Yesterday, Pauline & I met up with Chard, Horace, and Aaronisian for a photo outing with the plan to hit Distillery District, Toronto Buskerfest 2006, and indieUnlimited at the Harbourfront. It seemed like a good plan on Friday, because the weather forcast said that it would rain Saturday and Sunday would be clear, of course the opposite happened and it didn’t seem like we would do a lot of photo-ing in the rain. Then, we figured that we wouldn’t do the dis² either.

So we met up along the way to St Lawrence Market, and fortunately for us the sky was clearing up (thus negating the rain gear we brought). I haven’t been to Buskerfest before (I think), but it is very similar to some of the street festivals I went to in Seattle. I actually think it’s what the Taste of the Danforth should be like, enough people but not overcrowded, giveaways (free Snapple, Starbucks freezie thing, lithium batteries, flavoured water, Wendy’s frosters), ethnic food, interesting buskers, and minimal amount of corporate marketing. The only drawback was the hassling of volunteers from the Epilepsy Toronto to buy dogtags and bracelets.

After lunch on the street (Gyros for me), we saw a few buskers, a native Indian entertainer who I thought was a very good one (i.e. got the audience involved, funny), the Toronto Aerial Dance Company (not really a busker troupe), a Marie Antoinette mime (whose gender is in question), a bronzed soldier, some weird thing on stilts, fancy balloon sculptures, chalk drawings (including a very neat wishing well), and your standard juggling things. I actually didn’t find the main draws, the ones that were on the main path and gathered a huge audience, were that interesting; but maybe because there were too many people to see what was going on.

So after milling around a bit more, waiting for Pauline to finish watching an demo from a company which would face paint and spray paint hair in to weird designs, we headed down to the lake and headed over the Harbourfront. Although I don’t think we ended up spending enough time at Buskerfest, there was still a lot of stuff to see; but indieUnlimited was also a one weekend thing. Along the way, we made a detour to the edge of Harbour Square so that I could get some pictures of a huge concrete ball. It was an underwhelming experience though, because this public art didn’t seem to be well maintained.

After a quick rest stop at Sobeys for some Ice Cream (or in the case of Aaron: water, yogurt, and a banana), we continued on to indieUnlimited. This was not as interesting because the clouds had come out again, we were tired, and we showed up too late to really see anything on the stage. Instead we walked around the arts & crafts displays, and the art in Harbourfront Centre until our stomachs started growling. This meant food time. We walked north back into the city until we decided on going to Hosu. I had been to this place a lot, and it’s decent, reasonably priced Japanese and Korean food. This time was particularly refreshing because they had air condition & yesterday was particularly humid.

During dinner, we ended up discussing the differences between taking photos of landscapes, people, and people we know. Landscapes are the easiest, but mean the least when other people look at them, people are more interesting but still doesn’t mean much when other people look at them in the future. Finally, people we know are the hardest to take pictures off, because well…you I feel like a goof sometimes taking candids or getting people to pose; but they are the most memorable when you look back. Anyways, It was a fun, photo-focussed day.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: aaronisian, chard, diary, elec2005, horace, pauline, photography, streetfestivals, toronto