Photo of the Week 2016-05-02

... wandering along streets in a neighbourhood of which I have no early memories. I was just a year old when my parents moved from this area and the first home I ever had. The house was a 'semi' on Hunter St. in the are of Toronto now known as Riverdale. There are no first hand recollections for me, I was too young. There are only fragments, recalled from stories told and conversations heard over the years ... to which, I now wish I had paid more attention.

A lot of years ago I visited this area with Dad when we were on our way to a downtown camera store. There are some memories of the conversation as we passed through his old neighbourhood ... not enough to satisfy the curiosity that now brews inside. Riverdale Ave., Hunter St. Withrow ... the Park, the school, Labatt Ave ... I'm trying to remember and pull together pieces of family history to go with photos that lay scattered about on my framing table. Whenever I bring out the boxes of albums and envelopes filled with pics in all sizes, of places, people and times gone by, the curiosity is stoked, as it was again recently.

So I set out one morning, in search of the past ... in a place I had little part in, but is very much a part of me ... hoping for for something, a feeling, perhaps a sense of connection and the intent to photograph what spoke to me.

back (to the) alley

I made this image of the lane behind 30 Hunter St., and imagine that my father drove my mother and I home from the hospital, down this lane, as I came home for the first time.

DJE