THE YEAR IN PICTURES: The Favourites

This week the Toronto Star photography department showcases a selection of its best work.

Al Gosling poses for pictures at the Sherbourne Community Health Centre in Toronto. Gosling, 82, was evicted from community housing for not filling out an annual declaration of income. He later died. (Toronto Star/Andrew Wallace)

Every year neighbours of Sorauren Park in Roncesvalle Village bring their pumpkins to the park after Halloween. (Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star)

Bare Oaks, a year-round, family orientated naturalist park hosted the 6th Canadian Naturalist Festival this past summer. The park is privately owned and run, and all activities are clothing optional, of which, no one (but a lone photographer) chose to wear clothing as people participated in an array of discussions and seminars to outdoor activities featuring volleyball, body painting and swimming. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

Randall Reid stands in Richview Memorial Cemetery, a pioneer cemetery dating back to the early part of the 19th century. It has become an urban anomaly situated between the forks of the 427 Hwy just below Hwy 401 near Eglinton Ave. Reid who in 2004 was the Cemetery Restoration Project Coordinator has several relatives including his great, great, great grandparents among the 300 locals (mostly farming people) buried there. (Rick Eglinton Toronto Star)

Kees Van Berkel, 61, is shown in a portrait made when he fired the remote cable release on a camera mounted by photographer Rick Eglinton on the strut of this Triplane.  (Rick Eglinton Toronto Star)

Six hundred litres of water encased in Plexiglas. One pair of handcuffs. One pair of shackles. Three locks. And two minutes and twenty seconds until your next breath, if all goes well. Kristen Johnson does her Water Torture Cell Escape twice daily at the CNE. She has performed the stunt more than 600 times to date, second only to Houdini. On one occasion she was pulled unconscious from the tank by partner and husband Kevin Ridgeway. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star)

Toronto has had more than its fair share of wet weather this summer.  A pedestrian is seen making his way along Danforth Ave. just east of Victoria Park Ave. past a leopard print carpet on display at Brothers Carpet Ltd. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star)

Keegan Shawana, 14, is out practising his skateboarding and enjoying the sun in Stan Wadlow Park in the Woodbine and Cosburn area. To the left, looking on is his friend Cody Costa 16. The strong sunny weekend is perhaps a harbinger of spring on the way. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star)

A pedestrian is framed in tulips at Queens Park. Although most tulips had dropped their petals, one bed at Queens Park remained fully in bloom. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star)

Faith Holmes cries during the prayer at the beginning of a concert program. Hundreds of thousands gather around the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and behind the Washington Monument, for an afternoon free concert. President-elect Barak Obama, and family, and Vice-President elect Joe Biden, and wife, are on hand for the festivities. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

Captain Tim "Donor" Woods, of the CF18 Demonstration team, flies east along the Toronto lakefront during a media ride prior to this year's CNE airshow. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

Singer and Oscar winning actor Jamie Foxx performs his Blame It tour at Sound Academy. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

The Austria 2 sled makes its way through turn 1 during Men's bobsleigh action at The Whistler Sliding Centre, during World Cup competition. (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star)

This former battery hen had been rescued at the time of slaughter and relocated to Cobble Hills Farm Sanctuary, near Stratford, where at-risk kids are given the chance to be directly involved in healing the hens.  Owner Christen Shepherd says the hens arrive nearly bald, thin, weak and unable to walk. (Randy Risling/The Toronto Star)

The United States Air Forces' high agile and powerful F/A-22 Raptor creates vapour and contrails as it turns hard during the third day of the Canadian International Air Show at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. (Toronto Star/Steve Russell)

Hareda Mohamud, the maternal aunt of a young Somali killed, reacts to the news that the trial against the alledged shooter in the murder and wounding of five others was dismissed after all the witnesses refused to testify. (Toronto Star/Steve Russell)

Using a tiny pair of binoculars, 12-year-old Maria Taylor watches planes making their final approach at Pearson Airport, runway 24R. The spot, a favourite for plane spotters, is a family tradition. Her grandfather, Michael Policelli, an Air Canada ground handler for 30 years, brought Maria's mother, Anna Policelli, when she was a child. Now the circle is complete as Maria enjoys her first plane spotting experience. (Bernard Weil/ Toronto Star)

