Over the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to move my street photography along. I’m happy with the work I’ve done over the years; I wanted the photo to take a good look at the person I was photographing and with any luck bridge the gap between the subject and the observer. I did this by focusing on portraiture using a telephoto lens. This lens gave me the freedom to stay out of a person’s personal space (so they would have a better chance of feeling relaxed) while at the same time allowing me to capture a up-close and personal portrait. I should add that I almost always asked permission too.

These days I want to let the world speak for itself, I’d like to tell more of the story. I still want to be creative and capture images that have something to say but I want it to be raw, to be real and perhaps show people what they might not want to see or are unaware of! Also this observer, the photographer, will be removed from the “picture”. These images will not only reflect the people but also the environment around them.

We don’t always have time for Tim Horton’s

Most of us want to live in a society driven to solve social ills. Certainly that is one of the pillars of any successful civilization, to make conditions better for the people and the environment around them. In order to do this we have to talk, we have to have some dialogue about our community and the world we live in as it is.

These photos are a contribution to that dialogue.

“We don’t always have time for Tim Horton’s” was taken on the streets of Toronto and was a winner at the 2016 Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Competition.