The club enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather on March 30th and ventured out into the urban wilds of Chinatown and Kensington Market.

Five of us, Patricia, Kristen, Ivan, Roman and I, gathered and set out from Dundas and University. Upon arriving just beyond the AGO, across from the Hong Kong bank, we started shooting at a grocery stand after conferring a bit on the high contrast lighting conditions and appropriate camera settings.

Slowly, we made our way along Dundas, observing vehicles, wares, characters, buildings and street scenes. Sadly, Patricia had to head off to an evening course before we made it to Kensington. Heading north up Spadina, we took in a few more sights of Chinatown but in somewhat more subdued lighting since the sun was shadowed by the buildings on the west side of the street. Still, there were a few places where strong directional light shone through some alleys for some more dramatic views.

The next hitch was Ivan’s loss of battery power just before we transitioned into Kensington Market. Still, he decided to hang in there with us. As we ambled along St. Andrews, we had the first of several encounters with the denizens of Kensington. I met Morris, a fellow photographer who has been exploring Kensington for 10-12 years. He was on his way to the synagogue for a Passover related get together and agreed to have a portrait taken. Very nice man. Much nicer than the young thug who appeared from behind a heavily graffiti’d van I was framing up to inform me that “if I take too many photos, I might get shot at.” Sure, whatever.

Next we turned north on Kensington. Again, more subdued light, but some of us enjoyed capturing a graffiti on the brick side of a building that recommended “Fuck the fake” – interesting point of view. I encountered an unfortunate woman here who was mentally ill and muttered that “they’re going to have to be shot. The police said so.” I tried to soothe her, saying no one would be getting shot, and moved on.

As we came to the top of Kensington at Baldwin, the setting sun was lighting up the grocery displays on the southwest corner. This offered up some interesting shots. As we moved along, I tried a couple of a young guy playing guitar but only managed two blurry shots with Roman’s borrowed camera. I’m still not sure if the body is functioning well or not.

By this point, poor Ivan without a camera was getting bored and I was getting hungry. So, we considered a few more opportunities on Augusta as the light was fading and eventually made our way up to the Big Fat Burrito. Ivan and Kristen headed off and Roman and I chatted about our photo adventures over some great burritos.

Not bad for the first time out. I’ve posted 19 of my photos on Flickr. I hope everyone gets their Flickr accounts together and uploads their picks. Make sure to tag them with torontoshootersclub so they show up in the slideshows on our club site at torontoshootersclub.ca.

I think we’ve settled on Mondays. The poll suggests that the next location should be the Brickworks. That is further from our home base at Dundas and University, but let’s try to get over there by 5:45pm, Monday, April 5. I’ll add that to our calendar…

See you then!!