“Toronto in the 1980s” represents a sort of greatest hits of my 1980s Toronto photos. I’m thankful to Chad Tobin for is valuable assistance in editing this collection. It is available at Blurb Books.
From the introduction:
There is a feeling of freedom walking around a city with a camera. At 66, I still have that feeling but it was more pronounced when I was in my mid twenties, studying photography as a student at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Toronto Metropolitan University.) I took a lot of photographs in my early years in Toronto, capturing street scenes and ordinary aspects of daily life that happened to catch my eye. American photographer Henry Wessel sums up my approach in this way: “Part of it has to do with the discipline of being actively receptive. At the core of this receptivity is a process that might be called soft eyes. It is a physical sensation. You are not looking for something. You are open, receptive. At some point you are in front of something that you cannot ignore.”
Back in the 1980s I would shoot a roll of film (usually black and white), process it a few days later and make a contact sheet. After that I might make an enlargement of one or two of the strongest shots, and then move on. The contact sheets may have been reviewed from time to time when I was preparing for an exhibition, but basically, I didn’t look at them for years and years.
For a long time, my photos were almost all black and white. I paid a great deal of attention to lines and form and the abstract qualities that monochrome provided. My influences had been Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander who were all about documenting the social landscape. It seemed that this type of photography was so much better suited to black and white, or as Frank called it, “the colours of hope and despair.
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I had no way to anticipate how significant these Toronto photos would seem to me 40 years later. They show things that no longer exist, even though it hasn’t been that long. Without necessarily trying to, I caught images of buildings, cars, fashions, gadgets that are no longer part of our world. Toronto’s entire skyline is utterly changed, part of the inevitable growth and evolution. I sometimes think about the children and young adults in these photos who are now in their 50s and 60s. How have their lives been?
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Looking back now at the photos I spent my precious film on back then, so much comes back to me about dropped into a new environment. We use our creative tools as extensions of ourselves; they help us understand and define our place in the world. For me, having a camera in my hand at all times helped me remember, You only get to do this once. We have to take time and see it, as clearly as we can.
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Product Details
10×8 in, 25×20 cm
Softcover, 62 Pages
59 black and white photographs
Store Window, Yonge Street, 1981
Jarvis Street, 1980
Eaton Centre, 1980
Chess players at Yonge and Gould, 1982
Watching TV in the Junction, 1986
Crazy Joe’s Flea Market, 1983
Pay Phone, Union Station, 1986
Pay Phone, Union Station, 1986
Laundromat, Kensington Market, 1983
Mirrors, Kensington Market, 1983
Beer cases, Gould and Yonge, 1985
Allan Gardens, 1985
Pape Avenue, 1986
Bay Street, 1983
Fish market, Kensington Market, 1983
Queen and Yonge, 1981
Dundas West near Lansdowne, 1984
Lakeshore Road, Etobicoke, 1982
Party scene, 1985
Sandwich shop, Yonge Street, 1983
Apartment on Dundonald Street, 1982
Kensington Market, 1983
Nathan Phillips Square, 1982
Film Premiere, Eglinton Theatre, 1986
U.S. Cruise Missile protest, Yonge Street, 1983
Yonge and Gerrard, 1981
Halloween on Yonge Street, 1981
The Spectrum Nightclub, Danforth Avenue, 1986
TV in store window, Yonge Street, 1981
Funland Arcade, Yonge Street, 1981
Streetcar scene, 1984
Dundonald Street, 1982
St. Clair Station, 1984
View from Yonge and Gerrard, 1989
Grace Street, 1986
Gay Rights Toward Equality, 1980
Santa Claus Parade, Yonge Street, 1981
BMX riders at Bloor W. and Dundas W., 1986
Rock and Roll Forever, Yonge Street, 1981
New Wave fashion, Yonge Street, 1985
Art auction at Sotheby’s, 1983
St. Joseph and St. Nicholas, 1984
Toronto Camera store window, 1984
Man and dog, Dundas Street West, 1983
Bay Street, 1983
Dundas and Yonge, 1983
Jarvis Street, 1981
Outside Global Cheese, Kensington Market, 1983
Bay and Dundas West, 1983
esus Is The Way, Kensington Market, 1983
View from Neill-Wycik, Gerrard East and Mutual, 1982
Subway Scene, 1984
Bay Street lobby, 1983
On the College streetcar, 1981
Gas Station, Pape Avenue, 1983
Southdown Road and Clarkson Road, Mississauga, 1985
I took some photos in Dartmouth in 1978, apparently forgot about them altogether, and rediscovered them 40 years later, tucked into a negative sleeve with the cryptic notation, “Dartmouth — The Enchanted City.” (What a title!) I realized that I have been taking photos in Dartmouth off and on for a long time.
