Toronto in Roses, 2021

From August 4 to 8, 2021, Toronto hosted a five-day rose show.

The show was held in the celebrated shopping district between Yorkville and Bloor.

The area is lined with famous names and packed with luxury boutiques.

Thirty-five floral installations were arranged throughout the neighbourhood for visitors to enjoy.

The route began inside the shopping concourse at the Manulife Centre, where several figures of young women had been fashioned from roses and other plants.

The details deserve special mention. Nearly every part of each display was made from flowers or plant material. The first young woman’s dress, for example, was painstakingly built up seed by seed, while her basket was woven from pine cones. A great deal of work had clearly gone into it.

Outside the mall, I followed the route marked on the map. Floral gateways were the most common sight.

Visitors queued to pose beneath the floral arches, inviting the question: which was lovelier, the roses or the person in the photograph?

For those who did not want photographs, dining and shopping amid the flowers was pleasant enough in itself.

Besides the floral gateways, visitors also enjoyed everyday objects recreated in flowers, such as this bicycle,

or this mobile coffee cart wreathed in roses.

Sometimes a few dried flowers simply arranged on a counter were enough,

or bamboo painted pink and paired with delicate orchids. Simplicity has a beauty of its own.

Inside Yorkville Village was another highlight of the show: the flower dogs. Several dogs made from roses were on display, each exquisitely crafted, remarkably lifelike, and thoroughly charming.

Leaving the mall, I continued along the route to see more floral displays. Everywhere, people were still posing for pictures.

Even a little dog had to pose beneath the rose-covered telephone box. Unlike the flower dogs just inside, this one was very much alive.

I was in no position to compete with the flowers for attention. Lacking the nerve for selfies, I settled for photographing passersby.

In Vancouver Street Impressions, 2021I mentioned that shop windows are one of my favourite subjects. A profusion of merchandise, glaring lights, reflections of the city, streams of cars mingling with crowds—all compressed into a single frame: dazzling, colourful, at once real and unreal.

The windows along this luxury shopping street were beautiful, but they also reminded me that my wallet was not quite thick enough. I felt an immediate urge to go home and work harder. Let us hope that counts as positive energy. 😄

Graffiti is another subject I enjoy photographing.

The static artwork and the people moving past it come together to create an entirely new image.

There is another favourite subject of mine that I did not mention in that article: photographing advertising images. I slipped an example into Fort Langley Impressions, 2021without saying a word about it.

I photograph advertisements because they embody a kind of illusion. Their beautiful images easily stir our appetite for shopping, fine food, scenic places, and beautiful people. Yet all these enticing visions may be no more than beautiful illusions.

Confronted with all this lush greenery and dense foliage, might you imagine yourself deep in a forest, breathing air rich with fresh negative ions?

But what is the reality? Change your angle, and you discover that you are merely standing in a crowded concrete jungle, breathing car exhaust mingled with cooking fumes from restaurant kitchens and odours drifting from nearby rubbish bins…

The roses are real, and they are beautiful. Yet the show’s five-day run reminds us that such reality and beauty can only be fleeting—a moment that vanishes before our eyes.

Are most of the beautiful things we long for no more than beautiful illusions?

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