52 Week Photography Challenge: December
Under the Weather — Home Alone — Double Exposure — Self Portrait
As I mentioned in my November entry to the 52 Week Photography Challenge hosted by Rodrigo S-C here on Full Frame, this summer I visited my hometown Toronto for the first time in five years.
Half a decade is a long time to be away from home. Many things have changed, including especially the condo-ization of T.O. which has been taking place for the last few decades but has recently accelerated.
Many of my old stomping grounds in “the 416,” as it’s sometimes called, are gone, have been converted, or had the atmosphere radically changed by developers who, for better and worse, are focused on building the new rather than preserving the old.
In any case, my entries for December’s topics are rooted in my memories of the city, and highlight Toronto’s landmarks for tourists and residents alike.
Under the Weather.
In winter, Toronto the Good becomes Toronto the Grey. A smothering sky hangs low, stitched with leaden threads to the bare limbs of trees. The CN Tower, which in better weather serves as a navigation buoy for visitors and locals alike, hibernates in swirling rumination.
Icy Lake Ontario churns out a biting wind, which claws its way up Yonge Street and bites at exposed noses and cheeks.
The white wonderland of snow is quickly turned to a no-man’s land of slush as cars skid past and pedestrians dash from doorfront to doorfront.
So it’s no surprise that planners have, over the years, developed an underground PATH system to link transit with office and retail space downtown. The Eaton Centre, with its glass roof and gaggle of geese suspended from the rafters, is a haven from the worst of winter’s misery, and serves as a reminder that better times are to come.
Home Alone.
A third-floor fire escape on a brick walkup on St. Clair West. For years my mother would tend a secret garden of flowers, protecting it from squirrels and raccoons. Also from the prying eyes of building inspectors, to create for herself a quiet corner in the city from where she could look out over the lowrise roofs of this part of the city and, later, watch the jetstreams of aircraft from exotic locales, including Tokyo where her prodigal son lived.
What more fitting place for her final resting place, where she can continue to spend quality time with my stepdad as he tends her flowers.
Double Exposure.
How about multiple exposures?
For years, Downtown Camera has maintained this funky camera wall in its store on Queen East (FD: no connection). Imagine how many negatives have been exposed to the light through that many-eyed Beholder (Dungeons & Dragons anyone? Anyone?).
Self Portrait.
Holding it together
As you may have guessed by now, if you’ve followed these Challenge posts and other images and writings on Medium and elsewhere, I have lived a… multi-faceted life. I sometimes feel like a cat, in the latter stages of his nine lives.
I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling.
In any case, I wanted to close with this self-portrait as it portrays, if nothing else, how despite the blurring of edges and a few hard breaks the whole is still together – every new warp or woof of the image may obscure the surface clarity of the image but by revealing it in an abstract form perhaps says something more true about its inherent nature.
Art speaks to truth, if not necessarily to fact, if you see what I mean :-)