Posts Tagged ‘photos’

inside Leslie Barns

Posted: June 6, 2016 in events, locations, transportation
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As you all know, the TTC is replacing their older streetcars with new longer Bombardier streetcars.   Or at least they are trying to 🙂  Because they are longer, they don’t fit into existing “garages”, hence the new Leslie Barns facility.  Located on Leslie St., south of Queen, it is the new streetcar “home”.  It is where streetcars are parked, maintained and repaired.  It has been in operation since Nov 2015 but the first chance the public got to peak inside the finished complex was at Doors Open on the 28th of May.

below: While waiting for a streetcar at the corner of Queen and Broadview on the way to visit the Leslie Barns, I saw this renovated TTC streetcar from the 1950’s.

An old restored TTC streetcar, maroon and yellow, on Queen St. East

below:  The streetcar tour involved riding a new streetcar through a maintenance bay in the building and then around the parking lot out back.

People at Doors Open in TOronto, at the TTC LEslie Barns streetcar facitlity, lining up for , or just getting off of, streetcar tours, riding the new streetcars around Leslie Barns

A group of people inside Leslie Barns streetcar facility, standing aside to make way for a new streetcar that is taking other people on a tour.

people riding in a new streetcar, photo taken from the outside, most of them are waving

A man in black T-shirt and black cap is taking a picture of people riding in the new streetcar, inside Leslie Barns at Doors Open

below: Exterior, parking space for at least 100 streetcars

the massive concrete parking lot for streetcars with all the overhead wires. The building that houses the workshops and cleaning and office for the ttc is in the background.

below: Special bays have been constructed with space for workers to access both the underneath and the top of the streetcars.  Because the cars have been designed to ride low, a lot of their workings such as the HVAC and propulsion systems are built into the roof of the car.

the back of a new streetcar as it passes through interior of Leslie Barns streetcar facility, a large, tall interior space with lots of pipes

A streetcar sits in a repair bay of the Leslie Barns, space underneath the streetcar for workers to go down and work on the underside of the streetcar.

below: It’s a big space!  …. 17,510 square metres (188,500 sq ft) in fact.

interior of Leslie Barns streetcar facility, a large, tall interior space with lots of pipes

below: A spic and span shiny paint room

interior of the paint room at Leslie Barns, where streetcars go to get painted.

below: A myriad of colour coded pipes

A myriad of pipes running up walls and across the ceiling, blue, pink, red, grey, all colour coded, interior, Leslie Barns

below: There were renovated vintage streetcars on display.  On the left is a 1921 Peter Witt streetcar and next to it is a PCC streetcar from the early 1950’s.

a number of people waiting to go inside old renovated vintage TTC streetcars

below: Interior of a refurbished Peter Witt streetcar with its wood trim.  The Witt cars were built for the newly formed TTC in 1921.  They entered service on Broadview in October of that year.  By 1923 they were operating on seven routes.  The last Witt streetcar was retired in 1963.

A young boy stands in the back of an old restored ttc streetcar. A black and white picture of an old street scene has been put across the back window to show you what the view out the window might have looked like at the time the streetcar was functional. Old ads on the upper part of the interior, wood trim

below: Looking out the window of a PCC streetcar built in 1951.  PCC stands for Presidents’ Conference Committee, which was a group of operators from the USA and Canada  who got together in 1938 to design a new electric railway car.  By the late 1950s, the TTC owned the largest fleet of PCC’s in the world.  The last one was retired in 1995.

A young boy wearing a hat looks out the window of an old restored streetcar while his father takes a picture out the window

below: Streetcar wire maintenance truck.

a special TTC truck sits outside Leslie Barns TTC facility on Doors Open day, the truck is designed to run on streetcar tracks and is used to repair tracks and wires. There are people looking at the truck

#DOT16 | #TTC

Cutlines

Posted: May 20, 2016 in events, galleries
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‘Cutlines’, an exhibit of old photographs from the Globe & Mail,
part of the CONTACT Photography Festival

people standing in a large room, the old Press Hall at the Globe and Mail newspaper, looking at an exhibit of old photos. Some photos are being projected onto a wall

below: A small sample of the 175 vintage black and white photos from the vast collection held by the Globe and Mail newspaper on display.

