Day 22: Kickoff

(Nikon D60, 18-55 VR @ 24mm, f/4.5, 1/60, ISO 400)

In following yesterday's trend, what could've been a mundane day turned out to be pretty damn interesting.  It kicked off with History, which is a surefire way to start the day.  The following two hours were then spent handing out issues of the Commerce Times, which wasn't too bad overall. 

Afterwards, I proceeded to go grab some Greek food.  It was satisfactory, and only barely.  The salad was meh and the biggest dissappointment were the potatoes.  Now, I don't have many Greek friends, but the few times I've had the opportunity to enjoy home-cooked Greek potatoes were simply awesome (props to my friend Kosta's mom for that).  I never looked at Caucasian-prepared potatoes the same way ever again.  The souvlaki seemed pretty decent, but I don't have an awesomely sophisticated enough palette to be able to discern bad souvlaki from good; they all taste the same to me, albeit they all taste good.

Whilst consuming what was fast becoming sustanance rather than food, I checked my email to find that all systems were go for covering the first JDC Central event, that was happening in the Ted Rogers School of Management.  Hell yeah!  Something Commerce Timesy that didn't involve handing out papers!  I got home as fast as the TTC would permit and slapped together every lens in my arsenal (all *three* of them), popped the flash in my bad and got back to the area as fast as I could.  The opening ceremonies were to begin at 5:00 PM.  I arried at 4:40 PM.  All systems go?

No.  Not quite.  The writer I was working with wasn't answering his phone at the moment and I was frantically wandering the halls of TRS wondering how I'd get out of this little SNAFU.  Luck would have it that I'd run into some of the organizers and after a very brief explanation (which essentially was "I'm the photographer working with the writer) I had a press pass tossed to me and directed to Yonge-Dundas Square where the event was kicking off.  If only life were always that easy.

The rest of the night went pretty well, although like many events it ran on Asian Standard Time (also known as late starts).  I grabbed the shot above of the huge ads plastered on Toronto Life Square whilst I was waiting.  Lots of energy, fun, and perhaps a little too much bass for me, although I suppose I deserved it for walking in front of the speakers on like a dozen separate incidents.  Ironically, I spent most of the night shooting with my kit lens, the Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm f/3.5 - 5.6G VR.  Sadly, I do not have a wider lens, but I was thankful that it did work out well.  My Sigma 70-200 worked out pretty decent too once I decided to 'steal' a vacant chair and use it as a stepping stool (Asians are generally pretty short, did you know that?!). 

Unfortunately I probably won't be posting any photos from the event until the next issue comes out, if any of them are to be used.  Alas, I opted for the shotgun effect for my photos, and ended up with a couple hundred to sort through.  Woohoo.

Work again tomorrow, as well as JDC coverage on Sunday.