Streets of Toronto by Matthew Wylie
Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, with almost 50% of its population foreign born. As such, the richness of its streets – from inhabitants, architecture, and city life – creates such a palette for the eye on any given day. The city is truly a tone poem.
Shooting quickly and usually from the hip, I focus on single subjects in the attempt to isolate and accentuate a moment and I do not focus on captures that will lead the viewer to an obvious story. I want only to provide the impetus for one, which the viewer, not I, can tell.
The following photographs are meant not to encapsulate Toronto’s richness or diversity, but simply to provide an impression, from the hip, of her streets, her people, and the possibility of her narratives.
“To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world.” – Umberto Eco
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Wylie’s comment, “I focus on single subjects in the attempt to isolate and accentuate a moment and I do not focus on captures that will lead the viewer to an obvious story. I want only to provide the impetus for one, which the viewer, not I, can tell” – truly fits his approach to the streets and the people he had captured.
This group of photos shows me something new and very refreshing on the matter of “street” photography.
I have looked at a lot of this genre and found nearly all of it to be repetitive copy-cat efforts at capturing “the streets”& it’s life. It had become so boring I quit looking at any of it.
However, Wylie has magically captured (from the hip) a variety of looks & feelings through his varying compositions, lighting, subjects, angles, foregrounds & backgrounds. Each photo is an individual & I get what he’s saying about not leading the viewer to an obvious story. All of these images work exactly like that & that’s the refreshing element! The other wonderful quality is the use of shadows and high contrast points of light.
I could go on, but hopefully you get my overall point of how unique these are compared to the general genre of “the streets” being done by so many people these days.