old photographs, black and white, of small towns, in a display case, as part of an exhibit called Cutlines, old photos from the Globe and Mail collection

below:  The exhibit is being held at the Press Hall on Wellington Street (near Spadina).  This old building is slated for demolition in the near future as the Globe and Mail is in the midst of moving to a new home.  Prints were in cabinets in the center of the room while other images were projected high on the walls.

people standing in a large room, the old Press Hall at the Globe and Mail newspaper, looking at an exhibit of old photos. Some photos are being projected onto a wall

The Globe & Mail has amassed a collection of about 750,000 photographs.  As they transition from print to digital images, they are ‘cleaning house’ with respect to their photo archives.  About 100,000 of the prints are going to be digitized and a portion of those donated to the new Canadian Photography Institute at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

below: Some of the pictures were covered with red, with what is known as a rubylith mask.  When the images were printed, the portions covered in red remained as they were while the rest of the picture could be changed to suit the needs of the story of the day.

silhouette of a woman standing in front of a lit display case of old photographs

people standing in a large room, the old Press Hall at the Globe and Mail newspaper, looking at an exhibit of old photos. Some photos are being projected onto a wall

people standing in a large room, the old Press Hall at the Globe and Mail newspaper, looking at an exhibit of old photos. Some photos are being projected onto a wall

people standing in a large room, the old Press Hall at the Globe and Mail newspaper, looking at an exhibit of old photos. Some photos are being projected onto a wall

below: The woman with the two trophies, bottom left, is Marilyn Bell who swam across Lake Ontario.  I know that the man beside her is from a story about a cowboy championship of some sort in Calgary and my apologies for not remembering more of the details.

old photographs, black and white, of people with trophies, in a display case, as part of an exhibit called Cutlines, old photos from the Globe and Mail collection

silhouette of two men standing in front of a lit display case of old photographs

On view at 425 Wellington St. West until 26 June 2016

#CONTACT16

a flock of birdos

Posted: May 17, 2016 in graffiti and street art
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This blog post is about a flock of birdos, meaning that I found a lot of alley garages decorated with paintings by street artist birdo.  Or maybe ‘a menagerie of birdos’ would be a more accurate description as most of the pictures were of different animals such as elephant, cat, dog, coyote, and mouse along with a number of different birds.

These photographs were are all taken in alleys behind the south part of Dovercourt Road (between Queen and Sudbury streets).  The majority of the paintings that I saw were result of birdo’s work but there were examples of  and I have included them in this post too.

 below: Two birdo birds with eggs, with a slice of mushroom and pepperoni pizza by Shalak.

Three garages in an alley, with trees growing between them. The first two have garage doors with birdo murals on them and the third has a pizza street art painting by Shalak

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a large bird with blue head and orange beak sitting in a nest looking down at a large white egg

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a parrot holding a large blue egg

An old wood garage in an alley that is painted by Shalak, a slice of pizza with pepperoni pieces flying off it (or onto it!)

a person is sitting on a kerb in an alley, beside a wall with a large mural by birdo of an elephant and a mouse

street art mural on a wall in an alley by birdo - an elephant with a green head

below: Howling at the moon, with a cactus and a scorpion too.

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a coyote howling at the moon in the desert with a large cactus in the picture as well as a scorpion. words: birdo homes spud

below: Blue dog, pink lava lamp

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a blue dog beside a pink lava lamp on a table. words: birdo dmc, phil pans tense

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a four legged animal looks to be growling at something

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a large multicoloured cat. words: tense phil pans

below:  A rooted turtle and cool owl with sparkly shades

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a lavendar turtle and an owl with blue eyes and orange beak

street art mural on a garage door in an alley by birdo - a creature with a green and purple body and head that looks like a parrot

street art mural on a wall in an alley, a girls face, two little brown pigtails, 2 hearts and a turtle head

an old mattress leans against an old brick wall that has two pieces of graffiti on it. One is a blue and yellow egg shape with a blue arm and hand sticking out of a crack in it. The words "It's alive" are written beside it. The other is a small blue creature like shape

On a gararge door in a laneway, painted like the Canadian flag except there is a pineapple in the middle instead of a maple leaf. On the right hand side red stripe are the words "have a nice day"

A mural by bruno smoky on the side of a white container. It is a purple faced creature with blue tag like shapes around it.

below: “Just a robot that doesn’t like technology”

a lovebot on a silver garage door with the words "Just a robot that doesn't like technology, I'd rather be free"- signed Tasha

number 66 in a lane, garage door, door and walls covered with circles and triangles in different colours.

