I may have sung this song back in 1985 when I took this self portrait, but never could have imagined the year 2022, or what it is like to be sixty four. Losing my hair, and slowly losing memories. But still feeling happy, alive, and creative.
The future is unknown to everyone, and the best we can do is make good choices in the moment hoping that they will have a positive outcome in the future. In every moment of time we make a choice. Words to live by.
This photo appears in the book: Toronto Days, available at Blurb Books.
Here are my top ten photos of 2021. I didn’t stray far from home this past year, so most of the photos have a more rural feel. 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 2022!
I thought I’d post some pages from my recently released photobook Toronto Hi-Fi, and explain my editing process. Putting together a photobook of forty year old material is a challenging procedure–from scanning the negatives to choosing the photos, to sequencing them in logical fashion. It’s a task that I enjoy and hopefully improve upon with each project.
I’m always pondering what to include and what to leave out. With this book, I wanted to use photos that were not in my previous four Toronto books, ones that were strong on their own, without any context or adhering to a specific theme. There were several hundred images to choose from and I had to narrow it down to about ninety. (Print-on-demand books are expensive already, and any more would make it just too pricey.) I tried not to let subjectivity get in the way–just my strongest black and white shots.
The title eluded me. My wife suggested “Hat and Jacket” as I had lots of photos with elderly men wearing hats, which was still a thing in the 1980s. I ended up doing one spread of “men with hats,” but seized on the idea of my love of music being a theme. The Toronto Hi-Fi photo (taken before I even moved to Toronto) seemed appropriate as the cornerstone. I often walk around with songs in my head and thought of the phrase “a camera full of film and a head full of songs.” The book now had a basic form; choosing the images got easier.
I’m happy with the results and get the usual rush of nostalgia when I think about my early days in Toronto. I said this in the afterword: “This book is dedicated to the people who have helped me along the way. To the lovers of music, and those who roam the world with a camera. To those who love Toronto, and those who bathe in the warm glow of nostalgia. And to the folks who follow me on social media and take an interest in my photos. I appreciate your giving new life to this work that was barely seen in the 1980s.”
Toronto Hi-Fi Photographs by Avard Woolaver Hardcover, 42 pages; 89 b&w photos 20 x 25 cm / 8 x 10 in.
My latest self-published photo book is titled Toronto Hi-Fi – available through Blurb Books.
Music has accompanied me wherever I’ve lived. When I moved to Toronto in 1980 to study photography at Ryerson, naturally my stereo system came with me. I had bought it three years earlier in Halifax–my first proper stereo with hi-fi sound. With an Akai 60 watt-per-channel amp, Dual turntable, Akai reel-to-reel, and Bose 301 speakers, it was my pride and joy.
The purchase of this stereo in 1977 coincided with the dawn of my interest in photography. I learned to process and print black and white film in the Camera Club at Acadia University and was instantly hooked. My newfound fascination with Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, and Elliott Erwitt paralleled my discovery of John Coltrane, Howlin’ Wolf, and the Allman Brothers.
Throughout the years these two interests have remained intertwined–walking around with film (or a memory card) in my camera, and songs in my head.
The Toronto Hi-Fi photo seen below, and on the front cover, was taken before I moved Toronto. I had flown up in August 1980 to find an apartment and shot it on my first night in the city; it’s one of my very first Toronto photos.
Toronto Hi-Fi Photographs by Avard Woolaver Hardcover, 42 pages; 89 b&w photos 20 x 25 cm / 8 x 10 in.
Sometimes the big picture is elusive because of all the distractions before us. (Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees.) On the other hand, if infinity spreads outward to the stars and also inward into the smallest atoms of these trees, then the big picture doesn’t matter. It’s all a big picture.
An infinite universe exists in the bark of these trees, in our bodies, and in outer space. We can start anywhere. It doesn’t matter if we see the trees in the forest, or the forest within the trees.
This photo was taken on our annual family Thanksgiving walk at First Lake in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia. A chance to do some forest bathing. I’m so grateful to be alive for this brief time on earth, and grateful for a wonderful family.
