Abandoned cars used to be a common sight in Toronto in the 1980s. It’s something we no longer see. The graffiti, however, is still prevalent.
Tag: <span>1980s</span>
This photo was taken in Toronto on a cold February day in 1985. The billboard reads, “Spain: Set your spirit free. Say Si.” In the winter months Canadians are attracted by the lure of warmer weather. It seems that most folks head to Florida, or the Caribbean, but Spain sounds good, also! How does that song go? Catalonia dreaming, on such a winter’s day.
One of my favourite photographers here on social media is from Catalonia, Spain. His name is Llorenç Rosanes Mulet and he lives in the town of Alcarràs. Check out his amazing work on Instagram. His social landscape photos often have beautiful warm light and the tones he achieves in his black and white photos is sublime. There is so much humanity in his work. I hope to meet him someday. Big shout out to my buddy Llorenç!
When I first arrived in Toronto, I took a few photos with a twin lens reflex camera, a Yashica Mat-124G. Looking back at these photos, I wish I had used this camera more often. The twin lens reflex is an ideal camera for street photography, as the camera is held at waist level and you look down into the viewfinder to frame the photo. The negatives are large and crisp, but there are only 12 exposures on a roll. Perhaps this is the reason it was abandoned in favour of the 35mm SLR.
It was my friend Bill Knetsch who introduced me to the wonders of coffee in the fall of 1980. Before that I had been a tea drinker, but there was something about relaxing with a coffee and doughnut, that couldn’t be beat. After a marathon printing session in the Ryerson darkrooms, Bill and I would hit up a local coffee shop such as the Donut Castle on Church Street. At 1:00 am the place would be crawling with all manner of characters–cab drivers, cops, prostitutes, night owls, students, partiers, etc. But is was the lure of coffee that brought us together!
It’s Throwback Thursday (#TBT), and today I’m going back 40 years to a time when many business names had not yet become acronyms. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was not yet CIBC, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was not yet KFC. I spent a lot of time on Carlton street in those days. I lived a little further east near Sherbourne Street, and would see concerts and hockey games at Maple Leaf Gardens, and movies at the Carlton Cinema.
This photo appeals to me in several ways, but most of all because of what the mixed lighting sources do to the colour. The mixture of neon, fluorescent, and daylight really bring the scene alive. Also, I love Laura Secord chocolate!