Tag: <span>Toronto</span>

Spain, Calalonia, Toronto, tourism,
Downtown Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

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!

Photography

Twin Lens Reflex
Yonge and Gould, Toronto, 1980 – © Avard Woolaver

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.

Photography

Coffee Shop
Coffee Shop, Carlton Street, Toronto, 1980 – © Avard Woolaver

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!

According to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, good coffee is: “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”

Photography

Toronto
Carlton and Yonge, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

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!

Colour Photography

Self Portrait, Yonge and Dundas, Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

When I get older losing my hairMany years from now

– When I’m Sixty Four, by The Beatles

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.

Photography