A door covered with a very abstract face painting and another graffiti face beside the door.

refugees outside the Italian Consulate

Posted: May 7, 2016 in events
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Refugees in a State Apartment, Jens Ullrich,
Photo exhibit, on a fence outside the Italian Consulate, Dundas West at Beverley.

Part of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival

photos mounted along the exterior of a wrought iron fence around the Italian Consulate, right beside the sidewalk. The consulate is on old brick house (mansion) from the 1800's - 3 of the photographs, people walking past

Ullrich has taken found black and white photographs of the interior of a large home near Bremen Germany.  The photos were taken in the late 1920’s.    Each photograph is of a different room in the villa and to each picture Ullrich has added  one person.   If you knew nothing about the series, you wouldn’t know that the subjects were refugees.

In each photomontage, singular individuals are depicted—usually with their faces hidden from the camera—within empty yet elaborately fashioned spaces that emphasize their solitude and unstable status. “

photos mounted along the exterior of a wrought iron fence around the Italian Consulate, right beside the sidewalk. The consulate is on old brick house (mansion) from the 1800's - phot by Jens Ullrich of a woman refugee with her face obscured by clothing, sitting on a chair in the bathroom of a large bathroom. also a photo of a male refugee in another room, looking in a large mirror

One of the concepts behind this series of images was the desire to

respectfully capture the disparate emotions of these individuals and their precarious situations.”

photos mounted along the exterior of a wrought iron fence around the Italian Consulate, right beside the sidewalk. The consulate is on old brick house (mansion) from the 1800's - as seen from across the street with pedestrians walking past and cars driving past

photos mounted along the exterior of a wrought iron fence around the Italian Consulate, right beside the sidewalk. The consulate is on old brick house (mansion) from the 1800's - the photos are of refugees that have been photoshopped into old photos of the interior of the apartment of a wealthy person from the 1920's
#CONTACT16

Current Studies, Paper Planes

Posted: May 3, 2016 in events, galleries
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‘Current Studies’ and ‘Paper Planes’
Two different series of photographs by Sjoerd Knibbeler
Allan Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place

At ground level there are six large freestanding ‘walls” arranged in line, three at each end of the atrium.    Each ‘wall’ is covered by two images, one on either side.  They are photographs that are the result of Knibbeler’s experiments to “ shape, encompass, and capture air currents.”  This is the ‘Current Studies’ part of the installation.

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

Suspended from the ceiling are a set of photographs of paper airplanes, the ‘Paper Planes’ part of the installation.    Knibbeler photographed paper airplanes that he made using information that he found online.  He chose military planes that were never produced.

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

A picture taken inside the Allan Lambert Gallery at Brookfield Place, photos by Sjoerd Knibbeler, a series called Current Study large pictures standing in the middle of the gallery, as well as series called "Paper Planes" which are hung from the ceiling

#CONTACT16

big pictures on Spadina

Posted: April 30, 2016 in events, public art
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May is photography month in Toronto.  It is the month when there are numerous exhibits in public spaces and in galleries, all part of the CONTACT Photography Festival.   Over the next few weeks I hope to visit many of the exhibits and blog about some of them.   From past experience I have discovered that a lot of the public installations appear before May 1st so I went exploring yesterday.

below: Looking south from Spadina and Adelaide….  Partially obscured by a building, on the right in this photo, is the first large black and white photo that I saw.

view from the NE corner of Spadina and Richmond streets. a small parking lot is directly across the street, two large billboards loom over the lot. Once is for Lorne's coats showing two people wearing coats. The other is for Maple flavoured iced capp at Tim Hortons.

below: Up close,  ‘Drape’ by Eva Stenram.  Stenram has taken a 1960’s pin-up photograph of a woman and manipulated it.  She has brought the background, the drapery, forward and has covered up the original subject in the picture.

