Tag: People

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Street Photography

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon: the case of the flying man

Man Runs to Union Station, Toronto

On a wet snowy afternoon, I went to the southwest corner of the Front/Bay intersection to catch people rushing down to Union Station to catch the train. I positioned myself a couple steps down where the stairs on the corner follow the slope of the street. That way, I could shoot lower to the ground which had turned wet with a light snowfall. I was after reflections of people walking across the reflective surface. That’s when I caught a man running so fast that he had enough lift to fly across the pavement. I have the proof. I captured a photo of it. A pox on your house if you try to refute the evidence of my unaltered photograph.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting photos of Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, and UFO’s. Speaking of UFO’s (or UAP’s as the US “Intelligence” community calls them), I note that 2021 was a banner year for unexplained sightings. On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (US) released a report on 144 sightings of “unidentified aerial phenomenon” (sic) which it has assessed. Of the 144 sightings, the intelligence community has explained only one. It remains open to the possibility that these were sightings of airborne aliens. You can read more on CNN’s web site.

In November, defense officials announced that they would be establishing a new task force to investigate these and other related phenomena (wood faeries? bridge trolls?). Although this appears to have happened under the aegis of the Biden administration, in fact, it was the Trump administration that imposed the requirement that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence submit a report to Congress. Is anyone surprised?

Gazing into my crystal ball, I see a period, after Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, of interminable Trump sightings (think Elvis) supplemented with seances licensed of course by Ivanka & Co., the hereditary grifters.

In the meantime, I offer this image to the new task force as its 145th UAP. A man hovers above the ground. How is this even possible? Unless … maybe this is an alien disguised as a man.

Categories
Street Photography

Hug in a Snow Storm

Greeting in a snow storm, Carlton & Church Streets, Toronto

I’ve noticed something paradoxical about snow storms. Although people like to complain when a snow storm rolls through, if they’re actually out in it, most people I observe tend to be happier and friendlier. I find that strangers are more inclined to start up spontaneous conversations with me and, as illustrated by the photograph shown here, they tend to be more expressive.

According to an article in Vice, there may be psychological research that supports my observation. However, in reading the article, I find it doesn’t say anything explicitly about snow storms. So, for example, it mentions the positive feelings generated by the white noise effect of rainfall. But despite their colour, snow storms don’t produce white noise. Unless accompanied by howling winds, snow storms produce the opposite of white noise, more a muffling effect that creates a sense of intimacy.

Maybe it’s like a mild version of a shared trauma that, for a brief time, invites strangers into a connection based on their experience. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, maybe it’s like a mild version of a local sports team victory. In my hometown, the most recent victory was the Raptors NBA Championship in 2019 when millions of people crowded into the downtown core and shared their joy. That’s what a snow storm is like. For whatever reason, people find joy in it.

Categories
Street Photography

Should there be a moratorium on umbrella photos?

Umbrella in Snowstorm, Bloor/Yonge intersection, Toronto

I recently read, although I can’t remember where, an established street photographer’s rant about all the visual tropes he felt had grown tired and tiresome. He made a list of all the things he would no longer shoot and he urged fellow street photographers to join him in his little boycott. One of the items on his list was photographs of people carrying umbrellas. In general, I agree that, as with good writing, so with good photography: avoid clichés. That said, I offer a couple exceptions.

First, aspiring photographers learn by shooting clichés. If you turn your rule against photographing clichés into an absolute prohibition, then nobody plays, nobody has any fun, and nobody discovers anything new. So hop to it. Make hay while the sun shines. Take no prisoners. Be your best self. Be a photography thought leader.

Second, there is no such thing as a photograph of an umbrella. I’m not flogging Magritte’s dead pipe (“Ceci n’est pas une pipe”) which I take to mean that a representation of a thing should not be equated with the thing itself. I’m getting at something more straightforward. The fact is: most photographs of umbrellas are not photographs of umbrellas; they’re photographs in which umbrellas happen to appear. They’re photographs of scenes in which the umbrella may have an important place, but most likely the umbrella is only one of a constellation of features that coalesce to produce the photograph.

