The G20 summit is being held in downtown Toronto this weekend.  Today, there was a “peaceful demonstration” planned.  Approximately 4,000 people would meet at Queen’s Park, walk down University to Queen Street, then head West on Queen to Spadina, and then back up Spadina to Queen’s Park.

You can view all 150 of my pictures from today on Flickr.

It started out peaceful enough…

… with a few crazies.

Police lined up on Richmond to prevent people from heading South towards the security perimeter.

Something happened at Queen & Spadina that I did not see. People started running around yelling “TEAR GAS!” but I read online that it was smoke from a flare. After that, it got a little bit crazy. The protesters began heading back East along Queen Street instead of going up Spadina. Sometime in those 5 minutes, someone(s) smashed all of the windows of 2 police cars.

Police officers came and blocked the area that contained the two police cars. They all put on gas masks. Shortly after this, I headed home, since I live in the same block.

When I got home, I saw on CP24 that Starbucks at Queen & John had been smashed, so I went back outside.

The police officers had left the area, and I saw that people had painted the vandalized police cars.

I went back home and started transferring pictures. A few minutes later, my boyfriend asked “did you hear that?!” We looked out the window and there was black smoke coming up from Queen Street. I grabbed my camera and went back outside. Someone had lit the police car on fire.

It was surreal seeing people walk all over the street. Shortly after this, I saw a few people set the other police car on fire.

I watched from my balcony as cops were rushing protesters to push them North.  Just around the corner, protesters were becoming increasingly violent.  The whole thing was pretty scary and surreal.

Check out my Flickr set for more pictures from the G20 protests today.

I’ve also been putting more time into building my iStockPhoto portfolio.  Here are some of my recently accepted images.  These are all travel photos taken during my recent trip to Wales.

Taken in Brecon Beacons National Park during a ridiculous detour thanks to our GPS.

This picture is really gross when you zoom in to the full size.  Try it!

Taken in Kidwelly Castle.

Cows heading to be milked.

Taken outside Carreg Cennen Castle.

To date, I have 61 files in my portfolio.  My goal is to have 150 pictures in my portfolio by the end of 2009.  With 16 weeks left in the year, that means I have to have about 6 files accepted per week.

I will be out of town doing stills photography on the movie Babe With A Sword for the next 12 days.  We are filming a horror movie, at night, in the woods, with no cell phone service or internet.  This is a recipe for me becoming scared of my own shadow for the next 2 weeks.  Very exciting!  If I disappear, please assume it was a crazed forest-dweller wearing a scary mask and send help.

I have lots of updates planned for the near future, but until then, here is some street photography from London.  You can see more on Flickr.

View the Flickr set here.

Thanks to advances in digital photography, the Kodak manufacturing plant at Eglinton West and Black Creek Drive in Toronto closed its doors in 2005.   The only building that currently remains is Building #9, or what used to be the employees’ building.   As far as I know, the land has been purchased but no decision has been made yet about what to do with the lot.

You can view the full set of pictures on Flickr.

These signs were everywhere – with a typo: “Absolutily No Smoking”.

The building used to be connected to other buildings. Now all that’s left is doors to nowhere.

I was surprised these curtains were still here after all this time.