“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
Photo Booth, Union Station, 1981
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
Jesus 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 was fortunate to have a portfolio of my 1980s Toronto photos in the 2023 Pingyao International Photography Festival. The festival ran from September 19th to 25th in Pingyao, North China’s Shanxi province. Themed “New Light, New Orientation,” the six-day festival attracted 13,961 works by over 2,000 photographers from 28 countries.
Photo courtesy of China Daily
Curator Don Snyder invited eight photographers to be part of “Image, Document, Memory: Photographs from Canada.” Here is his introduction to the exhibit:
Image, Document, Memory: Photographs from Canada
While thinking about images for the 2023 Pingyao Festival, my first goal was to select work that would be new to the audience in Pingyao. I also wanted to represent approaches to image-making that would range from traditional to highly experimental, and to exhibit photographs from many different parts of Canada.
I considered nearly 50 portfolios and selected eight photographers to invite. While their photographic styles are very different, common themes can be found that link the various portfolios together. Every photographer I spoke with told me they had been deeply affected by the pandemic, and that they had often turned to more personal image-making during this time. This is where the theme of “The Poetic Image” originated, exemplified by the photographs included here from Kendall Townend, Pierre Tremblay and Alexander Alter. These images deal with landscape, time and memory, and the inner workings of the imagination, utilizing methods and processes that blend the uniquely photographic with the composite, layered, and digital imagery.
Many photographers talked about developing a new appreciation for the workers in manufacturing and transportation–workers who kept people everywhere supplied and fed during times of lockdown. This is where the idea to include the portfolios about “Labor and Commerce” originated. Images from Workspace Canada, by Martin Weinhold, and 23 Days at Sea, by Christopher Boyne were chosen for this component of the exhibition.
For the portfolios in Part III, “Place and Culture”, several photographers I spoke with had found themselves reviewing personal archives and images from past years during the pandemic, drawn to explore photography’s unique ability to juxtapose past and present time. The sequences in this group were selected from Toronto Days and Toronto Flashback by Avard Woolaver, and from Kensington Market: Meditations on Home by Wayne Salmon. These portfolios examine the relationships between memory and present time, and between place and a sense of belonging.
Lastly, as an educator I was keenly aware of the changes the pandemic brought to the world of art education. “Making and Thinking: The Idea of a Photographic Workshop” is a group project produced by my colleague Rob Davidson and his students in a situation where they were unable to meet for in-person classes. The images made during this online workshop, available in either book or exhibition form, point to new possibilities for photographic education in an environment of networked communication, and make a strong case for this mode of teaching in the future.
Don Snyder
Here are the photos as they appeared in the exhibition:
Recently 700 of my photos (digital images) were added to the City of Toronto Archives. It’s a real honour, and a good feeling, knowing that my 1980s street photos will be kept for future generations. Many thanks to Michele Dale, the supervisor of collection management and standards at the City of Toronto Archives, for seeing the merit in my work.
The above photo is one of my favourites from the archives collection.
In those days I worked near Queen and River. I’d ride my bicycle home along Queen Street and sometimes stop in at Tower Records, put on the headphones and listen to Summer Side of Life by Gordon Lightfoot. I’d be transported into a beautiful musical world.
When look at this photo, I think about light, and life, and the miracle of just being alive and being able to experiencing things. I also think about Toronto music: “Lost Together” by Blue Rodeo, “Spirit of Radio” by Rush, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” by Bruce Cockburn, “Bobcaygeon” by The Tragically Hip; songs by Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, or Neil Young. These are songs that run through my mind when I look at this photo and think about that time in my life. I’m nostalgic for those Toronto days.
Here is a link to the collection. (Fonds 620; Avard Woolaver fonds) Scroll down and click: “browse,” and you can see the photos. I think they represent my strongest work, and there are several that have never been published previously. Hope you enjoy them!
This photo, taken outside the Sears Warehouse in Toronto in 1980, brings to mind the song “Working Man” by Rush and the wonderful work of American photographer Harry Callahan.
The Sears Warehouse, located near Church and Dundas, was converted into lofts in the late 1990s and is now called the Merchandise Building. The original building was built in various stages from 1910 to 1949 for the Simpson’s department store, and was later owned by Sears Canada. It is an example of the Chicago School style of architecture.
Back when I was growing up in the 1970s my grandfather George Mason used to wear a dress hat on special occasions, or when he went into town. I always thought they looked cool, and probably tried them on from time to time. When I moved to Toronto in 1980, I noticed that older men were still wearing these hats. Perhaps took note of them and photographed them because of my grandfather.
I always assumed men wore dress hats, or “business hats” 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 dress 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 dress hats are thirty-something hipsters going for that vintage look.