In the case of the photograph featured here: is this a photograph of a red umbrella? or is it a photograph of a woman holding a red umbrella? or is it a photograph of a woman crossing a slushy road holding an umbrella? or is it a photograph of a woman crossing a slushy road holding an umbrella while a red car approaches from the opposite direction? And so on.

Categories
City Life

How many words for snow are there and who cares?

Leaping over slush at the intersection of Yonge & Dundas, Toronto

According to they (as in: “they say”), there are 52 different words for snow in the Inuktitut language. Always, “they” trot out this fact as evidence for a linguistic observation that we tend to develop our vocabulary according to our need. If we are Inuit, snow is important to our lives and so we develop a more nuanced account of snow.

If, on the other hand, we live in Toronto, where urbanization has changed the local climate into an urban heat island, snow doesn’t really dominate our lives anymore. People outside Toronto tend to think our vocabulary has developed more nuance in describing financial instruments and ways to flip real estate investments. As for snow, if the temperature is below freezing, we call it fucking snow. If the temperature is above freezing, we call it fucking slush. That’s about as far as our vocabulary goes.

As for the 52 different Inuktitut words, it turns out “they” were just making shit up. In fact, there are only a dozen Inuktitut words for snow and another ten for ice. For example, qinu is the word for “slushy ice by the sea” and fucking qinu is the word for “fucking slushy ice by the sea.”

Categories
Street Photography

Winter Scenes: Skating in Nathan Phillips Square

Couple kissing at Nathan Phillips Square

I was standing on the observation deck above the snack bar at Nathan Phillips Square. The marshals had cleared the ice so the zamboni could come out. Most people were bored and wished the zamboni would hurry up so they could get back to skating. But not everyone. At least one couple found a way to pass the time as the zamboni traced its loops around the rink. The woman pulled back, looked up, and saw me with my camera trained on them. She smiled then tapped her partner on the shoulder. He turned and together they waved at me. By then, the zamboni had turned and was making its way to the far end of the rink.

It wasn’t until I was at home processing my day’s captures that I noticed the tagline on the zamboni: “The Passion That Unites Us All.” I’m amazed at how the gods of photography contrive to lend a little something extra to so many of my photos. I couldn’t have timed this shot better if I had tried.

As for the tagline … I’m not sure what I feel for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Although one of the most valuable franchises in the NHL (ranked #2 in 2021 at US $1.8 B), it hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967 and routinely doesn’t even make it to the playoffs. It’s an infuriating club: no matter how badly it does, the fans display an unshakeable loyalty. The club/fan relationship is like one of those increasingly rare relationships that sticks it out no matter what.

Maybe that’s what lies behind the tagline: the passion that unites us all is not a passion for winning but a passion for honouring marriage vows (or whatever the sports equivalent is) for better or worse. As for this couple, who can say what unites them? However, I think it’s heartening they can find ways to pass the time that don’t involve whipping out iPhones and taking selfies.

Couple kissing at Nathan Phillips Square
Categories
Street Portrait

Man Sitting Outside Sultan Mosque, Singapore

Portrait of elderly man wearing glasses and white cap

As the title of this post indicates, I shot this impromptu portrait as I was walking along Muscat Street outside Singapore’s Sultan Mosque. This gentleman was happy to pose. As always, the key is to screw up the courage to ask. Even though he didn’t speak any English, my camera made it obvious what I was asking of him.

Revisiting this image, I’m reminded of why I never travel on tours. To capture an image like this takes time, or at least the illusion of time. It’s important for me to present as someone with all the time in the world, or at least as someone who has the time to pay attention to the person sitting right in front of me. Tours are frenetic affairs where a guide whisks you one place for five minutes and then the next and then the next with hardly time to get your bearings. In a situation like that, I could never relax enough to establish a connection with a subject. I prefer to plop myself in a city and then work things out in my own time. Part of that is just me: I’m slow and methodical. To be honest, when I have a camera in my hands, I’m frustrating to be around. Just ask my wife. I lose myself in the process.

This wraps up a month of street portraits. On to a new project. While portraits are by no means the mainstay of my practice, for personal reasons, I regard them as essential. Portraits force me to do what makes me most uncomfortable. I am an introvert and, years ago, found myself overtaken by a paralysing anxiety. The combination of introversion and anxiety militates against spontaneously striking up conversations with strangers. For me, the practice of street portraiture serves as a form of desensitization. Go gently at first, doing only what feels comfortable, rewarding myself for my successes, taking it easy on myself for my failures, and gradually pushing myself into increasingly uncomfortable situations. Looking back over the years, the results of this strategy have been startling. Now, the biggest impediment to taking good street portraits is the fact that so many people obscure their faces with masks.