large black and white photo by Eva Strenram called 'Drape'. It is mounted on the upper level of a three storey red brick building. It shows a woman sitting on the floor partially obscured by drapery. Her upper body and head can not be seen.

below: Looking west on Wellington from Spadina.  The light grey building is the Old Press Hall (Globe and Mail) which will be demolished in the near future.

looking down the street past parked cars. A large black and white photo is on the side of the building.

below: Up close, ‘Stopping Point’ by an unknown photographer.  The original title and description was: ‘Along the new Highway, which runs from Smooth Rock Falls to Fraserdale, Ontario, there’s no sign of human habitation apart from one empty lumber camp, c.1966. 

A very large black and white photograph from the 1960's of a car on a two lane road with pine trees on either side. There is a boat tied to the roof of the car. The photo is on the side of the Globe and Mail building with cars parked around it.

The above photograph is one of 750,000 photos in the Globe and Mail’s picture library.   100,000 of their old photos are being digitized to create a new historical archive.  From these, a collection of 20,000 prints will be donated to the newly formed Canadian Photography Institute at the National Gallery of Canada.

More of the photos from the Globe and Mail’s collection are on view inside the Old Press Hall.

textiles and curios

Posted: April 26, 2016 in stores
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First, a big thank you for being welcomed into Gadabout to explore and take pictures.  Gadabout is a store on Queen St East and it is home to “vintage clothing, nostalgia, ephemera, textiles and curios.”  It is packed full of old things.  Interesting things.

Exterior of the Gadabout store on Queen St East showing the window display and entrance. The window is full of things for sale and there are also a few things sitting outside the store that are also for sale - old glamour magazine, old men's skates, a teddy bear, a crocheted coat,

below: And when I say packed, I mean it!  Floor to ceiling.

Against a wall in Gadabout store, shelves with small cubbyholes all filled with small items, curios, b=vintage, treasures, such as old producs, toys, figurines, household items,

below: Who could resist a watering can purse?  In pink even.

a pink purse in the shape of a watering can hangs from a hook on a wall. A pair of beige gloves hangs below it. Folded fabric items are on the shelves beside the bag and gloves. Blankets or sweaters.

A small doll with a very lifelike face is looking towards a shelf filled with small ceramic and porcelain items such as vases and figurines

below: Containers and packaging for Mennen baby powder, 40 cents for J.R. for Athlete’s Foot, Silvo silver polish, a tire repair kit, 6-12 insect repellent, and wintergreen oil.  The latter is used topically to relieve muscle aches and pains.  It’s labelled as a poison as it is easy to overdose on it if ingested.

A small section of shelf in a store selling vintage items, on this shelf are old drug store and household products such as wintergreen oil, silvo silver polish, baby powder, athletes foot treatment,

below: Knights Templar black bicorne hat with feather along with matching cuff.

An old black military hat with a white feather in it sits on a head mannequin. Beside it is another mannequin wearing a tartan kilt and a white shirt. The shirt has a brownish leather cuff with a red cross on it.

below: All those drawers are filled with old photographs.

old wooden drawers filled with old photographs, a mirror, and an old chair with a vinyl watermelon print fabric on it.

old photograph of a man in uniform, a front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper, more drawers, all in a store filled with vintage items.

below: Vintage clothing

sleeves of colourful shirts and blouses hanging on a rack. Orange polka dots, red poppies, wild prints, all vintage clothing

a teddybear sites in a can with a painting of flowers on it. An old Glamour magazine with a yellow cover
Old pins (buttons) in the foreground with beaded necklaces in the background.

below:  Fancy handbags and shoes.

items in a vintage store on Queen St East in Toronto, on the wall there are some small handbags, as well as some high heeled shoes. Some of the bags are beaded and one is a shiny gold colour.

Gadabout website

our faces are all over the place

Posted: October 12, 2015 in events, public art
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Inside Out, a global art project
with more than 250,000 portraits in 124 countries

This project came Toronto as an extended Nuit Blanche installation.

Two men are holding up a large black and white photo of the head and shoulders of one of the men that has just been printed

Starting a few days before Nuit Blanche the Inside Out mobile Photobooth was parked at Nathan Phillips Square.  Anyone who was interested could have their picture taken – a digital copy was emailed to each participant and a large black and white copy was printed within minutes.  The photos were collected and then used to make one large image, a series of concentric circles in the center of the square.

