The Daily Photoist: rush hour [90/365]

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Henri Cartier-Bresson, meet moonwire.

Moonwire's stunning black-and-white photo of a man rushing past Dundas Square is both excellent in its own right and a fantastic (if unintentional) take on Cartier-Bresson's famous "Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris." There are many of the same elements: the blurred runner and his reflection on the ground, the in-focus background and out-of-focus foreground, the inconspicuous photographer who nobody seems to notice. Moonwire's shot is not only indebted to Cartier-Bresson's, however: it is a beautiful shot in its own right, everything in it suggesting what its title does (rushing), right down to the No Stopping sign that leans in the direction that the runner sprints.

In its beauty (and it really is a spectacular shot), there is still a strangeness to the shot, as well. The area is strangely empty for such a busy location at such a busy time. Taken at 7:40 last Wednesday morning, there is only a runner, a walker, a van, and a bus as proof of life. That emptiness is epitomized in the wasteland that is Dundas Square just across the street, entirely concrete and bare except for a billboard conspicuously placed here or there. Amazing.