Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Yesterday was the year’s 2nd Open Streets TO. Bloor Street from Broadview to Dufferin, & Yonge Street from Bloor to Queen, were opened up to pedestrians, cyclists, longboarders, unicyclists, etc. while the city took a much needed rest from the rumble and rush of vehicular traffic. It was also a good opportunity for photographers. I got to take shots from places that, ordinarily, might cost me my life.
One of these days I’ll shoot a chess game with a tripod and a neutral density filter. I’ll slow the whole thing down so it looks like a sports shoot. A man reaches for his knight and his arm blurs across the board. His opponent answers with his queen. I’ll shoot low from the board like I’m one of the pieces. The queen will land on me in a flash and stomp all over me. Chess as a full contact sport. Mixed Martial Chess.
Why do street photographers do so little work with white men in business suits? Why are they so preoccupied with “grittier” themes? After all, if street photographers ignore white men in business suits, those white men might feel left out. Who knows? They might even feel discriminated against.
“Your Instagram Photos Speak Volumes About Your Mental Health”. So says a study by two researchers who are, like, you know, reputable and stuff. Using a computational diagnostic tool, the researchers analyzed 43,950 photos posted by 166 individuals and compared those results to the diagnostic opinions of human mental health professionals who examined the same photos. The upshot is that the computational tool was more successful than the humans at diagnosing depression based on posts to Instagram.
We’re smitten by extroverted summer days, effusive skies, sunlight chattering through leaves. Soon it’s time for the weather to turn, a seat alone, rain clattering against the pane.
Walking up Bay Street from King, I saw two guys sitting on the sidewalk. It was rush hour and people were pouring from the buildings to make their dash down to Union Station. At first, I didn’t think anything of it: two more kids begging on the streets. But as I passed, I did a double-take. A rat had climbed onto the one kid’s shoulder. I stopped and knelt beside him: “Is that what I think it is?”
It’s been a long time since I was last in Montréal. Decades, in fact. As a kid, I’d go at least once a month with my parents to visit my grandparents. One of my earliest memories comes from Montréal: Expo ’67. I don’t remember much about Expo ’67 except that I got my hand smushed by the monorail door. I was staring out the door’s window, hands pressed against the glass. When the monorail pulled into the station, the doors retracted into their slots and dragged one of my hands with them. I remember screaming and screaming.
This post is dedicated to my spouse, lover, therapist & best friend, Tamiko, for her measureless patience. When we holiday together, I insist on using my camera, not to shoot the sights like a normal tourist, but to treat our time away as an opportunity to get good photographs. So it was last week in Montreal. It’s an addiction; I can’t help myself. She turns her back for a minute and I’m gone.
This is a followup to yesterday’s post. There, I suggested that street photographers can engineer their luck by going to heavy traffic locations when light is good, and then shoot and shoot and shoot. If they persist, they get good shots. Yesterday, I featured shots from the intersection of Yonge & Dundas Streets. Today, it’s the area around Nathan Philips Square at City Hall.
In photography, never rely on luck; go to where luck is and rely on skill. Or, to put it differently, an essential part of the photographer’s craft is to engineer luck. In the genre of street photography, a good way to engineer luck is to place yourself in a heavily traveled public space when the light is good and shoot and shoot and shoot.
I like John Cage’s approach to music and think it’s equally applicable to other media. During a performance, Cage would open a concert hall and allow all the ambient noise—honking horns and jack hammers—to impinge on the scored music. He saw no necessary distinction between the “official” music listed on a program and the other sounds we encounter in our daily lives. In the same spirit, I see no necessary distinction between the curated works of art that appear in a gallery and the visual gifts that appear in my camera’s lens.
Over the past year, I’ve had the good fortune to find myself in some of the world’s best locales for street photography: Manhattan, Hong Kong, & Singapore. Although Glasgow is much smaller by comparison, it shares the vibe that makes these larger cities such great places to shoot.
While (or is it whilst?) visiting Glasgow & environs last week, I was introduced to the sitcom, Still Game (available on Netflix). It’s about two widowers who share a council flat on the outskirts of Glasgow. They frequent the local pub where they round out their geriatric adventures with a few pints and, like all Glaswegians, the more they drink, the broader their accent. There is banter that, to my North American ear, is incomprehensible.
I’ve decided to present all my images from Toronto’s Pride Parade(s) in black and white to mark the black and white terms that seem to have corseted the Pride/BLMTO conversation. I’m not sure representatives of either group speak for much beyond the right to make themselves the targets of corporate marketing in heavily sponsored parades.
Once, Pride was Protest. Pride was Social Action. Pride was a Play for Justice. The whole Loud and Proud and Out in the Streets thing was a strategy to draw our eyes from the centre to the margins. Now it’s a party. It’s a celebration. It was one thing. Now it’s something else.