Categories
Street Portrait

Singapore Street Portrait

Smiling woman wearing hat and sunglasses with red scarf

I made this image in Singapore when I tagged along with my wife who was working as a consular assistant. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had brought consular assistants from all around the world for a week of training. I came along for the ride, and while my wife sat all day in an office, I wandered around the island (Singapore public transit is fantastic!) while carrying a ridiculous amount of gear. This is one of those consular assistants. I can’t remember her name although I believe she is from Italy.

Perhaps it’s worth noting that I shot this in January. Now, I prepare this post sitting in my Toronto condo while, outside, the streets are covered in January snow and the temperature has dipped below -20ºC. In Singapore, the coldest temperature ever recorded is 19.4ºC and more typically hovers around a humid 30ºC.

Whenever I travel, I ask myself: would I want to live in this place? While Singapore has many things to commend it, four distinct seasons is not among them. I wonder how I would feel about living in a place without clear seasonal variation. The transitions, especially in spring and autumn, have an affective quality that I cherish: the feeling of optimism that comes as the snow melts and the ground thaws; the feeling of wistfulness as the leaves turn and the days shorten. I’m not sure I would want to live without these feelings.

Even so, like most Canadians, I enjoy it when I can interrupt my winter with a little time in the sun. This woman’s smile nicely captures that feeling of delight at being able to cast off heavy jackets and to bask in the warmth.

Categories
Street Portrait

My Name Is Earl

Shot in front of the Toronto Reference Library on Yonge Street

I had just bought my first full-framed mirrorless camera and was anxious to take it for a test drive. Within minutes, I had made this image of Earl who was standing outside Toronto’s Rosedale Library and immediately I was sold on the idea of the mirrorless camera.

There are drawbacks to the mirrorless system. For example, swapping lenses is a problem because it’s so much easier for stray dust particles to find their way onto the sensor. If I’m outdoors on a windy day and I want to switch lenses, it’s almost guaranteed I’ll end up with a dust spot on all my subsequent images. And then there’s the whole issue of hand size. Mirrorless cameras look like they were manufactured in a workshop owned by dainty-fingered elves. Finally, there’s the issue of heft. If I’m tramping around in the woods, I want a camera body that can get knocked around a bit without giving me grief.

On the plus side … A mirrorless camera isn’t likely to cause curvature of the spine. And travel! I can’t believe all the gear I used to haul onto an airplane. But most of all—and this is what I realized when I met Earl—, a mirrorless camera is unobtrusive, so people are more likely to feel comfortable when you frame them in your viewfinder. Never mind that the Sony A7 Mark IV is a 60 megapixel beast. The camera is easy to mistake for a simple point-and-shoot.

So I struck up a conversation with Earl. The conversation wasn’t going anywhere, partly because he mumbled so I heard only every third word, and partly because the words I did hear made no sense. To save the situation, I held up my new camera and asked if he was okay posing for a shot. He smiled and nodded and mumbled something incomprehensible and the rest, as they say, is photography.

Categories
Street Portrait

Pachycephalosaurus

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto

It was in Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto City Hall. A guy in a suit with an open collar had stepped outside for a break and sat at a picnic table. On the picnic table, there was a green plastic dinosaur, a friar tuck, as the hunter in Jurassic Park II calls it or, as his more knowledgeable companion corrects, a pachycephalosaurus which literally means “thick-headed lizard.”

There are many mornings, before I’ve had my first cup of coffee, when I feel like a thick-headed lizard. Maybe that explains why I was drawn to this scene. The man was texting on his cell phone, apparently oblivious to the dinosaur lurking nearby. I thought to myself: this is a photograph! I knelt on one knee and set up the shot, focusing on the dinosaur in the foreground, blurring the man behind. Then, when I was ready to release the shutter, I called out: “You realize there’s a dinosaur on your table, don’t you?” He looked up from his cell phone: “Huh?” Click.

