Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Last night was game six of the NBA championships. Throughout the series, I keep telling myself I’ll go down at night to photograph people going mental in and around Jurassic Park, but I keep playing mind games with myself, inventing reasons why I should stay at home, put up my feet and read a book…
For the time being, the images I make are the product of my true vision, and mine alone, but inevitably they will ascend to the pantheon of cliché as do all images, for like all truth the truth of my vision is provisional. It is not my entitlement, but a momentary privilege.
Along with thousands of my colleagues, I pound the pavement, responding only to those scenes which hold precisely the features that confirm my view of what makes a good photograph, repeating the process until I have ground my bias into a cheap cliché.
A poem to mark July 4th, 2018, and the celebration of American Independence, or whatever. As a Canadian, I find it hard to give a flying fabrication.
This is Atta. I met him in Dundas Square near the Yonge/Dundas intersection. Approaching through the crowds, this is what I saw: a slender man in a hoodie, sometimes still, sometimes moving with an exaggerated animation. He was laying pieces of paper on the pavement and fixing them in place with objects. Gusts blew the pieces of paper away and Atta chased after them through the square.
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.
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.
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.
You suddenly realize you’re middle-aged when you’re standing by the Rogers Centre and say, in a big voice, geez, girls these days sure are dressing up for the ball games, totally unaware that the girls are there for a Beyoncé concert. Last evening it was busy in the 6ix with a Beyoncé concert at the Rogers Centre, a Selena Gomez concert at the ACC, and the bars full of people watching the Raptors take a beating in Cleveland.
I’ve discovered that the first week of spring—the first week when people can shed their heavy clothes and enjoy being outside—is one of the best times for street photography. People are happy. They’re willing to stop and talk to you. They don’t mind posing for shots.
One report quotes a witness as saying: “The strange thing was there was no screaming, there was no shouting, there was no running away – people were just gathering around in front of him and in front of the paramedics that were working on him.”
I don’t know if it’s official, but Toronto seems to have been renamed. Now, thanks to Drake, I live in The 6ix. According to the Urban Dictionary, the new name refers to Toronto’s original area code—416.