Sometimes standing out has nothing to do with getting louder. 

Standing out can be stepping back, slowing down, going inward, getting quiet. It goes against the grain.

After a year of weekly visits to Allan Gardens Conservatory, one of Toronto's most quietly extraordinary places, a jewel amidst the concrete, something shifted. I slowed down how I photographed. It got softer, more reflective. I didn’t plan it that way. The space asked that of me, but so did the medium. Film & an analogue camera.

Allan Gardens does that. It wraps you in light that changes by the hour, pulls you away from the noise of the city, and gives you enough stillness to hear yourself think again. 

And using film helped me calmly create. I didn’t have a digital screen to distract me. I could become fully present, bask in the light, soak in the beauty and look for different ways to compose without clicking every time.

In a feed engineered for urgency, that calm turned out to be the most subversive thing I could offer.

Sometimes we can't step far enough away from our own work to see it clearly. Only a friend with a deep love for photography and art could capture what I couldn't put into words myself. Thank you @nassim

You got 3 reveals instead of one. Just sayin’ 

This is In the Hours of Light, a 52-week film photography project shot inside the conservatory across 2024 and 2025, is now showing as part of the CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto.

Grab a coffee and sit in any of the three cafe venues and take in the art work. 

Maybe you’ll find your inside place.

In the Hours of Light is showing at Ezras (Dupont & Spadina), supercoffee (Davenport & Shaw), SUPERNOVA (Broadview)