John FitzGerald's photos

The note under the near traffic light has another view from this corner.

Back in 2016.

Lots of detail in the big view -- click the pic or type Z.

Nathan Phillips Square in 2015, when the Toronto sign had just been put up. It turned the square into Toronto's selfie hotspot. Since then a maple leaf the same size as the letters has been added after the sign and a medicine wheel the same size as the letters before. More photos of the square: www.ipernity.com/doc/fitzgerald/album/1069652

Commemorating visits to Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto.

Commemorating visits to Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto. This is better seen large, I think; click on the pic or type Z.

Custom and factory paint. Try the large size -- click the pic or type Z.

Fifty-odd years ago Time magazine published a copy of one of Ed Ruscha's gas station paintings. It leapt off the page at me and made me look at it. Then I forgot about it for forty-odd years until I took up photography. I discovered then that that painting had been thriving in my unconscious and was influencing the photos I took. This photo is of course a long way away from Ruscha's painting -- it isn't a gas station, it has two perspectives instead of one, it's shot from above while the POV in Ruscha's painting was from below, and so on. The influence is seen -- at least to me, an entirely subjective judge, who has been wrong many, many times before -- in the concentration on converging lines and what I consider to be its hard-edge look. I know this was a largely self-indulgent digression but I had to explain the title, din I? Another homage to Ruscha in the PiP. Technical note: Taken with my arm in a sling. My elbow is still recuperating, but I was able to take this without bending it. ==================== In my self-absorption I forgot that it would be a good idea to post a link to the painting -- thanks to Sarah Paris who has provided a link below. And here it is here: www.moma.org/collection/works/76637 More tributes to photographers and painters: www.ipernity.com/doc/fitzgerald/album/1294982?with=45547580

I now have my photographing arm in a sling for a week after minor surgery on my elbow (recovering well, thank you), so more old photos are coming. This is a re-edit of a photo I posted on Flickr (feh) years ago. An atrocious capture but. friends, is that all there is to photography? As Canadian Pacific has pointed out, perfection is so overdone in the age of Photoshop.

Another shot of Nathan Phillips Square during the exhibition of Ai Wei Wei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads .

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, before the installation of the Toronto sign but during the exhibition of Ai Wei Wei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads.

Another view of Toronto's selfie hotspot, Nathan Phillips Square.

Happy Canada Day, whether you're Canadian or not.

This square has New City Hall on the north side and Old City Hall on the east (well, across Bay Street); neither is shown here. Nathan Phillips was the mayor who was instrumental in getting New City Hall and its square built. There's a photo of New City Hall and the square in the comments.