know what it is but I recently became very addicted to live music and concerts.

Here's a video of them performing All These Things That I've Done that night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-z7JUegEA

One of my favourite Killers songs, Spaceman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaFmy6cNao

I'm back!

Its been a long time since I've had a blog. 7 years ago I think, on Xanga. Lookin forward to sharing my thoughts and perhaps some photos here and there. I've decided recently to get into digital photography. There might be a bombardment of bad photos at first but I hope to get better as I go along lol. To let you know a bit about myself, I'm 30 years old, Canadian, I love rock music, I enjoy reading about history, video games and poutine. That sounds about right... Maybe throw in some Hero burger here and there and yes yes twirling.

I'm going to try to post some pics of my recent trip to Amsterdam soon. Problem is I have to find them, I hid them so that people wouldn't just stumble upon them... but now I can't find them myself. I'm like a squirrel!

Cheers!

Pat



BLAH!