We switched coasts today. Here is a photo of our Miami Beach hotel taken from the boardwalk with my iPhone:

And here is the after:

I took it into Lightroom. Fixed the alignment of the building. Whitened it, but brought out the beautiful warm sunset light on the north elevation. And I took the greenery in the foreground out of the shadows.

The balconies remind me of one of Donald Judd’s “Untitled” pieces. He was one of my favorite artists. I also like the one dude leaning over that upper balcony. It gives the photo a tranquil feel, which is not usually how one would describe Miami Beach.

Last week, Joe Berridge, Partner at Urban Strategies, gave a presentation at the Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance titled, Toronto: The Accidental Metropolis. I’ve seen Joe give similar presentations to this one before, and I always thoroughly enjoy his focus on Toronto’s position as a global city.

Here is a slide from the presentation that projects out Toronto’s population to 2071 and compares it to the largest cities in the US.

But the two slides that have been really making the rounds online are the following ones. The first is a rendering of what downtown Toronto looked like in 2000. 

I remember this time clearly. Queen West seemed to end at Spadina. King West and Ossington weren’t things. And “Richmond and Adelaide” felt like the greatest club district in the world. (If you’re not from Toronto, these references will likely mean nothing to you. Sorry.)

The second slide is a rendering of what Toronto will look like in 2025. The transformation is just incredible.

I’ve seen some people comment that the Toronto of 2000 was relatively affordable; the Toronto of 2018 is unaffordable; and the Toronto of 2025 will be even more unaffordable with all of this new development.

But I don’t understand that logic. Considering the growth rate shown in the first slide, imagine how unaffordable this city would be if we weren’t building new places for people to live and new places for people to work.

For the full slide deck, go here. And for recent aerial photos of Toronto’s downtown core, check out my Instagram page.

Tonight I went a photography heli tour with @normandthegang. 

I took almost 500 photos, including a bunch of aerials of our development sites. And we got lucky with a pretty spectacular pink sunset. 

Here is a photo that I took of the CN Tower with my Fuji X Series (35mm prime lens):

Lake Ontario actually looked like that. This is not post-production chicanery. Follow me on Instagram to see the rest of the photo series.

Thanks again for the invite Norm. That was a lot of fun.