SINNLICHT-PHOTO

Yonge Street Toronto - Sam the Record Man

2011-10-17T20:47:00.001-07:00

Yonge St. in Toronto as the plebeian Mecca of the 60's, 70's, and 80's lost this artifact in 2007. Both an example of a dying form of retail, and one of the last temples of the analog apotheosis, Sam the Record man symbolizes the geographicity of the 20th century in Canada. The extension of the store a testament to the fact that so much had to be contained in that one location to correspond to the needs and the dreams of those arriving from remote and disjointed places. Returning to Toronto briefly, I walked what was once a familiar stretch, only to be relieved by the fact that nothing was left of what had been. I have never missed the city for that reason, even for the time that I was there, I never felt that its iterations were meant to stay. It never took on a romantic quality, probably because it too brashly and superficially mirrored a particular moment. Contrast this to the photo of the building with the two disks in 1950.

Promises and Public Telephones

2011-10-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Every since childhood public projects that express democratization and enabling have fascinated me. The Toronto subway (1954) has may corners that express that post-war prosperity and optimism. The original phones of course gone, the place for telephone books now empty, but the sound insulation of the back wall and timeless design and materials attracted my eye. The juxtaposition of the open infrastructural entrails above to the discreet private area of each booth read to me like the beginning of an endless vista of technological progress. The pay phone as the quintessential democratic method of breaking out of geographic isolation, once being the privilege of very few. Thoughts of how many different human dramas played themselves out here. The fact that the pay phone itself only survives in the subway because cell phone coverage is not yet there adds to the feeling of the precariousness of this space.

My Enchanted Forest

2011-02-14T18:55:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by richard.lehun

This is the road away from the country house just an hour from Berlin. A rough landscape seductive in its immediacy. Situated In the middle of an ecologically protected forest, close to a village with fifteen inhabitants.

Berlin T. - 2

2011-02-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by richard.lehun

Berlin Tristesse

2011-02-13T10:56:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by richard.lehun

A subway system designed to accommodate the industrial masses, that never came. For some reason I am haunted by the expectation that they will be there all of a sudden; for me an atmosphere of tension.

Williamsburg Bridge 2010

2011-02-09T18:05:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by richard.lehun

It is nonetheless bizarre that areas of Brooklyn that just a few decades ago were like war zones have become picturesque. There is something about the transition which is fascinating, yet melancholy at the same time. It feels like those who arrive now can still feel what came before and are trying to relate to that grit, or perhaps in the triumph over it?