in the bag

This remains one of my favorite landscape style photos I've ever taken. It echoes a picture I had seen just a few days before. That picture was exhibited together with other winners of a wildlife photography competition in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Small side track on the museum: it had a section about East Asia, where I saw this group of sculptures. Beautiful and in good condition except for the missing hands. How ethical were the ways these art pieces came there? Honestly, to this day I didn't dig into the specifics on these three. But far too often do I hear about art or cultural artifacts having been stolen or looted from colonized places...

I still enjoyed the exhibition and there were many pieces in other parts of the museum which didn't raise concerns for me. Even the way there was pleasant: the subway station made you almost feel like you were already in an exhibition.

But back to the story of the headline picture: the photo I had seen in the exhibition surprised me when I first saw it. It seemed unassuming compared to the others. Then I noticed how the photographer had seen the shadow of a tree removing reflections from part of the water surface. They composed the picture such that this patch appeared as a window into the underwater world.

When I visited the CN tower I came late in the afternoon and stayed during sunset to see all the city lights come on. Towards the end, when they wanted to close the building management turned up the light inside, so it became difficult to see out. But I noticed how my darkly colored backpack acted like the shadow of the tree I had seen. I quickly looked for something to compose with and found it humerus to "have the airport in my bag".

I hope you also enjoyed this view and its backstory. This post concludes my visit to Toronto.