Luminato - The festival or Arts & Creativity took place in Toronto from June 5-14, 2009.

I happened to stumble on David Rokeby’s Long Wave - This installation consisted of 64 red spheres, hanging from the ceiling inside the Allen Lambert Galleria in Brookfield Place. Rokeby’s long wave is a representative of a modified sine wave, the basic structure of modern wireless communication.

Very cool huh!!! You never know what you may stumble upon in Toronto!

Oh and please note that these pictures were taken with my iphone and NOT my fancy shmancy slr.

Bina and I have been friends for many years, in fact our friendship started because our fathers are friends and our grandfathers were friends. When we were little, I lived in Virginia and Bina lived in Canada, so we’d get to meet whenever our families visited each other. I remember the crazy shopping trips and how Bina’s dad would give us each a $20 and let us go shop our brains out at the mall! This one summer we both got Paula Abdul’s Spellbound, Paula was our favourite and we had each one of her songs memorized word for word. A few years later, my family decided to move to Pakistan and I thought this would be the end to our friendship - but that didn’t happen. We wrote to each other regularly, keeping each other up-to-date on our lives and then I discovered one of Bina’s aunt’s lived in the same city as us, so Bina would come visit her relatives and I’d get to see her too.

So when Bina asked me to do her portraits with her Husband and son, I couldn’t hold my excitemet! It was just a total pleasure getting to hang out with them while I caught them being a wonderful family that they are!

I’ve posted a few shots from the session.  Isn’t Bina just the most gorgeous person you know. I think she has the most beautiful smile!

My 3rd and most favourite stop for the day was the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat. I just love this building because of all the incorporation of Islamic architecture in it.  It is designed by the distinguished Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki.  The use of simplicity, white and light are just phenomenal.  My two  most favourite parts of this building are the Courtyard and the exquisite lattice work in the central foyer. The courtyard houses a garden which is inspired by Islamic Gardens. The walkways are all sloped a bit so that in the winter the water flows to the center from all 4 walkways.  The lattice work in the foyer is beautiful - The shadows created just add so much character and detail.

The Delegation serves as the headquarters of Aga Khan Foundation Canada, a non-profit agency that supports social development projects in Asia and Africa.

My 2nd stop for Door’s Open was the Lester B. Pearson Building which is the headquarters of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.  It was pretty neat to walk in and check it out.

Enjoy!

Door’s Open took place in Ottawa on June 6-7th.  I did manage to go out on the 6th and visit a few sites - I’ve been so busy with other things that I couldn’t blog about the buildings I saw - So I put aside some time today to do this!

I also just recently got myself a present…a 16-35 lens for my camera. It is just so purty and gets the awesomest pictures. I made sure I had it before doors open so I could try it out and get some awesome shots of the buildings I visited.

The First stop was the Old City Hall on Sussex now known as City of Ottawa Central Archives. This building is designed by Moshe Safdie and includes an inner courtyard and gorgeous hallways - The coolest part is that this building is designed to look like a floating island - it is constructed on Green Island and literally looks like it’s just floating in the water!  Another really cool feature of this building is the glass pyramid at the entrance - The architect used the Lourve in Paris as an inspiration for this design.

They didn’t allow any photography inside the building so I really couldn’t get anything there..but got some pretty cool shots of the exterior.