Street Projects
Street Projects
1950 Dodge Coronet: A Mopar V8 Under a Jade Green Hood
The hood was up all evening, and I understood why about two seconds after I looked under it. The car is jade green, wide whitewalls, a chrome grille with enough bars to trap a small animal, and a ram standing on the nose. Then you get to the engine bay and the century...
Toronto Windows at Night: The Warm Side of the Glass
Winter comes early here and the light goes at half past four, and that is when this work gets good. A room with the lamps on is a stage with the fourth wall made of glass, and you are standing out on the cold sidewalk looking straight into it. Toronto windows at night...
1957 GMC 9300 Stepside: Canada’s Blue Chip Pickup
I did not find this one on a show field. It was sitting in a Canadian Tire parking lot on a Monday night in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, a Tesla on one side and an orange Mopar on the other. That is my favourite kind of car show, the kind that is really just a...
Inside Tim Hortons: The Office Nobody Rents
The second time out with this project I noticed something I had walked past for years. Half the people in the room were working. Not staff, customers. A woman in a blazer running what was clearly an interview from a window booth, two people hunched over a laptop,...
1961 Thunderbird: The Bullet Bird
The light goes orange around eight o'clock at these Monday meets, and that is when the red cars start to earn their keep. This one did not need the help. Top down, wire wheels, a moulded cover laid over the back seats with two headrest bumps rising out of it, parked...
Toronto Winter Street Photography: Grey Skies and Slush
Winter is the season most people put the camera away. I do the opposite. Grey light, wet sidewalks, snowbanks going black at the curb, everyone bundled and moving fast with their heads down, that is the Toronto winter street photography I keep coming back for. The...
1968 Oldsmobile 442: The Thinking Man’s Muscle Car
There were a couple of hundred cars in that plaza lot on the Monday night, and most of them were red, or black, or some shade of candy that took a man three weekends to spray. This one was white. Plain white, a blue stripe down the flank, chrome Rally wheels and a...
Colourful City Street Photography in Downtown Toronto
Toronto does not whisper. Walk into Yonge-Dundas Square on a grey afternoon and the sky can be the colour of wet concrete while the buildings scream orange and red and electric blue. That contrast is the whole reason I keep coming back for colourful city street...
2012 Chevrolet Camaro RS: The Bumblebee at the Cruise-In
Most of what I shoot on these Monday nights wears chrome and was built before I was driving. This one was the loud exception, the newest car in the lot by half a century, yellow with black racing stripes and a little bee on the flank, parked a few spots from a lime...
Tim Hortons Street Photography — A Canadian Icon
Walk into any Tim Hortons in Canada and sit down for a few minutes. Actually look. You will find seniors who have been coming to the same table since before the current staff was born. A runner still wearing her race bib from the morning's event. Teenagers...
1958 Edsel Pacer: Ford’s Famous Flop Up Close
There are cars people forget, and there are cars people remember for being a flop. This is one of the famous flops, and it was sitting in the same Richmond Hill lot north of Toronto where I find most of these, wearing an Ontario vanity plate that read BIMM 4 and a...
Yonge Street Photography: Walking the Walk
Everyone on Yonge Street has somewhere to be. You can see it in the stride, head forward, arms swinging, the whole body committed to a direction. They're not performing for anyone. They're not thinking about a camera. They have somewhere to go. That is...
1956 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible in Richmond Hill
Turquoise over white, the top folded down, and a plate that reads 56 DREAM. A 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible sits in the lot with the late sun pouring over it, and it looks exactly like the decade everyone thinks they remember. This is the middle child of the...
Toronto Street Photography — Interesting People on the Street
It happens before you can think about it. Something in your peripheral vision registers differently from the stream of pedestrians, and the camera comes up before you have consciously decided to take a picture. I have been doing this long enough to trust...
1948 Mercury Eight Coupe at a Richmond Hill Car Meet
It was parked nose-out in the Canadian Tire lot with the low sun coming straight down the hood, and the whole front end was lit up like a piece of jewellery. A 1948 Mercury Eight does that to you. White over a brushed silver hood, a chrome grille made of nothing but...
Toronto Window Reflections: Street Photography Through Glass
A shop window in this city is never just a window. It is two pictures at once, the people inside living their evening, and the whole street behind me printed over them in the glass. That is the reason I keep coming back to Toronto window reflections. You get the diner...
1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III in Richmond Hill
It is the size that gets you first. A 1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III is nearly nineteen feet of car, a copper-coloured land yacht that needs a parking space and a half. Out at a Monday-night meet north of Toronto it sits among the Chevys and the Mustangs like an...
Toronto Sunny Day Street Photography — When the Light Fights Back
There are days when the city turns itself on. The sun comes down the street at an angle and the ordinary things, the brick facades, the traffic signals, the people walking home, stop being background and start being subjects. Toronto sunny day street...
1955 Chevrolet Bel Air at a Richmond Hill Car Meet
Red over white, and a plate that reads GLENN 55 so there is no mistaking the year. A 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air sits at the front of the lot with the low sun firing straight through the windshield, and the chrome is doing most of the work. This is the first of the...
Toronto Sunday Street Photography: Chilling on a Sunday
Sunday morning in Toronto moves at a different speed. The same streets that push commuters through on a Monday are full of people who showed up because they wanted to. Nobody has a meeting. Nobody is late. The city belongs to whoever decides to come out...