Krueger Photography

Toronto

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I made one photography expedition to Toronto, Canada in 2013 and stayed for about a week. There are 166 images in this gallery, which constitutes that bulk of useable content from that one trip. Others may be added if I come across additional prints in the future. You’ll notice that there are several instances of several images of the same subject. When I have a hard time picking a single image that stands out above the others, I just included them all.

If there is one picture I am most proud of, it is the shot of the Parade condominium towers at Concord CityPlace and the 130-foot, Skybridge connecting the towers. The Skybridge consists of two condominiums, one large and one smaller. The larger one, dubbed The Grand Bridge Suite is a three-story ultra luxurious 4,168-square-foot private residence overlooking downtown Toronto and Lake Ontario. While the Skybridge is a small part of the picture, it is at the center. Of all images I have seen of the towers and condo-skybridge, none are taken from this perspective or have this unusual geometric composition.

I shot sixteen rolls of black and white film. Fourteen were TMax 400 which were largely developed in Xtol 1:1, with a few rolls developed in TMax 1:4. The other two rolls were Ilford HP5+ which were both developed in Rodinal. All the film was shot at box speed of ISO 400. As always, most of the trip was spent walking around the downtown area, with one train excursion to the zoo. None of the zoo pictures are included in this gallery because they were just touristy snapshots and don’t fit in with the main cityscape theme of my more serious photography.

As with all my distant photography expeditions, I only carried 35mm film equipment. I used a Nikon F100 body. The majority of shots use a Sigma 28-70mm f2.8, but I also carried a 14mm Sigma and a 70-300mm Nikon VR lens. I used a red filter for many of the outdoor shots unless it was overcast. Most likely, I would have also used a polarizer to get a very dark sky. The red filter also accounts for the dark shadows.

There are few cities that offer as much to photograph as Toronto. If I were to go back there, I would easily be able to shoot twice as much film in the same time period. Of course, with new high power carry-on x-ray machines and less accommodating airport security, carrying film is no longer as convenient or risk free as it was back then. My last analog photo expedition was to Italy in 2020 simply because of the risks involved with carrying film on airlines and the inconveniences of trying various means to escape those risks.

It’s a shame that relations between the US and Canada have deteriorated, but when I was there in 2013, I found it more accommodating and friendly than most of the US cities I’ve been to. We didn’t encounter panhandlers nor were we accosted by annoying attention seekers. At no point did we feel unsafe and I made no effort to research whether there were rougher areas of the city to be avoided. My only contact with law enforcement was in the metro when police officers inquired about whether I would be using flash around the subway platform. There was no flash unit attached to my camera and I didn’t have one with me. They were polite and the interaction lasted only a couple minutes.