A trip to Toronto, Ontario

A trip to Toronto, Ontario

I had some family business to attend to in Toronto and was looking forward to returning to Toronto for a number of reasons, including another opportunity to photograph some of the wonderfully decorated homes with their multitudes of Christmas lighting and seasonal decorations. My father’s health had kept me close to home for the past few weeks but today I was on the road again and heading for Toronto along the #7 Highway route. I prefer  this route over the 416/401 route when the weather is nice and today was such a day – bright blue cloudless skies and only a hint of snow in the woods.

When I was younger, the idea of spending four hours driving non-stop from point A to point B seemed reasonable. These days, I like to get out of the car every hour or so to stretch my legs a bit. My camera insists! On this occasion, the reason for the stop was a church steeple that I could see off to one side of the road. The steeple was the steeple of the St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Roslin, Ontario. Its white paint was just gleaming in the bright sunlight much like I expect that it did back in 1845 when the church was first erected to serve this small Ontario community.

Before I travel to Toronto, I take a look at what is offered for sale on the various public sales forums such as Kijiji and Craigslist to see if there might be something of interest to me. A few days earlier I had noticed a couple of items advertised that interested me. One was a Nikkor 300mm f4.5 MF lens and the other was a bit of camping gear. First item on the list was the Nikkor vintage lens. Although I have a number of options for the 300mm focal length, the idea of owning this older model of the 300mm lens interested me, so, once family business had been attended to, off I went to meet the owner and see the lens. Didn’t take too long to see that the lens was in very good condition and the price was within reason. We completed the transaction and I headed over to High Park to see if I could find something interesting to photograph with my new purchase. It gets dark earlier at this time of the year in Toronto, so I didn’t have much time before the ability to hand hold the lens and get anything worth while would run out. Once I arrived at the park, I took a few shots. First, a stop sign, then some Mallard ducks (too slow a shutter speed for hand holding but I tried anyway), and then a shot of the moon before heading back downtown to check into my hotel room.

As I was driving along the lake shore on my way to the hotel, there was a beautiful sunset happening behind me. Unfortunately, each time that I thought that I had found a place to pull off of the parkway to take some shots of the sunset, the exit was blocked, closed or too soon behind me.

I had a reservation at the Westin Harbour Castle hotel. It is a very nice hotel and I didn’t realize, until I arrived, that the lobby would be abuzz with the excitement of the UFC contenders and fans. Thought about it afterwards. It might have been a great opportunity to get some photographs of, or with, some of the UFC celebrities but, I’m not an avid fight fan so didn’t get too excited and didn’t try to get any photos of any heroes to share with the world. Truth is, I just wanted to check in, dump my bags, splash a bit of water on my face and head back out to photograph Toronto’s Christmas lights. The front desk staff were quick, efficient and friendly and it wasn’t long before I was headed up to my room on the 33rd floor. Here, is the view that greeted me out my window! Just had to stop and take a picture knowing that, when I returned later, I would just have to take some more!

Next post will be Toronto Christmas lights and related night-time images so this was a good way to start that venture.

My four blog entries of my Toronto visit with about 80 images are now completed.
My first blog entry for this Toronto trip is here: Travel to Toronto, Dec. 2011
My second blog entry for this Toronto trip is here: Lowe’s Toronto Christmas Market
The DeSario home is here: DeSario home
My midnight activities are here :-): Late night

About Ron

Ron has long had an interest in photography and traveling and, in recent years, has had more time to devote to both activities. Long a Pentax user, Ron switched to Nikon gear when he went digital. The advent of the digital SLR camera, and the ease of the internet blogging process, has provided a venue for sharing his photography and travel experience at the local, national and international level. More about Ron
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