New Project: At your Convenience
When I started this blog a few months ago, I anticipated posting more frequently than I have. That said, I was intending it to be a place to slow down and write about the progress of a photography making vs the quick and pressure-filled space of social media. Importantly, the lack of posts is not due to a lack of image making. In fact, I’ve made more photographs in the past 2 months than I have made in the past 2 (or more) years. I have been immensely inspired and have spent a lot of my free time thinking and journaling about new photography projects, as well as restarting old ones (more to come!). Some of this has to do with buying myself a new medium format digital camera, which feels like a serious image-making tool vs a toy. While a camera doesn’t make the photographs, it has significantly helped me reengage in photography, including deliberately slowing down and thinking about my photographs.
Which brings me to the focus of today’s post: The introduction of a new photography project entitled “At Your Convenience”!
Since we moved to the East End of Toronto roughly 4 years ago, I have been taken by all the corner convenience stores, and most importantly the people who own and work in them. These hyper-local stores (they are literally at the corner of each block in some areas) sell anything and everything, from ice cream to cigarettes to soda to lottery and scratch tickets to candy to tools to plants and flowers. Even more, the people who own and work in them are some of the most friendly people in the community, often having critical historical knowledge and perspective on how things have evolved over time. So, it was time to start this project by making portraits of both the people and stores to bring them to our attention.
The first portrait I made was of Micha (below) of Terry’s Milk, which she has owned for several decades. It took me about 20 minutes to convince her to be photographed. In fact, several regular customers came in and encouraged her, noting that they wanted her and store to be highlighted. In the end, she agreed, which I am glad she did given how well the portrait turned out.
I was also excited to photograph Ramón (below) of R&S Convenience, who’s store is at the end of my block and I pass by multiple times per day. Ramón is an extremely friendly guy, who always says hello when I pass and is willing to chat. His store also provides a vital resource for the hospital across the street, and I often see people in scrubs or construction workwear shopping there. (As an aside, I love that many of the stores still have remnants of the Covid era in them, including the plexiglass panels over the cash registers, which makes for challenging image making).
As I have been working on the project, I have certainly noticed that I am just as interested in the store as I am in the people. As someone who has typically been more interested in making portraits (social worker over here…), this comes to me as a bit of surprise. In part, I am curious about the various signage of the stores, some of which feel/are very dated, as well as the character of the buildings and what is on the outside. I typically want to photograph the people quickly, to not interrupt their business, so I’ve been spending more time photographing the buildings to find the right angles and perspectives. I plan on returning to these various stores as the spring and summer arrive to provide another perspective of them, as many of them display flowers, and I’d like to see them without snow and an overcast sky (Toronto winters…). It may also be interesting to see how the character of the buildings change across the seasons.
So far, I have photographed 7 stores, while I have inquired at about 15, and I have an active list of about 20 still to visit (with many, many more to identify). The reality with any portrait project is that not everyone will agree. Some places I have on my list to return to because the employee I spoke to was not interested but they thought their co-workers may be. Of course, I’ll continue to visit the many stores in the area to photograph as many as I can. I also have some other ideas to expand the project or some offshoots that I’ll be playing with.
I’ll be posting more images to the At Your Convenience gallery page as I make them. Until then, enjoy!