What you can’t see from this image is the grin that followed. He immediately saw the humour of the situation and was fine with me taking the shot. I showed him the result in my viewfinder just to certify that I hadn’t caught him looking foolish. No tongue stuck out, eyes closed, boogers, zits, that sort of thing. Only the plastic pachycephalosaurus.

Categories
Street Portrait

Minnie Mouse Bow

When I first say this woman locking up her bicycle, my impression was that the Minnie Mouse bow on the helmet looked silly. But later, it struck me as eminently practical, at least from an urban cycling point of view. Yes, she shouldn’t have to make herself more visible, and yes, victim blaming should have no place in our public conversations about urban traffic. For the latest iteration of this, we have the December 26th rollover in downtown Toronto that injured 8 pedestrians, killing one of them. Toronto police const. Tony Macias drew flack when commenting on the accident and advising pedestrians to “keep their eyes open.”

But given that many drivers don’t pay attention, and given that the cars they drive can be lethal to those who aren’t in them, and given that existing infrastructure favours those lethal cars, I can understand if someone wants to use a Minnie Mouse bow to make themselves more visible. Certainly, Toronto’s Vision Zero program isn’t doing any good.

I’m disinclined to say Tony Macias engaged in victim blaming. Criticism here strikes me as misplaced. It’s the same form of argument that was leveled against John Lennon when he said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. When the media pressed him to recant for being disrespectful, his response was: but it’s true. We may not like that pedestrians need to “keep their eyes open.” But they do need to keep their eyes open, and we can’t very well hold Tony Macias responsible for that. If we want to assign responsibility, we need to look at this from a broader perspective that takes into account matters like urban design and social attitudes towards transit. For now, put a bow on your helmet.

Categories
Street Portrait

Meet The Touchi Artist

Standing in the middle of Yonge Street at Dundas, Toronto

With taglines like Be Hap2py! Sexy@Work and Jucy in Bed, how can the Touchi Artist go wrong? I’ve run into the Touchi Artist on numerous occasions as I drift through the intersection of Dundas and Yonge where he spends a lot of his time flogging his ideas. While I don’t know his name (yet), I can point you to his web site which is the next best thing: https://touchiartist.wordpress.com/

There, in addition to discovering his favourite taglines, you can learn about his obsession with an idea he calls blockclerk which, as far as I can figure out, is a mashup of blockchain and local politics. He also promotes meditation and yoga. For good measure, he scribbles his ideas on just about every utility box in a 2 km radius of the Dundas/Yonge intersection.

The thing about the Touchi Artist is that he’s a pretty amiable guy. Whenever I raise my camera and point in his direction, he offers a broad smile and is happy to pose. I suspect he regards himself as a proselyte of his revolutionary breakthrough ideas, so it’s in his best interest to put on his best face and do whatever he can by way of self-promotion. I’m happy to help him in his cause. I have no idea what the cause is, but I’m sure that in his mind it all makes perfect sense.

The Touchi Artist in Dundas Square, Toronto
Categories
Street Portrait

Street Portrait of Ben

Man wearing backward baseball cap and with tattoo on his face.
Just hitchhiked from Brockville. Does graffiti – bubble letters. Walks 20-30 mi. each day.

I was standing at the curb on Yonge Street just south of Dundas. I’d done my research beforehand and knew this was on the route of the World Naked Bike Ride. By my estimate, the naked cyclists would be turning from Dundas onto Yonge any minute now. I planned to use that most phallic of lenses, the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8, fast and long, like the cyclists who’d soon be whizzing past me.

That’s when Ben stepped up beside me. He’d just bused into town from Brockville and looked like he was trying to get his bearings. Meanwhile, I looked like I was waiting for something. I told him about the naked cyclists; he thought that was cool so he waited with me. I had nothing much to shoot until the cyclists arrived, so I asked if he’d mind me taking some shots of him while we waited.

In my do-over life, or in an alternate universe where the human lifespan is long enough to let us get degrees in 25 different areas of study, I’d like to learn more about cultural anthropology. For now, I have to resort to intuition about what I suspect might be the case. For example, I suspect it might be the case that Western cultures find face tattoos problematic. But I have no data to back this up. All I have is an image of mother losing her shit if, when I was younger, I had come home with a tattoo covering half my face: What did you do that for? I can barely look at you now? What will the neighbours think?

