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Published September 28, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – Toronto Stock Exchange, 1981

Toronto Stock Exchange, trading floor, Bay Street — Toronto Stock Exchange, Toronto, 1981 – © Avard Woolaver

In the fall of 1981, I photographed the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) for a school project at Ryerson. I spent three or four mornings on a viewing platform that looked down on the trading floor, trying to capture the activity and mood of the place. I remember borrowing a 300mm lens from the school–the longest lens I have ever used. The focus was so critical and as the lighting was relatively dim, I had to push the film to get adequate depth of field. I was satisfied with the results and produced a slide show programmed with a Wollensak, using the Beatles’ “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” as a soundtrack.

Looking back at these images after almost forty years, they look like relics of a different era. There are big clunky monitors, rotary phones, and paper slips strewn everywhere. There is almost a complete absence of women (they are still a minority, making up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of traders). A few women are visible, however, changing numbers on the boards, but not doing any trading. Traders are buying and selling on the phone, as well as yelling and using hand signals–a beehive of activity.

The Toronto Stock Exchange was on Bay Street in those days, in the elegant art deco building it occupied for sixty years–1937 to 1997. It then moved to the Exchange Tower on King Street, and is now the TSX. The trading floor has been replaced by an electronic trading system; gone are the men in suits, frantically yelling and gesturing. Most major exchanges in the world have also abandoned the “open outcry” method, except for the United States, where several exchanges (including the New York Mercantile Exchange and New York Stock Exchange) remain old-school.

Stephen Simpson in Investopedia talks about the pros and cons of open outcry trading. “Certainly computers are faster, cheaper, more efficient and less error-prone with routine trades – though the error rate in open outcry trading is surprisingly low. What’s more, computers are at least theoretically better for regulators in creating data trails that can be followed when there are suspicions of illegal activity. That said, electronic trading is not perfect and open outcry has some unique features. Because of the human element, traders who can “read” people may be at an advantage when it comes to picking up non-verbal cues on the motives and intentions of counter-parties. Perhaps analogous to the world of poker, there are some players who thrive as much on reading the players as playing the odds – and electronic trading removes those signals from the equation.“

The series “Toronto Gone” puts a focus on things that have disappeared–buildings, businesses, parking lots, cars, people that used to be a part of the city in the 1980s and 1990s prior to the condo boom, and before the widespread use of computers and cell phones.

Toronto Stock Exchange, TSE, Bay Street — Toronto Stock Exchange, Toronto, 1981 – © Avard Woolaver

Toronto Stock Exchange, TSE, trading floor — Toronto Stock Exchange, Toronto, 1981 – © Avard Woolaver

Black and White Documentary Photography Toronto

1981 documentary photography photography Toronto Stock Exchange

Published September 14, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – Bay Street suits in the 1980s

When doing street photography in 1980s Toronto, I often walked around the Yonge-Dundas area, or along Queen Street West, or sometimes Kensington Market. I rarely walked around Bay Street because I didn’t have much interest in the corporate world. But in the fall of 1981, I had a school assignment to do a slide show. The subject I chose first was a boxing club in Cabbagetown, but the lighting was too dim. The Toronto Stock Exchange seemed like a better choice. Establishing shots were needed (people going to work on Bay Street), and I spent a few hours one morning photographing men in suits, many carrying briefcases. They’re kind of grim and serious, but professional, and dressed to look sharp. There seemed to be very few women in the crowds.

These photos have lain dormant for almost forty years, and I’m fascinated at seeing them again. A few could almost have been taken in the the 1950s, not the 1980s. Some of the men are in their sixties, meaning they could have been born before 1920. Perhaps they were young children during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, or maybe they fought in WWII. When you look at history in terms of generations, 1920 was not that long ago.

Business suits are still worn on Bay Street, but dress codes have become more flexible (especially since the emergence of the tech sector in the early 2000s).

Leanne Delap wrote in the Toronto Star about the shift from three-piece suit to smart casual:

The news earlier this month that the venerable stuffy-suit investment bank Goldman Sachs has adopted a “flexible dress code,” may mark the end of the Bay Street business suit as we know it. America’s fifth largest bank, Goldman Sachs is one of the best-known “white shoe” institutions, a neat old-fashioned term that used to denote century-plus old provenance, and ultra-conservative mannerisms.

A leaked memo sent to Goldman Sachs staff was vague about why changes in the workplace dress were taking place. But it is most likely about a generational shift as a youthquake has come to suit land. More than three-quarters of Goldman Sachs employees were born in 1981 or later, which is a whole lot of millennial and Gen Z preferences to placate for any firm that wants to retain top talent.

Black and White Blogging Photography Toronto

Bay Street photography suits Toronto Gone

Published September 8, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – The importance of visual content

Toronto Gone, visual content — Kensington Market, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

When it comes to documentary photography, the more visual content, the better. The information, i.e., the visual content, in a photograph can tell you so much, especially when looking at it in a historical context. In the above photo there is so much more to be learned with the variety of elements than if I had zoomed in on just the storefront, or just the on cyclist. For instance, we can see that children’s car seats were not yet required–the child is sitting on his mother’s lap in the front seat. Sony Walkmans were being used; the cyclist is carrying one. And the bicycle is a ten-speed touring bike–mountain bikes were not yet a thing. Lucky Variety has a hand-painted sign, and sells cassettes (not LPs or CDs). The phone number for the business doesn’t have the 416 area code in front of it.

