found art: a photo essay

yesterday, during my daily walk through the neighbourhood, i took a slightly different route and stumbled upon an alleyway full of enormous, stunningly beautiful graffiti.

toronto has many well-known, oft-photographed "graffiti alleys" -- the most famous of which frequently plays host to rick mercer's rants (that particular rant is seven years old but still timely!) -- but i was unaware that this one existed. and so close to home, no less.

so, i pulled out my little point-and-shoot and tried to snag some images. it was hard to capture the full splendor properly because a lot of the art is on the south side of the alley, which means it's backlit almost all of the time. but here we go...

this first shot is of a series of garage doors, each in a different style. i'm not sure if one artist painted them all or if each one was created by a different person, but i found them all striking.
(there was no way to shoot them head-on due to space, so this was the best i could manage.)

another garage door. i'm not really sure what's happening between these two -- are they dancing? fighting? was she dancing and he's trying to stop her? -- but i liked how simple and stark
this piece was compared to all the others in the vicinity.

these flowers are actually huge. if you look closely, you can see the cables running from the top-right corner, which will give you a better sense of scale. they covered a two-storey wall.

see what i mean about backlighting? alas. the owl and the adjacent colourful swirls were
really cool, especially juxtaposed against the swimmer and her friends.

i loved how the metallic staircase cut through the swirls and the dragon, and how it was all framed by the second-floor-deck fence. the garbage and recycling cans
tucked in the bottom corner were a nice touch, too.

speaking of garbage and recycling bins... i liked how these ones were lined up under that gorgeous flower. (lucky tenants: each one gets his or her own bin!)

this one is my favourite because it's just kind of there, randomly, along a stretch of fence.
obviously painted by whoever painted all the other swirls in the other pieces.

and those shots are just a sampling. the alley only runs about a block but is filled with art. it was a lovely discovery.