Posted by
Damon Schreiber (Toronto, Canada) on 31 July 2007 in Cityscape & Urban and Portfolio.

Sakamoto/Schreiber - Toronto 1977-2007 series starts here.

Continued from yesterday

Meanwhile, I emailed the photographer. The site where these photos lived was hosted in Japan, and the title was Shige's Wallpaper Images. There were photos from all over the world, but mostly Japan. Other notable locations included Rio de Janeiro, Scotland, Italy, France, Los Angeles...

And I received a response (in very good English by the way)... Mr. Shige Sakamoto informed me that he had spent a week in Toronto during June 1977 - he was here for a conference. We discussed his photos and how much I liked them, and I started thinking how fun it would be to go around the city taking the same scenes. We agreed that we would post each other's photos on our websites (although I didn't really have a website at the time -
certainly not one with an audience apart from family and the occasional friend.

Continued tomorrow.

Note: I found it very difficult to duplicate the angles in this one. Too few clues - so much is different now. The building on the left (now a Hard Rock Café is the same) The Eaton Centre facade has been substantially changed, and what was a block of buildings on the left (where Coles bookstore was) is now Dundas Square, which many would agree is a pretty nice urban public place.

Top image copyright Shige Sakamoto - 坂本政恵

High-res here (my image) and here (1977 image). The entire 1977 series can be viewed in context starting here.

[Dundas & Yonge, Toronto]