Heavenly.

Well, fall. Not very good frame; houses at the back are distracting.

I've been folowing your site since winter last year and I hope this year's winter would be as excellent as last year. Photography-wise that is.

breathtaking! can almost hear the leaves crunch as i walk through them...........

Your shots are my daily food for my eyes. Thanks, Sam.
This one is, as usual, marvelous, despite houses ;-)

this reminds me of when I lived in T.O. (BTW, I have no problem with the houses)

Neither do I. But the photo is far from being perfect or even good. It's in medium "class". And cliche, too. Leaves. Benches. Boring.

I didnt notice the houses there until I read about them on here.

Delicious capture, it looks like its cropped.. where's the rest of it? :P

Very depressing!!! I hate Autumn.

Wow! If you cropped the top of this picture, it would look as if the trees were standing on their heads ^O^ Great work! Fall is my favourite time of year! Too bad this year wasn't as colourful as usual... :(
::Good Job::

Beautiful photo. I always love fall photo. All the leaves on the ground make the photo look so much nicer.

That's a lot of leaves! I love the shadow of the tree around the benches in the foreground. Hrm, actually I quite like the lighting all around the photo. Very nice.

Sam, you have lowered the bar of good photography.

Picky. Who knows what you would see if the houses
were not there. The houses show how the ground slopes on the far side of the lawn - they definitely add
something.

there are a lot of things in this picture that, if removed, would increase my interest in the photo. Maybe if, along with the houses, there were no trees, or benches... and there weren't any leaves -- in fact, why don't you just try taking a picture of ANYTHING ELSE. becuz this was a bad one.

What strikes me the most is how still it is...there are no people anywhere and the park seems so empty. Maybe it's the vacant benches that give me that sense.

The Autumn colours are beautiful...to bad no one is around to enjoy them.

chemical imbalance rarely has anything nice to say about your photos. i happen to like this one because of the empty park benches. it makes the area seem very lonely.

I can't believe someone said the houses detract from the picture! Without them, we would not know this was in the city. To crop them out would sacrifice the contrast of the living leaves with the ones fallen. The photographer's task is to capture the moment. Nature paints the picture, not Sam.

I love the picture. First thing I said when I saw it was, HOLY COW!

happy picture, depressing caption.

I didn't notice the houses either... And I love the leaves covering the ground... I always wished that they wouldn't clean up the streets from the autumn leaves. They make it beautiful and it sounds really nice when you step on them !

Oh, for God's sake. Is it a fanclub of medium quality pictures or something? Guys, hold your horses for a minute.

The picture is technically correct - it's sharp, has good DoF, colours are just nice. But when we follow to the non-technical details like frame or the scene itself, we realize that, in fact, it's very boring, non-perfectly framed picture. Definitely not worth anyone's praise. It has nothing to do with a good compositions, or any of rules that good photographer really *should* know. First of all, there is no main object - I mean, what does this picture show? Benches, leaves or aforementioned houses. I don't know. Does the author know? I guess not. There is no eye guiding lines to keep the beholder's attention. Composition is *far* from being perfect. Leaves take just to much space. *If*, however, it was about the leaves, why Sam hadn't made this picture about the leaves? Phew.

It's boring. Shows nothing. My opinnion. You don't have to second.

I think I would like to add my two bobs worth to this argument about "good" photography and rules and stuff.

30 years ago I was an art student studying photography. My interest was "art" photography. My teacher suggested I get a job in the industry and I got a job with a studio. I rapidly learned the ropes and soon become a very "good" studio photographer. I worked at this job for several years and had a great reputation for my work. But what happened when I learned all the rules and the ways to take a photo that guaranteed lots of sales? My artistic creativity suffered. My ability to see things in a non commercial sense disappeared.

30 years later this is still a problem I have difficulty overcoming.

My point here is, the rules are not important to me. What makes a good photo is something that is pleasing to my eye. Something that makes my day more worthwhile, either in a big way or a little way. Thats how I judge a photo. There are no bad photos, because I never judge people's work that way. There are those that appeal or those that don't.

I find Sam's work to be very reminiscent of a lot od classical photography where the "rules" really don't matter that much. I feel that the site is made up of more than individual photos. It's Sam's style, which is consistent. I live in Australia, but I feel that I know Toronto very well through this site. I actually work in a place called Toronto.

Sam, just keep on doing what you do. Take the criticism on board, evaluate it, learn from it, and if you think its right, let it change what you do. But I have no criticism other than 1 shot a day is not enough for these tired old eyes.

Thanks for the opportunity to have a say.

Mick.

Unless I seriously misunderstand the purpose of this site, DDoI's (or Sam's) aim is to show the life in Toronto utilizing colourful pictures. This site, basing on bandwith remark, is being visited by a recognisable number of people, who watch daily photos by Sam. *If* I were Sam, I'd strive to make pictures as best as possible (but, I regret, I am not :-). We all know Sam has the skill (I still can see the photo of two black man hanging around and listening to the same walkman - this, actually, *was* something). But, as far as my personal taste is being considered, this one sucks utterly and I can't guess Sam's purpose on publishing this shot. Maybe the problem is with a vast amplitude of Sam's pictures - there are exceptional and there are louse ones as well. This one falls into the second category. Being just a man, I wonder how one can praise this piece of picture. Hence my comment.