 

Four hearses carrying the bodies of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan pass by farmland along the Highway of Hero's after their return to Canada. The hearses are on their way to the Coroner's Office in Toronto. Rick Madonik/Toronto Star

Veronique Marcoux, centre, props technician for the Cirque Du Soleil walks past the workers as they erect the big tent at the Portlands. The reflection is a small puddle in the foreground. (Rene Johnston/Toronto Star)

Moments

As much as I enjoy photographing in Toronto with all of its concrete and beauty I find it refreshing to photograph out in rural communities. 

The Tamil Protest travels down College St. in downtown Toronto Ontario on May 13, 2009.

Recently I drove through the countryside and visited Mark Cullen, a gardening guru out near Aurora Ontario. 

Mark was very easy to work with. I enjoy photographing portraits of people that I can strike up a conversation with. It puts both me and them at ease and lets a portrait happen and feel less conjured up.

Mark's property came fully equipped with a chicken coop. I didn't think I would be hanging with chickens when I woke up this day. I thought it made for a nice photo and could go well with the story. Its always nice to photograph something that isn't going to be the latest horrific news headline.

Photographers get to witness significant moments in peoples lives, often for more than just a fraction of a second. It can be overwhelming to see the many things that we see throughout a work week, but then again its what keeps all of us going. 

Trying to be prepared for anything and everything is an entirely different blog post.

Pawel Dwulit

[email protected]

.

Welcome to the Toronto Star Photo Blog!

The positive feedback the Toronto Star photo department has received so far during August's Big Picture month, a photo feature on page A3 in the paper, has energized reader appetite for pictures and has also excited all the photographers on staff.

We hope that this blog will give a little insight into the photo department of the Toronto Star.

Toronto Star photographers will contribute behind-the-scenes stories of events or some of the pictures that just couldn't find a home in the newspaper or website, or just some geeky photography thing we may have stumbled on.

The kick-off page to the Big Picture Month, the info along with the pictures also includes Camera Data!

Big picture month has us thinking inside the box, a 10 x 10 inch box or 8.5 x 8.5, depending on the size of the advertisement on the page.

As photographers we usually try to avoid shooting a square in favor of the page friendly horizontal or vertical.

While it has been a challenge, it has been fun working with the shape, almost like working with a Hasselblad.

We are regularly, especially on election nights, sent out on a tight deadline with a page mock-up that includes the shape of the picture hole we have to fill.

Having a whole month of a square hole to fill on page three gives us time to plan for the shape, brainstorm for ideas and subject matter and allow our assignment editors to free us up to shoot each day.

My first and only, so far, Big Picture was for a story on the return and reopening of the polar bear exhibit and the new Tundra Trek exhibit at the Toronto Zoo.

I had gone to the media preview, but that night also included a VIP preview and the crowds welcoming back the bears was thick!

The new enclosure offers up some great new viewing vantage points that allow you to get close to the polar bears.

I arranged to return on the Friday, the day before the launch of the Big Picture.

I spent two hours at the zoo with the bears basically to myself.

The two females were in the rear part of the exhibit while Inukshuk, the male, was in the main viewing area that features an underwater viewing area.

I spent the two hours sprinting between the above ground and underwater  viewing areas, covering his movements.

Inukshuk walks along the bottom exploring his new pool.

Playful, Inukshuk spotted a small piece of construction debris in the bottom of the pool. He would catch and release the piece of metal.

I guess, to him,  it might have looked like a fish.

When he held it in his mouth it looked like he was playing the harmonica.

While I was happily shooting him playing with the scrap of metal, his keepers and a facility manager were trying to figure out what he had picked up and if it could hurt him.

Thankfully he tired of it and went off to look at the female bears in the rear enclosure.

I don't think I would have wanted the task of going in there to wrestle the piece of debris away from him.

The Toronto Star Big Picture Gallery

- Steve Russell
[email protected]