Highlights From The Nuit Blanche Photo Shoot

I had a wonderful time at Nuit Blanche. This is the first photo shoot where I exclusively used my Nifty Fifty lens, even though I was planning to rotate between my two lenses. However, this shoot wouldn't have been the same without Nifty's fantastic low light performance.

As for the exhibits themselves, nothing was as insanely awesome as Horridor from last year's event. Nonetheless, there were hardly any major letdowns. Ladies and gentlemen, my recap of Nuit Blanche 2009.

Best exhibit: The Apology Project by Maria Legault
Like I said, nothing knocked my socks off this year. However, there's something unforgettable about seeing a group of people covered with paper bags.

Honourable mentions: Rabbit Balloon by Jeff Koons and Bouncing Bride: What Goes Down Must Go Up by Cathy Gordon and The Theatre Centre.

Most disappointing exhibit: Beautiful Light by D.A. Therrien
My expectations were high for this exhibit, but when I arrived, there seemed to be technical difficulties resulting in asterisks being displayed. This eventually lead to the exhibit being turned off; a few minutes after this happened, I decided to move on.

Most surprising exhibit: Ruby Choose-A-Day by Toronto School Of Art
It's one thing when you request that no one photograph your model. It's another thing entirely when said model is completely nude. I see enough people showing off their business at the gym; this doesn't appeal to me.

Having said that, I took one of my best shots of the event here. Two words: bounce flash.

Exhibit I regret skipping due to a lineup: Battle Royal by Shaun El C. Leonardo
The prospect of watching grown adults duke it out at the Toronto Coach Terminal was almost irresistible. I say "almost" because when I saw the lineup, I made the difficult decision to skip this exhibit; I wanted to complete as much of my itinerary as possible.

Biggest surprise of the night: getting a free CD
On Queen St. W., I saw a man dressed in a white costume. Photographer's instinct kicked in; I photographed him and showed him the shot. He said that he liked it, but then he also gave me a CD for my efforts; it turned out that he's the drummer for Dynamo & BadNutBeats.

I ended up getting home at about 2:45 a.m.; part of my journey home included my first ride on a Blue Night bus. I'm not used to a Jane bus going all the way to Queen and Lansdowne, though...