Sony Diaries #973: 13 wine-bottles on the wall

November 30th.

Sony Diaries #972: see-through building

November 30th.

Sony Diaries #971: excerpt from "The Legend of the Barcelos Cockerel"

at Nando's Hideaway, Grenville and Bay.November 30th.

Sony Diaries #970: Pink and Yellow

November 30th

Sony Diaries #969: Uber, the cat with a Ridgeback personality

November 29th

Sony Diaries #968: the barn on Highway 7, between Guelph and Waterloo

November 29th

Sony Diaries #967: Sunday morning views

November 29th

Sony Diaries #966: High ISO's

 ISO5000

 ISO12800

ISO25600

on the Sony a7II, Minolta 70-21F4, with an LA EA4 adaptor, AWB. Not bad at all for a lens that's probably over 35 years old, available on the used market for less than $100. And as for this Sony, nothing left to say that others haven't mentioned already: the best sensors and processing engine to match!

Sony Diaries #965: inexpensive fast legacy prime lenses

 $80 Canon FD 50f1.4 @f1.4, ISO640, Sony a7II with a $30 Fotosy adaptor

$50 Konica AR 57f1.4 @f2, ISO1250, Sony a7II with a $30 Fotosy adaptor

$50 Konica AR 57f1.4 @f1.4, ISO1250, Sony a7II with a $30 Fotosy adaptor

new app in town

LIMELIGHT: a new photo-sharing app now available on Android from Google Play. iOS version on the way. Brought to you by Tomas Baena Limelyght on GooglePlay

"The things you own...

… end up owning you"

from @collective_evolution

Sony Diaries #964: Eye in the Sky

The moon on a cloudy, high humidity night, as seen through leafless branches. November 25th.

Sony Diaries #963: cell phone shots on a Tuesday night

The unaided eye would just see a white orb with a darker halo on a high humidity night with the temperature just over 0 Celsius. There was enough ambient city light scattered by the moisture in the air to make for a lit night in the park. Melted snow from the previous night's dusting stood out against the the dark brown grass. It wasn't a pitch-black night. 

This shot illustrates the advanced sensor technology in today's cell-phones, as well as it's processing power (native + Instagram). Here you see the sensor grasping to capture  whatever photon is in the sky. But it's not all technology; the photographer still has to pick one or two options from the hundreds available to showcase his/her vision.

The result is a painterly Van Gogh'ish benevolent moon  over a small city  setting, the lights indicating human existence. It's surreal that this is the same moon over Lebanon, and Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria.

Rhodie, the Rhodesian Ridgeback on the first landing up the stairs, lit by a solitary table lamp, waiting for us to get in bed, so he can take up his disproportionate space.

Sony Diaries #962: Lake Huron

summer of 2015.

Sony Diaries #961: watching a parade...

… of humanity November 24th.

Sony Diaries #960: Costco Red

this should be the "Caution: Bulk-Buying Temptation Alert" sign.

Nice and shiny for the wide loads to come. November 23rd.

Sony Diaries #959: swimmers

 2015 Nothers Swim Invitational, London. November 22nd.

Sony Diaries #958: rainy night + construction woes on the 401

westbound east of Milton. November 21st.

sony Diaries #966: High ISOs on the a7II, using the Beercan

ISO5000

 ISO12800

ISO25600

Sony Diaries #957: Sony among Canons

As a Sony user, I'm still a lone wolf in the wedding industry. Wedding in Vaughn, November 21st.

Pray For A World

It is not Paris we should pray for.

It is the world. It is a world in which Beirut,

reeling from bombings two days before Paris,

is not covered in the press.

A world in which a bomb goes off

at a funeral in Baghdad

and not one person's status update says "Baghdad",

because not one white person died in that fire.

Pray for the world

that blames a refugee crisis for a terrorist attack.

That does not pause to differentiate between the attacker

and the person running from the very same thing you are.

Pray for a world

where people walking across countries for months,

their only belongings upon their backs,
are told they have no place to go.

Say a prayer for Paris by all means, but pray more,

for the world that does not have a prayer

for those who no longer have a home to defend.

for a world that is falling apart in all corners,

and not simply in the towers and cafes we find so familiar.

- Candice Soave

Sony Diaries #956: A Night of Enchantment

2015 Emma-Rose Gala

photos taken with a Sony a7II, Sigma 24-105f4ART

Sony Diaries #955: wet city streets

Bay Street at Elm. November 18th

Sony Diaries #954: a beacon beckons

November 18th.

Sony Diaries #953: uncommon spaces and altered perceptions

November 18th.

Sony Diaries #952: Baena chin

November 16th.

Sony Diaries #951: a bear and a blue hallway

 U of G Bear on Gordon

link at SickKids over Elizabeth Street. November 15th.

Sony Diaries #950: A Ballet

the ins and outs at a wedding in a banquet hall. November 14th.

Sony Diaries #949: a portrait

Kendra. November 14th.

Paris: meant to be savoured in B&W

August 2002

Paris, our thoughts are with you!

August 2002

Sony Diaries #948: Juliet, Audrey, and Victoria have dainty feet

November 13th.

Sony Diaries #947: Squares, Rectangles, Triangles and a Circle

November 12th.

Sony Diaries #946: meta-cognition

one of many take-away lessons from today's Surgeons' Conference. November 11th.

Sony Diaries #945: the perils of fishing under trees

November 2015

Sony Diaries #944: split-rail fences and Wabi-sabi

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered - and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks of time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all transient beings on this planet - that our bodies as well as the natural world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time… it's the difference between 'pretty' and the 'interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful'… it's the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea".

- architect Tadao Ando