This Christ­mas I only took a few pic­tures with my phone, the rest I took with a Diana Mini (a film cam­era). I’m real­ly enjoy­ing not being able to imme­di­ate­ly see what I’ve cap­tured, and wait­ing to see the results, and end­ing up with sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er pho­tos. It all makes pic­ture-tak­ing a much more inten­tion­al activ­i­ty for me.

So I just want to share with you a few of my favourites :D

Some of these are from the fall. Here we are, with friends at Nuit Blanche. Some major streets were closed for the “all-night art thing”, so we were able to take a leisure­ly stroll in the mid­dle of the night down the mid­dle of a street­car track.

 

This was one of the Nuit Blanche instal­la­tions at Fort York. Tak­en with long expo­sure, made more dra­mat­ic with light leaks. The lights moves from the canons down the hill. I wished I had record­ed the sounds and music that went with it too. It was beautiful.

 

Kind of a con­fus­ing pic­ture but I real­ly like it. It was actu­al­ly a dou­ble expo­sure of baby’s breath in a vase and me wear­ing a mush­room cap.

 

Here’s a bet­ter pic­ture of me in the mush­room cap (found at Ikea! Best thing ever :D). One can­not be stressed out while wear­ing a mush­room cap and sip­ping tea.

 

The annu­al San­ta Claus parade! We haven’t been for a few years but this year a friend was in the parade so we were hop­ing to wave at her from the side­line. Sad­ly, we missed her, with all the fes­tiv­i­ties going on and chil­dren run­ning around. But I’ve got some mul­ti­ply-exposed pic­tures to cap­ture the (some­what over­whelm­ing) hol­i­day cheers! (Because I was also run­ning out of film, was try­ing to take in as much as pos­si­ble :P) Here we have a cou­ple of pos­ing clowns…

 

and a princess in a giant skirt and a giant bon­homme de neige.

 

And rab­bits! And tea par­ty amidst the giant mushrooms!

 

And final­ly, San­ta! With the band play­ing around him…

 

And we also went to the annu­al Christ­mas Mar­ket at the Dis­tillery. Very mag­i­cal with the lights. This one is my favourite shot from the market.

 

There was a very giant Christ­mas tree, but the pic­tures I took of the tree turned out rather dark because the Diana does­n’t have a very strong flash. So, tree with more string lights.

 

The cheer­ful crowd :D

 

In the build­ing where all the artist stu­dios are.

 

And some fam­i­ly time. Got to do some hol­i­day yarn craft­ing with my cousin (who is 8, so I’m more like an aunt than a cousin…). Here are the pom pom pets we made, all lined up for a group pho­to :D (a granny rab­bit, a pan­da and a pig)

 

Hav­ing some tea and tri­fle at grand­ma’s, a year­ly tra­di­tion :) (I love how it cap­tured the cream dis­pers­ing in the tea)

 

I just start­ed anoth­er roll of film for new year and lunar new year — stay tuned for more Diana pic­tures! :D Until then, wish­ing you good health and much joy in 2015!