A picture of the mobile photoprinting booth that was used for the Inside Out global art project at Nathan Phillips Square. Some people are waiting in line to have their picture taken.

Two people are holding up a black and white photo of a girl's face. She has her fingers up to her eyes in an owl face. The man holding the photo is making the same face.
below:  Getting ready for Nuit Blanche at Nathan Phillips Square

A group of young people are using brooms and sqeegees to glue blackand white photos of peoples faces onto the concrete of Nathan Phillips Square

A group of young people are using brooms and sqeegees to glue blackand white photos of peoples faces onto the concrete of Nathan Phillips Square

Concentric circles of black and white photos are being glued to the concrete at Nathan Phillips Square, overview, photo taken from the upper level.

below: Nathan Phillips Square at Nuit Blanche

a group of people is gluing pictures to the concrete while many people look on, most are behind barricades, night time

view of the Inside Out Project at Nathan Phillips Square on Nuit Blanche 2015

below: The side of the ramp to the upper level was also covered with photos.

A group of people pose beside a wall that is covered with pictures, nuit blanche, night time.

black and white photos of peoples faces glued to a wall, part of Inside Out Project in Toronto

below: … as was the south side of the 3D Toronto sign.

3D Toronto sign covered with black and white pictures of people, at night, at Nuit Blanche when there were a lot of people standing around it.

below:  The Inside Out Project remained after Nuit Blanche.

Two photos that are glued on the O of the 3D Toronto sign. One is of a man in Blue Jays T shirt and one is of a ayoung man with his hands on his cheeks and a wide eyed, open mouthed look of astonishment on his face. Toronto city hall is in the background

Three people sit on the bench beside the fountain at Nathan Phillips Square. Their backs are to the camera, they are looking towards the 3D Toronto sign that is covered with black and white photos for Inside Out project. Toronto city hall is in the background

A seagull stands on photos of people that are glued to the concrete

Nathan Phillips Square after Nuit Blanche when Inside Out projects are still on the ground, and a farmers market is going on around it.

below: There were a number of other sites around the city that participated in this project including  a wall at Mel Lastman Square in North York.

A wall alongside a sidewalk ramp is covered with black and white photos of people's faces.

below: There was also a wall on the southwest side of Coxwell subway station that was covered.

exterior concrete wall covered with black and white photos of people

exterior concrete wall covered with black and white photos of people

#IOPToronto | #snb2015 | #snbTO | #share3DTO

Lots more info about Inside Out can be found here.

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banners on Queens Quay

Posted: September 18, 2015 in public art
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 Waterfront Outdoor Photo Exhibit

For the past four years, the Waterfront BIA has organized a photography contest.  East year fifty finalists are chosen.  This year they have organized a photo exhibit of a different kind.  One hundred and fourteen images were chosen from the 200 finalists from their previous photo contests.  These images were used (and cropped!) to make vertical banners, 5 ft x 2 ft in size.   The banners are made of vinyl and the same image is on both sides.

below: You can see many of the banners on Queen’s Quay between Yonge and Bathurst.

Looking west on Queens Quay towards Bathurst street. New TTC streetcar is in the photo as well as a number of condos and other buildings on the north side of the street

Picture of round orange life ring on the edge of the waterfront in Toronto.

Three pictures in one. Each of the pictures is of a banner hanging from a pole outside. On the left is a picture of seagull, in the middle is a picture of two houses and on the right is a winter waterfront scene

A pole with a vinyl banner with a colourful picture of boats. Also on the pole is a street sign that says Yo Yo Ma Lane

looking towards the waterfront. A banner with a picture of the Canadian flag is on a post by a tree in the foreground. The old silos for Canada Malting Company are in the background as is a boat moored beside the silos.

A banner with a picture of a seagull on it. In the background of the banner picture is the CN Tower. In the background of this photo, there is also the CN Tower.

 

below: Sometimes it’s difficult to see the banners amongst all the other things along Queen’s Quay

TTC streetcar on Queens Quay

below: There are also some banners on Lakeshore Blvd between Bathurst and Spadina.

