These are two different pumps, which is my excuse for why the greens are different. It's a bad excuse, but without a re-edit, it's the best I have.
One little tidbit that I picked up from reading HTO is that the water system consumes more electricity than any other city agency – more than the TTC, more than street lighting. For some reason that made quite an impression, and makes me more inclined toward conservation.
According to the diagram, these are the Harris High Lift Pumps at the RC Harris water treatment plant, which supplies a third of Toronto's drinking water. There are other banks of pumps to send mains-pressure water to Scarborough, as well as low-lift pumps that feed additional pumping stations through the city.
All of these were taken with my D800. The first is with the 50/1.4G, which takes most of my photos these days, while the second and third were using the 85/1.8D. That's a lens that hasn't seen much action, but I've brought it back into the rotation as I prepare to use it on a trip next month.
I do wish that I had been able to move over a bit to hide the white label on the emergency stop button, but then I also would have lost the line of the conduit running to it. Eventually I may be good enough at photoshop to remove that bit of white, even if I'm not up to the task now.
Taken inside the pump house at the RC Harris water filtration plant.
Wikipedia tells me that The Dominion Bridge Company was also involved in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, which had its 75th birthday the day after I took this photo.
I suspect that this photo may look better in black and white, so it's a good thing that I was also carrying a Nikon F5 loaded with XP2.
The letters from the old Bloor Cinema sign, on the stage of the revamped theatre and lit from above by the stage lighting.
This could also be the only photo on this blog taken with the Nikon 35/2D on a digital camera. I've owned the lens for ages – I just don't particularly like it.
Another weekend, another trip to the Leslie Street Spit. This is one of the older beaches; the bricks are worn down into small cobbles and an easy slope. But the dump trucks and bulldozer is doing its work along this stretch, burying the old with the new.
After taking this photo I met a few other guys who were there doing the same thing I was: sorting through bricks. It turns out that I'm not the only one with an unusual rock collection, but hopefully none of the others are planning on photographing them…
I've learned to not put my camera away until the last possible minute. I took this while waiting for the bus after a three-hour excursion to the Leslie Street Spit. It would have been really easy to say that I was tired and stop.
Penny production at the Royal Canadian Mint ends today.
(There are a few other reasons to have a photo of pennies today, too.)
An interesting brick: internet research tells me that Staso was a brickworks in operation in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, during the 1950's. That's just outside of Pittsburgh, so this little brick is a long way from home.
Note the American spelling of "Gray".
Now that I have the God Nikon, I'll occasionally think that I should have bought the Nikon 60/2.8G instead of the 50/1.4G, because it's somewhat sharper at the middle apertures. But sometimes I'll let the fast 50 run and play the way it's meant to, and then pure resolving power doesn't seem to matter so much. If anything, this photo would benefit from more consistent softness.
This is also where I should make a joke about the photo being hand-held, but in truth the camera was on a monopod.
This is the only time in nine years that I've selectively softened and lowered local contrast.
(see also: "Staso / Gray")
