Artist Studio

I took this photo in May of 2012, during that year’s Doors Open Toronto event.  It’s from an artist studio located in the city’s Distillery District.

The Distillery District is one of my favourite areas in Toronto, I definitely recommend you check it out if you’re looking for something to do there.  Not only can you find cool spots for eating, shopping, and grabbing a coffee, it’s fantastic for photography as well, of course!

Anyway, Doors Open is a yearly spring event in Toronto where certain buildings/locations that are usually closed to the public, are instead open for a day or two.  They are scattered all across the city, so you need to be selective about where to go.  It’s fun to kind of map out a route of what you would like to see.

On this day, I decided to head to The Distillery District.  I took some time to walk around inside some of the buildings in the area.  Usually when I would go there, I mainly took photos outside, but since during this particular weekend there were more indoor places open, I took the time to look around more inside.

There are many beautiful galleries and such in the area, and I came across this studio inside one of the buildings.  Another nice thing about being here at this time was that you could chat with the artists.  Some were delighted to answer your questions or talk about their craft and show you what they were working on.

At the time, my camera was the Canon 60D, which I used for this photo, along with the Canon EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens.  I shot it at 24mm, 1/80 sec, at f6.3.

As you can see, it was taken from outside looking in through the studio doorway.  It’s kind of a busy photo with a lot going on, but it’s one I’ve always liked. Were it not for the kettle and water filter, it almost looks as if it could have been from the 1920s or something.

I didn’t have a lot of time to take multiple photos or set up shots.  It was a public event, so there were people walking all around the area, in and out of the studio.  It would have been nice to have been able to take more time.

I really like the various elements, such as the spots on the floor, the books on the shelf, and the coffee mug on the table.  I also like the mannequin in the back and the beautiful mirror.  It’s hard to see all the details when just looking at it on a mobile device.

I mentioned earlier that it’s a busy photo, you can see this even more in the colour version.  Similar to my “Old Friends” post from last month, I felt that changing it to black and white helped reduce the distractions.

I often went to the Doors Open events when I was living in Toronto.  They were always an excellent opportunity to see parts of the city you normally wouldn’t be able to see.  Yes, you had to put up with crowds for some of the locations, but it was still well worth it.

If your city has a similar event, you should definitely check it out!  Not only for photography but also to learn a bit more about your city.