I love Toronto.
I have been living here for almost 7 years now, but I think the love affair started when I was in high school and started going to shows. Going to a venue for the first time requires preparation, trekking there via the unfamiliar subway, and hoping that I don’t get lost and get to the venue on time. Repeat this process until you have been to each venue a few times, and then you become the person to tell the clueless kid to not to get off the bus yet or she would have walked an unnecessary 20 minutes and could end up missing the opening band (I wish someone told me that). Honestly, I have to thank the bands for getting me familiar with the downtown area before I graduated high school.
With that being said, Sound Academy is not my favourite venue because I can’t drive (if that’s not obvious enough from the above paragraph) and it’s in the middle of effing nowhere and the bus only comes once in awhile. But I get there, and I see this view, and then I forget how pissed off I am on the way there.
I have been to the Sound Academy a few times but these visits were mostly in the evenings. I normally wouldn’t make a trip down there just for the scenery, except once when I brought my friend Jaime, who was visiting from out of town, to show her this incredible view in an afternoon last summer. But back in February, Adam Elmakias was on tour with Of Mice & Men and they were playing Sound Academy that night and I was too busy, so I met up with Adam for an early lunch instead. It was the day after Nemo the snow storm and I was literally standing on 2 or 3ft of snow where I took the following photos. It was my first time there in morning and the weather was beautiful (obviously).
These following images are more ~abstract~ than what I usually do and I love how they turned out.
This one was taken on my first visit to Sound Academy. I was there to shoot Silverstein’s headliner with A Day To Remember opening. Unfortunately I was so nervous and got off a stop earlier than I was supposed to and ended up running to the venue and missing the photo call time to shoot ADTR — I was sooo bummed. I came out and saw the view and took some clichéd bokeh photos. A bigger cliché was that I titled the triptych after an All Time Low song, “This City, So Pretty Under Moonlit Sky” (Don’t judge me, Nothing Personal had just came out that summer) when I originally posted it on my Flickr.
I’ve only been to TO once during “spring break” in 2008 or so and to be very honest, i hated it so much hahaha and I’ve never wanted to go back. I admit that it was probably because “spring break” in March in Toronto meant constant snow storms and freezing rains. I was also staying further uptown (i think) and my friend worked so we didn’t really do much except on the weekend and only went downtown ONCE. Anyway…..hahahaha love the pics though!!!