Kevin Thom - Hamilton, Toronto, Ontario Photographer

Undoubtedly, one of Brooklyn’s most iconic locations is Coney Island. I had a day to kill earlier this week, so I decided to visit the park and boardwalk to take some pictures. I took the D train from Manhattan and just enjoyed the ride to the end of the line at Brooklyn’s southern tip. It was my intention to capture Coney Island’s very familiar scenes of classic  Americana in an unusual way. I mean, almost everyone’s seen pictures of the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, even if they might not have known exactly what they were looking at, so I brought along a super-wide lens and my bendy tilt-shift 65mm f/3.5 Hartblei Super-Rotator to try to put a slightly different spin on things. The skies were clear and the air was a sweltering 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees F), which made roasting on the pavement waiting for the exact moment to shoot an exercise in sweat tolerance. However, it was a lot of fun finding ways to throw the focus across different planes with the Super-Rotator, and to identify novel abstract angles with the super-wide lens. The direct sunlight created some lovely hard contrasts and bright colors. I think the unique bokeh effects created by the tilt-shift help to communicate the almost comatose state of heat stroke that I was experiencing out there!

On this last trip to NYC, we stayed at the Standard Hotel, located on Washington Street in the Meatpacking District. While there are many things non-standard about the Standard Hotel, what I found most interesting about it was its location straddling the High Line, an abandoned elevated rail line that has been converted into a pedestrian walkway and garden. It’s about 15 blocks long and is not only beautiful, but also practical; it’s a great way to see the stretch of Manhattan between 14th and 32nd Streets. The gardens are made up of a variety of local plants and flowers, decorated by public art pieces. It’s divided into a number of different “neighborhoods” along the way, including a sort of urban beach and an area for public performances. There are plenty of comfortable places to sit and gather with others. It’s inspiring to see urban spaces renewed and reused in this way. Not only is property value increased dramatically along this corridor, it provides a welcome refuge from the sweltering concrete jungle.

Here are some of my photos of the Standard Hotel and the High Line.

Laura and I drove into San Diego late last night, after flying into Orange County. It’s nice to be back in California again. It’s a bit cool and grey, which I’m told is due to the “June Gloom,” a weather condition that results in clouds and fog in the mornings and evenings. In the morning, I left Laura to enjoy her conference in San Diego, and drove up the coast toward Los Angeles. I found that the June Gloom quickly gives way to bright blue skies at mid-day, as the California sun is irrepressible.

Heading north on I-5, I made a stop in San Clemente to dip my feet into the Pacific, walk the pier, and to have a delicious seafood salad at the Beach Garden Cafe. I particularly enjoyed walking the beach, feeling the pull of the tide eroding the sand beneath my feet, the ocean breeze through my hair, and the sun on my face. Children pelted noisily by, kicking up sand, splashing into the surf, fueled by new discovery. Their excitement fortified my own desire for exploration. In the distance, dark dolphin shapes looped lazily above the waves before disappearing again into azure.

For the next couple of nights, I’ll hang out with my talented Uncle Wayne in Los Angeles. Wayne has 40 years of experience in architectural photography, and is a great source of professional and artistic knowledge.

I found a website that calculates distances on Google Maps. I thought this might be a cool way to visualize the my trip to China.

It shows the distance traveled as being about 32,681 km (including flights to and from Toronto), but I’m sure it was more than that. The distances were “as the crow flies,” so didn’t account for the winding, weaving roads and railroads between places. The trip started with a flight in to Shanghai, located around the center of the image, and ended when I left Hong Kong to return to Toronto. Looking at this stark map, it brings to mind vivid memories of those places and experiences represented by the magenta pins and lines.

I’m writing this entry from home, because the last few days of my trip passed in a blur. During the wedding ceremony, the temperature hit about 41 degrees C. I got a pretty nasty case of heat stroke and passed out. Yikes. That was embarrassing. Fortunately, I didn’t cause a major disruption, and only my friends around me really noticed. I recovered enough to be able to participate in all of the parts of the ceremony I was supposed to, but felt pretty abysmal by the time I got back to the hotel. I missed the reception, which by all accounts was spectacular, and slept for the majority of the next day and a half. Note to self: tuxedos and tropical weather are a bad combination.

I’d given my camera to my good friend Culver to take some photos during the ceremony. He did a great job joining the scrum of photographers surrounding the happy couple, and got some excellent shots. The first eight photos in the gallery below are his. There are a couple of snaps from our dinner at Prime, the steakhouse at the Hilton. The rest of the photos show the Loy Krathong festival in Bangkok, in which you release a floating vegetable and flower sculpture into the river, symbolizing the release of negative energy. It was a beautiful experience, and it was a lot of fun to be able to participate. I took a hair-raising tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel after the festival celebrations. The tuk-tuk actually did a wheelie at one point because of the acceleration, and the wind had my face plastered into a grin. Awesome.

I left for the airport at about 4am the following morning, which was way too early for my 6:30am flight. But, you never know what traffic will be like in Bangkok, and the last thing I’d want to do is to watch my flight take off from the back seat of a taxi. I got to Hong Kong right on schedule, and decided to take a train ride into the city to kill off a bit of my six-hour layover. Hong Kong was as lovely as ever. I spent most of my short visit sitting on the public pier at the Central ferry terminal, enjoying the breeze off the harbour and watching the boats. Hong Kong, like many places in Asia, is undergoing constant and rapid redevelopment. Hong Kong is perpetually reinventing its glistening skyline, with office and condominium towers reaching ever higher.

My final flight home was long and uneventful. The gluten-free meal on the return leg was approximately thirty-five million times better than the one on the way over. This one contained delicious portions of steamed fish, salad, vegetables of many colors, and tropical fruit. Thank you, Hong Kong caterers. You’ve outdone yourself.

Things here in Hamilton seem exactly the same as they were when I left. The stability of Canada is comforting after a month of continuous change. As I sit here now, breathing crisp, clean Canadian air and sipping cold water poured straight from the tap, I can truly say that it’s great to go away, but even better to come home.