After a late breakfast (after what would have been lunch on any other day), we walked down Yonge Street with Eaton’s Centre as our goal so we could return a shirt. On the way down, the photography gods smiled upon me. First, as we passed the entrance to the Chick-fil-A (evil, evil, evil), an employee came out and was telling people in the line where to go. I got a shot of him, his back to me, pointing to the door while people, their faces to me, gaze at him. In some of my shots, his pointing arm blocks the face of one of the people listening to his instructions. But, in one shot, all of the elements of the composition fall into place and I end up with a decent street photograph: a photograph in which people interact with one another to produce a kind of tableau like a blocked-out scene on a theatre stage, or a Renaissance painting illustrating a biblical story. Here, it could be Aaron telling the people of Israel where to go if they want to sign up for the Red Sea crossing.
Two seconds later, an even better photograph leapt off the street and smacked me in the face. At the corner of Yonge and Hayden, a woman was leaning against a utility pole, her back to me, head bowed as if she was texting or scrolling on her smart phone, purse tucked under her right arm. But the kicker was the leopard skin print dress. Practice has taught me that when I line up a shot like this, I need to position the head in the open street. It ruins everything to have a pole or a building stick out the top of a person’s head. I spent only a couple seconds stepping to one side, framing the shot in my viewfinder, and shooting a burst of five or six images, but that was enough time for Tamiko to walk ahead of me, turn around wondering where I had gone, catch me sneaking up behind a woman in a leopard print dress, and give me proper hell.
We argued all the way down to Wellesley:
I was being creepy. Predatory. Bill Cosby just got released.
But a leopard skin print!
I don’t care. You were stalking her.
It’s anonymous. And Bill Cosby? Really? Not at all the same thing.
After I processed the image, Tamiko conceded that it was a good image but it still makes her uncomfortable to be around me when I make images like that. It turns out the image is even better than I could have hoped, thanks to a minor detail that Barthes might describe as a punctum. On the utility pole, at the same level as the woman’s neck, there is a sticker advertising blue pills, a Viagra alternative. It’s probably the best image I’ve made this year.
At Wellesley, I shot a woman crossing the street carrying a lamp, this time facing her so, if she cared, she could easily see what I was doing. Tamiko doesn’t really like being around me when I do this, but she was happier about this scenario given that I was being more transparent to the victim of my photographic stalking.
At College, we caught up to a young lesbian couple holding hands. One of them was a small Filipina girl wearing leggings in striped shades of pinks and purples with short hair dyed to match. As we walked south of College, a tall skinny shirtless Asian guy got up from the sidewalk and started to yell at the couple, calling the one girl a Filipina dyke bitch. He seemed incensed by her in particular, as if her sexuality was a personal affront to his heritage. We passed him as he was yelling at the girl and I moved to physically interpose myself. I was thinking of things like allyship and how easy it is (especially for a clueless-looking white guy such as myself) to use my physical placement to de-escalate a situation without saying a word or even appearing to understand a situation. But Tamiko yanked my arm. She was afraid and wanted to get as far away as possible. The girls turned left onto the path that leads to Granby Street and the guy held back, maybe because he’d left some of his things lying on the sidewalk. When they had a little more space between them, the Filipina girl gave the guy the middle finger and they walked away.
To my way of thinking, there’s something contradictory in Tamiko’s thinking. On the one hand, she gave me hell for taking a photo of a woman leaning against a utility pole. On the other hand, she also gave me hell for lingering to make sure two women were safe. I guess I should be grateful I have someone who worries about me.
If such a thing is possible, things were a bit wilder, a bit more chaotic, at Dundas. Maybe residue from the march we missed. Undischarged energy still crackling in the air. My old friend, the Asian guy who scribbles notes on utility boxes and often carries cryptic signs, was prancing around the southwest corner dressed in an orange shirt and waving a small Canadian flag upside down over his head. I don’t know if it was intentional, but he was holding the flag against an extended middle finger. He got into a shoving match with another regular there and I thought I might get to document a fight, but like boxers in a ring they broke apart and each went to their own corner. Tamiko was feeling uncomfortable so, after returning the shirt, we walked up to Gould Street and through the Ryerson Campus. People were lined up to silkscreen orange T-shirts and to make buttons. There were vendors and an information booth for the benefit of the one or two people left in the country who have no idea what’s going on.
Continuing up Church Street, we had a late lunch at the Hair of the Dog pub, sitting under a torn umbrella while the sky grew dark and threatened rain. They seemed to be doing a brisk business. It’s good to see local businesses starting up again and people returning to them the way they return to long lost friends. After lunch, we stepped into the Loblaws looking for cheese. It seems we’re always looking for cheese. Say cheese.