A woman is walking on a sidewalk, away from the camera, beside the Lakeshore Blvd in Toronto. There are a few cars on the road. There are skyscrapers in the background. The elevated highway, the Gardiner Expressway, is also in the picture.

A composite of three pictures, each of a vertical banner hanging from a pole outdoors along a street. One banner is a kayaker in the harbour in front of the Toronto skyline. Another is a sunset over Toronto skyline on a cloudy day

stalking Martians

Posted: September 12, 2015 in events, people
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Today was the first day of TIFF.

A middle aged Asian woman poses in front of the orange tiff 3D sign on King Street. A girl is sitting on the corner of it, looking off the picture to the right.

Happy 40th birthday to TIFF!

Three people walking past a bright poster for TIFF's 40th year. A burst of pink and orange colour around the number 40, all on a black background.

King Street is closed between University and Spadina for a few days so I thought I’d wander through the TIFF party to see what was happening.   I played ‘follow the crowd’.

below:  Who are we looking for?  I wasn’t sure, but hey, why not wait and see?

A crowd of people is waiting by the side entrance to the TIFF Lightbox theater.

Close up of a policeman's face. He is wearing reflective sunglasses and the crowd is reflected in them.

below: Widmer Street was closed to traffic

line of people waiting by a barricade at the end of a street. Queen Street west stores are in the background.

…. except for a few black Cadillac Escalades.

two lines of black Cadillac Escalades, looking down the lines to a group of people behind a barricade with a policeman standing with them.

below: I’m not sure who he was but he seems to be taking pictures of the crowd
(or is he taking a selfie?)

A short man is taking pictures of a crowd (directly towards the camera) or else he is taking a selfie with a lot of black Cadillac Escalades behind him.

 below: Sean Bean (aka Ned Stark in Game of Thrones – thanks to the woman beside me who knew who he was) in the burgundy coloured vest.   As it turns out, the movie ‘The Martian’ had just finished playing at the TIFF Lightbox and many of the cast members had been in attendance.

The actor Sean Bean (Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) is walked to a car with a security guy in the lead and a couple of other people with them.

below:  I think it’s Danny Glover; I could be wrong

actor Danny Glover being directed towards a car.

below:  Jessica Chastain, also in ‘The Martian’ worked the crowd.  She was generous and let many people take selfies with her.   Not in the picture, the three security guards who stayed close to her the whole time.   Also not in the picture, any selfie with me!

A group of fans in a crowd. One man is taking a selfie with the actress Jessica Chastain. Other people are taking photos of them.

Once Jessica passed by me, I moved away from the crowd and headed back along King Street.
I didn’t far when I spotted another, smaller, crowd.

below:  Can’t be a badass security guy with a shaved head and dark glasses!

Two security guards stand on steps outside a building. One has a dark suit on, the other is wearing jeans and a grey vest. Both have shaved heads and dark sunglasses.

 I struck up a conversation with one of the Escalade drivers.   He told me that Matt Damon was due to come out in about 20 minutes after some sort of press event.  That’s when I clued in to the fact that the people who got into the big black SUVs two blocks back had only been chauffeured to this place!  Since I missed Matt Damon the first time around, I decided to stay.   Besides, the crowd was friendly and chatty and I was having a good time.

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below: Sebastien Stan walks to a car after signing a few autographs.   When he first came out the door, there were a few, “Who’s that?”.  The answers were almost all, “Captain America”.

blog_groupies_sebastien_captain_america

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blog_groupies_policeman_crowd

  below: Naomi Watt made an appearance too.
Hey, she’s not in “The Martian”, but I didn’t know that at the time!

Actress Naomi Watts signs autographs while a security guard looks on.

Okay, okay, you all just want to know if Matt Damon let me take his picture.

below: One burly security guard stepped in front of me and almost destroyed the moment.
Note the shaved head. No sunglasses though.

The back of the head of a security guy. His head is shaved except for the top part. He is wearing a wire. Matt Damon and another security guy are out of focus in the background.

Matt Damon is directed towards a vehicle by a driver and a security guard.

Apparently George Clooney, Sandra Bullock and Helen Mirren, were at TIFF today.
I missed them; they’ll have to wait until next time.

#TIFF15

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