A Year Shooting Film at Allan Gardens Conservatory, Toronto: My Photography Journey

How I spent 12 months documenting life inside one of Toronto’s most beautiful Victorian greenhouses

The ritual, the fear, and why letting go is part of creating

In 2024, I made a decision that went against everything our digital culture tells us to do. I put my digital camera down and used my analogue camera to begin anew.

The project is called In the Hours of Light. Every week for 52 weeks, I went to Toronto's Allan Gardens Conservatory with a film camera. And every week, I came home and put the undeveloped rolls away. While I photographed there was no previewing. No checking. No knowing whether any of it worked.

I'm not going to pretend that was easy. At the beginning there was real fear, did I do something wrong, am I exposing correctly? Is this going to work? Or am I going to end up with nothing to show for it at the end of it all. 

Around the midway point, the doubt came back louder. Should I just develop a roll to see what's happening? I even put out a poll which came back 50/50. Yes develop some film. No don’t develop.

It really would have defeated the purpose if I had succumbed to my fear and curiosity. I chose to hold back and trust. Trust that the results weren’t the most important thing. Trust that whatever happens in the end, I was learning. Learning to stay in the moment, learning to commune with beauty. Learning to find awe and wonder that would bring me back to my centre and fall even more in love with photography and the process of creating images.

What I didn't expect was how that act of waiting would change how I photographed. Without the safety net of checking the back of the camera, I slowed down. I stopped clicking at everything. I started actually seeing the space, enjoying my time there.

I became more observant, instead of reactive. I soaked up the light and watched the way it shifted depending on whether it was cloudy or sunny, the way the plants moved almost imperceptibly through the seasons, the quiet rhythms of people passing through.

Going to the conservatory became a ritual. And rituals, I discovered, have a way putting things back into perspective. Whatever state I arrived in, whether that was distracted, tired, scattered, I always left feeling uplifted. Every single time. 

Something inside settled back right where it should have been. Was it the connection between myself and the plants? Was it the enduring light and warmth of the conservatory during those dreary Toronto winter days? Or was it the full immersion of creating photos and doing only that without finding immediate gratification after the click of the shutter? 

When the year was over, I was holding a year’s worth weeks of presence in my hands. Letting go of the results was the whole point. Letting go is part of creating.

The show opens May 1st as part of CONTACT Photography Festival, at three venues in Toronto.

Ezra’s Pound

Supernova Coffee

Supercoffee (Davenport & Shaw Location)

 I hope you'll come and see what a year of slowing down looks like.