For another photographer’s meetup, we went to the Distillery District in Toronto. The area is a rejuvenated Victorian-era industrial park, which now houses shopping, art galleries, a brewery, and restaurants. The Victorian feel with cobblestone streets and old buildings mixes with contemporary art and architecture. It’s also a nice spot for their annual Toronto Christmas Market.

From a photogenic perspective, the interesting stuff here are the old trucks, the wine barrels, and the multitude of textures on display. The trick was trying to compose at least one shot where indications of modernity were left out. I think I succeeded with one photo, not including the close-up shots.

For many of the shots in this collection, I used HDR or high dynamic range photography, where multiple exposures are combined together. Sometimes this technique can be pushed to create gritty and high contrast photos.