Soul Searching (Salvation Army Harbour Light Centre, 723 Queen St. W. & Tecumseth, Toronto)

The realization that I would leave Toronto did not dawn on me all at once. But if there was a defining moment it came on the subway, in the late summer of 1988.

Being short has its disadvantages. Reaching high shelves is a constant reminder of the handicap (I keep a folding step in the kitchen). On the hot and humid day in question, packed like a sardine on the Bloor line with standees hanging on to the overhead rail, my nose reached armpit level.

How did I get here? What was I doing pumping out advertising images, “pimping” consumer goods with attractive lighting, riding the TTC every day to fulfill this role in the world of commerce? I was a long way from the freedom of the ocean and the hills.

As much as my mentor Peter Kundert had helped me along in the trade, he also had another piece of advice for me: “You’re a good photographer; get out of this business before it sucks your creativity dry.” (As per a recent post, he evidently changed his mind, trying to lure me back).

At that time, compared to the Vancouver I’d left, Toronto was (probably still is) a big city. It made me feel like a bumpkin. Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside notwithstanding, the number of people living rough on the street was shocking. I chose one guy who slept in the streetcar shelter at Queen Street West and Tecumseth to offer small comfort. Every workday morning, before squeezing onto the TTC, I roused him with coffee.

In winter, the lot of the homeless turned brutal. Another day, another hypothermia victim.

At that Queen and Tecumseth intersection (opposite Palmerston, where I lived for a year), The Salvation Army’s Harbour Light Centre (now Florence Booth House) offered shelter from the hard street, along with a dose of Christian homily.

I might have been grateful that I had friends to save me from the street (I was unlikely to turn to religion), yet I was facing my own kind of existential dilemma. On return from my birthplace in England, having discovered it was no longer my home, I was looking for my own sense of redemption, a beacon in the darkness. 

I phoned dear friend and former climbing partner Bryan Beard, who had retreated to remote and beautiful Hornby Island to raise a family and pursue large format photography. 

I recall the conversation in detail. As was our habit, we skipped pleasantries and got right down the to the brass tacks of our lives. I was sitting in a room in my friend Shelly Lye’s townhouse. Pigeons cooed outside the window. They had found a warm place to roost under the eaves.

Bryan listened to my complaints. “Why don’t you come home,” he said wisely.

Roosting Pigeons, Toronto

Available as a limited edition print