Signs of Life, Toronto
Pride, Toronto
Toronto! I have been trawling my metaphorical box of photographs, looking to retrieve images of the city I have been absent from too long. Armed with my camera, I have been stalking new prey. So, do please take a look at my portfolio - an ongoing work-in-progress - here.
Once upon a time, Toronto was known as ‘Toronto the Good’ - dull, conservative, closed on Sundays.
Not any more. Modern Toronto is a carnival of people and cultures, spilling into the streets, filling shops and restaurants, splashing sound and colour everywhere. Some 200 different languages are spoken. Amongst the top ten are Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Mandarin and Portuguese. You see the signs of life in the city in its graffiti and street art, in faces and gestures, clothing and performance, on walls and on billboards.
For all its size and diversity, Toronto remains a remarkably tolerant and accepting place, liveable, considerate, civil, humane. The familiar demons of race and class, gender discrimination and so are found here of course; there is homelessness and drug abuse, poverty and inequality, lives lived in quiet and not so quiet desperation. Yet the lines of social stratification seem blurred rather than fixed, and while public services are under strain, fundamentally they work. Mercifully, there are few signs of the culture wars and the cynical, manipulated, monetised anger that blights so many other parts of the world, not least the outsized neighbour to the south of us.
The photographs in Signs of Life, Toronto are personal, not representative; more positive than gritty. They present the view and viewpoint not of a social critic or documentarian but of someone, a citizen and resident, who feels lucky to be here, although aware, I hope, that not everyone in this town is half as fortunate.
Backs to the wall, Algonquin
Oh, and while you are at it, do take a look, or another look if you have looked already, at my Provincial Scenes, Ontario portfolio - I have added a few Fall images, taken just recently, in Algonquin Park and the Muskokas. The fall colours are magnificent.
The Knox United Church at Dorset