I suspect it might be the case, too, that the Western bias against face tattoos is partly a prejudice we carry with us from colonial days: this is something “primitive” peoples do, but not us. It sullies our whiteness. It makes us more like “them”. This is pure speculation on my part, and it all vanishes from my mind when a glorious parade of flesh zips down the road.

Categories
Street Portrait

Elaine in Edinburgh

Elaine Davidson, most pierced woman in the world

At the outset of this series on street portraits, I suggested that my earliest shot came from 2014. I was off by at least 6 years. Here’s a shot I made while strolling down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in 2008. The subject is Elaine Davidson, the world’s most pierced woman. Apparently, among other things, she has more than 500 piercings in her genitalia. I’m really curious to know how the official from Guinness Book of Records tabulated that count. Then again, I’m not that curious.

Of her many talents perhaps the most surprising is that she has a black belt in Judo which she earned in Japan. Three years after I took this photo, she married a local Scotsman named Douglas Watson. The headline in The Telegraph was: “World’s most pierced woman gets married to balding civil servant.” As a man with little hair, myself, I take exception to this headline. It implies that bald men like me are somehow unequal to the challenge of marriage to a more, shall we say, exotic woman. In the end, maybe he wasn’t up to it after all. They were divorced in 2012.

Categories
Street Portrait

Street Portrait in Hong Kong

Smoking on Gloucester Road Overpass at Percival Street, Hong Kong

I don’t know this person’s name. He didn’t have any English and I don’t have any Cantonese, so the usual niceties went out the window. Fortunately, there’s a lot you can communicate with a few simple hand gestures. Point to the camera. Point to him. Two fingers to my lips, pretending to smoke. Fake exhale. Wavy hands extending from my mouth to indicate smoke. He smiled and nodded. He understood exactly what I was after and was happy to play along with me.

This was early in 2016 and, even then, you could feel tension in the air. We were staying in Causeway Bay where, a few weeks earlier, a publisher and four of his associates had been disappeared in an obvious case of extraordinary rendition. Beijing didn’t like what they were printing and wasn’t having any of it. Vendors were setting up stalls in Victoria Park in preparation for Chinese New Year celebrations. This included small press outlets that made no attempt to hide their concerns for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

I would love to go back to Hong Kong, but I’m not sure the Hong Kong I visited exists anymore. Whenever I talk to people in Toronto who have ties to Hong Kong, they tell me going back is no problem. For example, if you’re there on business, just stick to business and you’ll be fine. Don’t say anything untoward. Keep your head low. No problem. Yes, but …

What if you actually value freedom of expression and freedom of the press? What if you think dissent has an important place in a vibrant polity?

I return to photos like this one and I wonder what has happened to this man in the intervening years. Like so many others, has he kept his mouth shut and his head low? Or has he joined the protests and risked everything for the sake of principle?

Categories
Street Portrait

Eveready Freddy

Homeless man rest with elbow on knee
Allen Gardens, Toronto

I have written at length on my other web site about my encounter with Eveready Freddy. If you go there, you’ll note that I processed all my photos of him as black and whites. It was a phase. It’s what people were doing then. A street aesthetic. Make it grainy. Make it gritty. Make it black and white.

The fact is: when I met him, Freddy was in trouble. He had no money. He’d been beaten up. And although he insisted he was all right, I had a suspicion he was bipolar and in a manic phase, so of course he would say he’s all right. I don’t think it helps someone who is suffering to take the images you make of them and process them in a way that conforms to your “house aesthetic.” It ends up romanticizing their suffering or minimizes it. This reminds me of domestic violence victims who cover the bruises with makeup. Only, in this instance, it’s me and not the victim who applies the makeup.

So here we have Freddy in colour. Grey stubble. Split lip that looks raw in a way that black and white masks. There’s still an element of artifice in the portrait insofar as he’s posing. But that’s something he chose to do and not something I directed.

For the time being, I have adopted a new rule when it comes to black and white images: present the image as shot. So if you’ve shot in colour, then present the image in colour. Process the photo in black and white only if you can clearly articulate the reason for your decision, and always be sure that your reason favours the subject.