Sam...once again I want to say thank you for the feeling one gets looking at your work.
However, I do wish you would cancel your comments column once and for all, as it has become nothing more than a sounding board for a bunch of mongaloids that have nothing to add to humanity, except listen to themselves making very stupid comments.
I totally agree with Mick, and there is no need for the rest of us to be subjected to the negative
patheticness of the others! They just don't get it, and obviously, never will!!

Beautifully captured park in the city. It is exactly how the parks look in Toronto at this time of year. Thats for the shot of the leaves. I miss the autumn colours of Toronto, but I really dont miss the cold weather that soon follows them.

I like the empty benches and the way this angle makes them appear to curve away.

My favorite quote on style: "style is each persons unique mistakes."

A good photographer 1. knows the composition rules and follows them in ALMOST every shot; 2. knows when to break the rules in order to create something "unique". Unfortunately this photograph represents neither case...

what i find so cool about this site is how the pics reflect the city. at times its spectacular, beautiful, boring, ugly, well done, badly done, distracting, etc. pure gut reaction to the pics. this is a good one. do i detect some jealousy out there?

i wish those that dont agree with the picture would just shut up. i see the picture for what it is, a moment in time captured for all eternity. and because of that, it is beautiful.

I smell a lot of jealousy reeking from some people. I won't say who since that really doesnt matter.

We are all free to enjoy what we wish to and dislike what we don't. I find artists who spend too much time thinking about rules, structure and meaning have closed their minds into a limited debilitating view. If people enjoy this photo then its good enough.

I have never heard Sam ever openly claim to be a genius artist. Why some people place expectations upon other people who have not promised them anything is beyond my understanding. This site is called daily dose of imagery not daily dose of genius artwork. There are images here to see eachday and thats all that is promised.

I've taken time now to look at a few of the numerious photoblogs out there and I must say all these other so-called "great artwork" picture sites have been very much not to my liking most lack the natural and powerful feeling that is convayed through the photos I see here daily.

P.S. so many benches so few rear-ends to fill them. Too bad everyone has to stay indoors on a great day like that.

Who on earth cares about rules? Certainly not an amature such as myself who just enjoys good photo's. When i saw this photo i didn't go, "Oh my, he didn't follow any of the rules". Instead i went "WoW! That is cool!".

He should not strive to get the super best photo anymore than he is atm. The site got this popular by Sam taking photo's like he is now. Not by him following rules and being super strict on what photo's to publish.

Most certainly the amature eye is the majority. And from that perspective i can honestly tell you, Sam's photography is amazing and deserves an applaud imo.
Stop the bickering.

I checked out Lukasz's site and noticed two things about his photography.

1. There's barely anything there.
2. What little is there is truly a waste of storage and bandwidth.

I think he's just a bitter, jealous little man.

Where's Lukasz's site?

Oh gosh. Seems to me like no matter how good (or bad, in fact) pictures that Sam publishes here on daily basis are, the fanclub is not going to accept that tastes are different and something, what others will love out of plain "follow the crowd" rule, will seem boring and uninteresting to others. This is the first thing

Second thing is that since commenting is open to everyone, I won't restrain myself from using this option. And, why should I, I do not feel sorry for what I think. And don't even try to spam Sam's photoblog - I am signing my comments with my own name and link to my personal site. Thus, strange it seems to me, when people try to discourage me from commenting. Why should I? If visitors that critised my comments kindly pointed out my pathetic negativness, or whatever it was, I would appreciate that. But do feel to mail me, as I don't feel like spamming comments column with unrelative s&^t. If I had said anything out of point, I am sorry. If I had followed the subject, just sod off.

Thirdly, yes, I do feel jealous. I wished I had 300D which is a piece of great camera. But I am collecting money, hey. :-)

lukasz! u are my god!

I used to avoid reading the comments hear because it was a lot of, "Sam I want to have your baby you are so great." Fair enough, the photos here are great. But after a few comments like that the comments pages get boring. Mind you, I'm sure Sam enjoys the well deserved flattery.

I now read the comments here avidly, just to hear people gripe about how Sam isn't an artist. Sam has never claimed to be anything but a person posting a photo a day. If you don't like his photos, but plenty of people do, then what does that say really? That you have taste and the unwashed masses don't? I have my doubts.

I also love to read Chemical Imbalances comments. He really makes the comments pages feel like a newsgroup.

i'm dedicating tomorrows comment to you, ramanan.

oh, and btw, gleek rarely gets laid.

I too checked out lukasz's site. There are a couple of good photographs there, but the site is barren like a desert. The majority of the photos I saw were decent quality, but as is often the case they were lacking the human quality that makes the photos here more interesting. To be blunt I was bored by them(ZZZzzzzzzzzzzz).

I totally agree that critisims and opposing view points are part of our personal freedoms and please gripe on anyone who is displeased.

however here is an interesting quote from lukasz site "On "daily dose of imagery" Sam presents high-quality pictures of every-day life in Toronto. Exceptional and higly recommended."

Love hate relationship with this site i guess....

this is so beautiful. i wish we had autumn here in my country.

Nice Photo, SAM.

Forget the rules, I do not care in this Photo.
I enjoy watching the canadian autum, thank to your shot.

Well done! :-)

wow this picture is sooo beutiful i cant wait until it will be fall!!