Homeless Toronto in the 80's
In 1984 / 85 I was invited to participate in an effort to document the plight of homelessness in Toronto. I spent the better part of the year at the Street Health free clinic on Dundas and Sherbourne Streets. Over that time I spent uncountable hours talking with the people who came to the clinic for help with infections, frostbite or to get their medications. They came from all walks of life. Some felled by mental illness, others by the ravages of alcohol and drugs. They all had stories, I did my best to listen and to make a portrait of their lives. The images were all made on film using Nikon cameras and lenses, Tri-X film pushed to 800 and sometimes 1600 ASA. This was the 80's there was no digital and this wasn't some hipster-poseur choice, this was how it was done son. These images were scanned from transparencies made for a talk I gave in 1985 on the work and for distribution to magazines. The 'scans' were made with a Nikon D600, a PB-5 Bellows and a PK-13 extension ring (which you need to mount a new Nikon body on a PB-5 bellows) Post processing and some spot removal was done in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CS (frankly I left a fait bit of grit behind and despite all efforts to clean the sides, the ravages of time have taken a toll)