Social Landscape Archives - Page 2 of 9

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

Toronto Gone – my days in The Junction

Published August 25, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – my days in The Junction

Dundas West and Mavety, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

The Junction is a neighborhood in west Toronto with the main intersection being Dundas and Keele. When I lived there in the 1980s, it was gritty and somewhat run down. It was still a dry area then–no alcohol could be sold or served. That meant there were no good restaurants, no bars, and practically no night life. It didn’t seem dangerous, though; just a working class neighborhood with lots of small Mom&Pop shops. It was known as Little Malta because of the large Maltese-Canadian community.

I used to walk around the neighborhood sometimes with my camera. It had a lot of character, a lot of tarnished charm. Living there for four years gave me the opportunity to feel at home, and relaxed. I remember the characters who hung out at Crazy Joe’s Flea Market and Poor Boy Restaurant, the tasty toasted western sandwiches at Mimmo’s Place, Vesuvio’s Pizzeria, the pungent smell from the stockyards when the wind blew the wrong way, and numerous parties and gallery openings at our studio. All of these are gone now.

The Junction has been completely revitalized. It’s no longer down at the heels. The elimination of prohibition in 2001 has been a positive change; there are now lots of cool bars and pubs along Dundas Street West. The Stock Yards is now a huge area of box stores. And the electric lines have all been buried, giving the streets a neater, cleaner look.

It’s been almost forty years since I lived there; time has a way of smoothing out the bad times and magnifying the good ones in a tide of nostalgia. And memories are notoriously fickle. The photos, however, do not change. They are documents, and tell a story of what it was like to live there.

Dundas West and Keele, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas West and Medland, Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

Mimmo’s Place Restaurant, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Crazy Joe’s Flea Market, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas Street West, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Ralph’s Barbershop, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

View from New Image Gallery, Dundas St. West, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Film Photography Photography Social Landscape Toronto

photography The Junction Toronto Toronto Gone

Published August 22, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – Back when men still wore dapper hats

Near Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

In 1980s Toronto men still wore dapper hats, or “business hats.” I always assumed that it was to hide balding heads, or to protect them from the elements. But it seems, in history, hats were a thing for other reasons. According to Deborah Henderson, a costume designer and the author of four books about men’s headwear, “Throughout history, people wore hats to indicate their social position in the world. Any trade—postman, engineer, pilot—had its own cap. Even lawyers, in the ’50s, all wore fedoras.”

Why did men stop wearing dapper hats? An article from Esquire magazine suggests that nobody has pinpointed one sole reason why men stopped wearing hats. One reason could be the rise in automobile use. “With low roofs meaning you couldn’t wear a hat while driving and generally had no need to cover your head anyway, personal transport often negated the need for headwear.”

Another reason could be the stigma associated with WWII. “Another theory posited suggests that the hat suffered a serious decline after the end of World War II because it was an unwelcome reminder of the time people had spent in uniform. Men who fought did not want to wear hats with civilian clothes after the war.”

Benjamin Leszcz writes in Canadian Business, “A potent social signifier, hats identified a man’s role in society. (Hence the idiom of “putting one’s [insert profession] hat on.”) Little surprise, then, that the individualism of the ’60s and ’70s rejected the rule-bound world of hats, embracing anti-establishment afros, flowing locks and blow-dryer-enabled atrocities. By the late ’80s, the hat stigma faded, and every couple of years since, fashion journalists proclaim the hat’s comeback. Today, hats are runway stalwarts, and classic brands—like Borsalino, Stetson and Biltmore, which until recently was based in Guelph, Ont.—are holding steady. But hats will never entirely come back. The shift is decisive: historically, men wore hats to fit in; today, men wear hats to stand out.”

These days when I visit Toronto the people I see wearing dapper hats are thirty-something hipsters going for that vintage look.

Photos from the series: Toronto Gone – highlighting the buildings, businesses, parking lots, and people that used to be a part of the city in the 1980s, that have disappeared, and been replaced by others. It’s part of the inevitable cycle of death and rebirth, of disappearance and reappearance.

Yonge and College, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Queen and Bathurst, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

Allan Gardens, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Photography Social Landscape Toronto

dapper hats hats photography Toronto Gone

Published February 26, 2019 by avardw

Thinking of Lee Friedlander

Newport, Nova Scotia, 2010, Lee Friedlander, — Newport, Nova Scotia, 2010 – © Avard Woolaver

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.

Friedlander also welcomed foreground obstructions such as poles and trees as a way of creating visual interest. He explains, “Somebody else could walk two feet away to get those poles and tress and other stuff out of the way, I almost walk two feet to get into it, because it is a part of the game that I play. It isn’t even conscious; I probably just drift into it… its like a found pleasure. You’ve found something that you like and you play with it for the rest of your life.”

I have included some photos on this post that are my attempt to speak the “language of Lee.” They remind me why I love taking photos. In his words, “You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you.”