By Mark Blinch

I’ve been to Detroit countless times over the years and though I’ve always known the city to struggle with poverty, I am usually sent to the city to cover another winning Detroit sports franchise, or the glitzy international auto show showcasing the years new cars from all the top auto makers.

As I drove down the highway from my hometown Toronto, I tuned into my favorite Detroit rock radio station 89x as I got close to the border crossing. The radio hosts began to plug an event where people with little means could go and get a free meal. It was just a few days until Christmas, and rockstar Kid Rock, a Detroit native, was putting up the funds to help support his hometown.

I was sent to Detroit to meet with the people who struggle the most during the holidays, to see the places where they seek comfort and to capture the spirit of the locals who reach beyond their own troubles to help out others.

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By Mark Blinch

When you’re a photographer, every day brings the unexpected.

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Case in point: My assignment at the Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park.

Imagine a campground where people perform everyday tasks but without a stitch of clothing on.

Mowing the lawn, coffee with friends, dinnertime with family members, even board meetings with colleagues — at this camp, there were no exceptions to the no clothes rule.

I’m always amazed at the places my cameras bring me. It was media preview day for the CN Tower’s EdgeWalk, where daredevils walk 356m (1,168ft) above the ground along a catwalk atop Toronto’s famous CN Tower. There’s a safety harness and an overhead rail, but no hand rail at all. Just a metal platform and a view. Not a month earlier, I had photographed the CN Tower being struck by lightning. Thank God this was a clear day.

We had 6 people on our walk. I would be accompanied by 2 text journalists, another photographer, and two tour guides for an excursion that was to last 30 minutes.

The morning started when the tower’s safety personnel attached all manner of clips and cables to my cameras so they could fasten them securely to the bright red jumpsuit they gave us to wear. I brought up a Canon 5d Mark II with a 16-35 wide zoom, and a Nikon D3s with a 24-70. The memory card slots, eyepiece, and battery doors of both cameras were all taped down to make sure nothing fell off. I have dropped a camera maybe once or twice in my life, and I knew this wouldn’t be the time to have an accident.

After the safety crew cleared my cameras, we took a breathalyzer test and were swept for explosives – they don’t want drunks or lunatic violent types rampaging around up there. We then took everything out of our pockets, removed any jewelry or any other loose articles that could fall, and suited up. Before heading to the elevator, we were triple checked by three different safety crew, and were triple checked again by three different people after we got to the top.

I was relaxing Sunday evening killing zombies on the Xbox, when I got a news alert on my blackberry stating Tamil protesters were blocking two lanes of traffic on the Gardiner Expressway.  The Gardiner is a major freeway that goes through downtown Toronto. We don’t often see big protests or demonstrations, so my excitement begins to build.

The freeway snakes in between high rise condo buildings, and my first instinct was to figure out a way to get a vantage point up in the building to shoot the protest from a high angle.  I spotted a couple of guys enjoying a few beers on their 10th floor balcony  and shouted up. They were happy to come down and take me up to a spot overlooking the site of the protest. I took my pictures of the blockaded road, filed them, and got back down to street level to see if I could get in nice and close.

I ran up the onramp to the freeway, and spent a few minutes shooting the flags in the crowd, before making my way to the front lines. The demonstrators were peaceful, and the police seemed to be somewhat patient with the large crowd. Demonstration leaders kept the crowd calm with megaphones, telling them to keep the peace, but that didn’t keep a few aggressive situations from developing.

After I made my way to the front of the protest, some of the demonstrators and police began pushing and shoving, and a protester got hit in the back of the head with a baton by a police officer.  I’m still unsure why tempers escalated, but the man emerged from the scuffle with a bloody head. It was extremely dark and though the batteries in my flash were dying, I was able to shoot a frame every 3 seconds and managed to catch the police officer hitting the protester in the head.

The crowd began to yell “Sit down, let the media see what happened!”. People started to sit down as the man emerged from the crowd with a bloody face. I ran down to try to get in nice and close, where I was able to make some frames of him.