My wife Martha worked in Dartmouth for several years, and sometimes I would accompany her and spend some time walking around this laid-back, homespun city. These photos (that span 2012-2022) are not meant to represent Dartmouth as a whole, rather little moments that caught my eye.
I do social landscape photography and am interested in New Topographics—the human-altered landscape–recording how human behavior and activity has affected the world. I also look for whimsical scenes, as well as elements of surrealism found in everyday life. My work is firmly planted in the documentary tradition, making photos through observation rather than through set-up and image manipulation. Photography keeps me in touch with the changing seasons and the passage of time. My images are intertwined with childhood memories, music, and locations around Hants County, Nova Scotia.
My work has been exhibited in Canada and, internationally, in France and China. The City of Toronto Archives has a collection of 1150 of my digital images. Also, I have eight self-published photo books that are available online through Blurb Books, and at ViewPoint Gallery.
Shooting and processing film is not new to me. It’s something I did practically daily for 30 years (1976-2006). When I got my first digital camera in 2006, I thought I’d never return to shooting film. But here I am almost twenty years later, shooting Ilford HP-5 with a collection of of old film cameras, and processing the film at home in stainless steel tanks. This time around, though, there is no darkroom with a sink and enlargers. I scan the negatives and store the files on my computer.
Why did I go back to shooting film? I think I missed the process, the anticipation, the waiting, the physical connection with the medium, and perhaps the magic. It’s the rush you get when you briefly unspool the negatives (still in the wash) to see if they turned out well, and if there are any keepers. When I glanced at the above photo in negative form, I got a dopamine rush, and couldn’t stop smiling. I don’t get quite the same sense of satisfaction shooting digitally. Perhaps because the results are so immediate, and photos much more numerous.
I’ll still be shooting the majority of my images digitally, but I’ll have the film cameras on hand for those magic moments. Here are some recent film photos shot with a Yashica T4 and Canon AE-1.
Here are my top ten photos of 2024. I took trips to Toronto and Montreal and also spent some time in Halifax-Dartmouth, so there is a mixture of urban and rural. I looked for the usual suspects–good light, juxtapositions, unusual scenes. Most were taken with my iphone, and some with my DSLR. I often revisit locations throughout the year as the light and season can really affect the mood of the photo. Cheers! And all the best for 2025!
There are various motivations for taking a photo–to capture a moment, to document a place or thing, to record beautiful light, or to fulfill an assignment. One of my interests in photography has been to somehow challenge the viewer so that they do a double take; the image holds their attention because there is something thought provoking about it. The notion of using visual trickery and humour came to me early on after discovering the work of American photographer Lee Friedlander, and also the paintings of Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte.
I had never dreamed in colour, until quite recently (which is rather odd since I spent 10 years of my life in a darkroom printing colour photographs.) My dreams are odd vignettes, where not much happens, yet I can almost always pinpoint the exact location of the dream. Since first picking up a camera, I have been interested in recording quirky scenes; photos that make you do a double take. In the early days, I didn’t concentrate on it very much. I’d take a photo whenever I came across something unusual. It wasn’t until I got a digital camera in 2006 that I began to actively look for everyday scenes that make the familiar seem a little strange.
With a digital camera, I could experiment more–take many photos of the same scene in order to change the angle of a reflection or align elements perfectly. My image making went from taking a one-off of a particular scene to exploring the scene more fully to get the best possible shot.
In my “Colour Dreams” series, I aim to challenge the viewers’ attention in a subtle way by finding everyday scenes with elements of whimsy and surrealism. Like Magritte, and Friedlander, I want to make the familiar seem a little strange, but without Photoshop and image manipulation. These photos come about through observation, using juxtaposition, reflection, typography, and scale. This series shows colour images with dream-like qualities that aspire to entertain the senses.
Each photo has been given a short title, that may indicate the general mood or emotion of the image. It is a reflection of the primal nature of dreams where we are left with a strong, sometimes, surreal feeling.
Product Details
10×8 in, 25×20 cm
Hardcover, 30 Pages
26 colour photographs
