Coffee Lover

Wandered down to Queen Street West for the first time in months on this glorious Sunday afternoon and decided to do some street shooting. This gentleman was sitting on the stoop of a walk-up enjoying a cup of coffee from the franchise next door.

Cyclist on Queen Street West

One of the challenges of street photography is getting your camera settings right. This isn't always possible, especially if you're paying attention to one thing and something entirely different but much more interesting suddenly happens in your peripheral vision. You may find yourself swinging around and going from photographing a still life to capturing motion and there's not enough time to adjust. So you point the camera, press the shutter button and hope for the best.

The Old and the New

Once upon a time, Levi's were the dress uniform of the working poor. These days they're just another luxury item sold through a chain of brand-specific stores in shopping malls around the world. The image below, snapped just west of Toronto's Eaton Centre (a shopping complex that spans an entire city block) shows the contrast between the old and the new. The ad on the side of the bus shelter romances affluent buyers with a nostalgic and highly-glamourized image of a working man (playing on the iconography of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire) while the stolen shopping cart containing a homeless person's possessions reveals the reality of urban poverty today.