I’ve been a fan of Lee Friedlander since I discovered his photographs in 1978, in a book titled Concerning Photography. His photos are bursting with creativity, intelligence, and deadpan humour–they seem to be the visual equivalent of jazz music. He has been one of my main sources of photographic inspiration over the years.

Lee Friedlander, famous for his pioneering photos of the urban social landscape, has a talent for filling his photos with visual content without making them seem overly crowded. Eric Kim writes on his blog, “Friedlander was very conscious of how he framed his scenes, and wanted to add more complexity to his shots through adding content of interest.”

He accomplished this by using a wide-angle lens—usually a 35mm. That way objects in the foreground can remain in focus along with background elements. Though complexity is not always the answer, it certainly adds interest.

It’s something to think about when you take photos. While minimalism may work for some photos, when deciding whether to leave something in the photo or crop it out, I usually leave it in.

Dundas West and Chestnut, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Toronto, visual content — Yonge and St. Mary, Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

Toronto Gone — Store Signs, Dundas St. West, Toronto, 1986 – © Avard Woolaver

Black and White Film Photography Photography Social Landscape Toronto

documentary photography Lee Friedlander photography Toronto Toronto Gone visual content

Published August 28, 2020 by avardw

This is not a fish – how Rene Magritte inspired my photography

This is not a fish, Nova Scotia, 2013 – © Avard Woolaver

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.

It was in Paris in 1978 that I first saw Magritte’s dream-like, illusionistic images. I could gaze at them for a long time and really never figure them out. But that really didn’t matter, for it was the feeling that they invoked that was special–that little area of my brain, the “Magritte zone,” had been suddenly stimulated. Over time I began using these perceptual tricks in my own photography.

“The Treachery of Images”- Ceci n’est pas une pipe./This is not a pipe, Rene Magritte, 1929

One of Magritte’s most famous works is “The treachery of images” (1929), a painting that challenges the viewer’s notion of art. An image of a pipe has the words “This is not a pipe.” written below it. When Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco. Andrea K. Scott writes in the New Yorker, “It may be art’s most famous one-liner, but it’s a startlingly modernist proposition: this isn’t a pipe, it’s a picture. Magritte’s enduring popularity has edged his once shocking imagery into the realm of cliché. But his radical use of language and his transposition of the banal and the unnerving set a precedent. Would the enigmas of Jasper Johns’s flags or Ed Ruscha’s deadpan pairing of image and text have been conceivable otherwise? Magritte, who dressed like a banker and was known to paint at his dining-room table, saw himself as a “secret agent” in the war on bourgeois values. He once said of his mission, ‘Too often by a twist of thought, we tend to reduce what is strange to what is familiar. I intend to restore the familiar to the strange’.’’

In my Wish You Were Here series, I aim to challenge the viewers’ attention by in a subtle way by finding everyday scenes with elements of surrealism. Like Magritte, 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. My new project, “Wish You Were Here – Monochrome Dreaming” shows black and white images that aspire to challenge and entertain the senses. Is that really a fish, or just a fishy picture?

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting the Magritte Museum in Brussels, Belgium, and found that I was still deeply inspired (and entertained) by his whimsical, dream-like images. I realized that I had never really left the Magritte Zone.

New Minas, Nova Scotia, 2011 – © Avard Woolaver

Windsor, Nova Scotia, 2013 – © Avard Woolaver

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2011 – © Avard Woolaver

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2010 – © Avard Woolaver

Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, 2012 – © Avard Woolaver

The house is bigger than the rock, 2010 – © Avard Woolaver

Black and White Observation Photography Social Landscape

Monochrome Dreaming photography Rene Magritte Wish You Were Here

Published June 13, 2019 by avardw

Nostalgia and Baby Boomers

Yonge Street, Toronto, 1980 – © Avard Woolaver

Nostalgia can be described as a sentimental longing for the past. It comes from the Greek nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain) and is thought to have been derived from Homer’s The Odyssey.

With baby boomers reaching their senior years, nostalgia seems to be their drug of choice. Advertisers target boomers with Beatles music, retro fashions, and even long dead actors such as Marilyn Munroe selling perfume. While boomers seem to be lapping it up, not everyone is crazy about the nostalgia bug. Heather Havrilesky writes in The Washington Post, “While griping about boomer nostalgia has become a somewhat common art, the cultural impact of that nostalgia transcends mere annoyance. Through sheer repetition and force of will, boomers have so thoroughly indoctrinated us into their worldview that we all now reflexively frame most current affairs through the lens of another generation’s formative experiences.” Abbey Hoffman might say not to trust anyone under 50!

I myself am a baby boomer. Born in 1958, I was six years old when the Beatles came to North America. I sang “A Hard Day’s Night” in my Grade One classroom, watched the moon landing on a fuzzy black and white TV, and took my Diana camera to Expo ’67 in Montreal. While I have nostalgia for those early years, the time I miss most was when I was in my early twenties, studying photography at Ryerson in Toronto.

The photos in this blog post capture the time that I am nostalgic for. They were taken in downtown Toronto in my early years of study. Everything was new and fresh, conversations were stimulating, photography was invigorating. Several of my classmates from that year became lifelong friends. Since returning to those days is impossible, I can make the journey with my retro photographs. It’s the next best thing.