Love-Hate TTC Project

The TTC - A love-Hate Relationship - Project Proposal

As a final project in my most recent course at Ryerson, I produced a series of prints illustrating my love-hate relationship with the TTC.

Since returning to Toronto in 2004 I have developed a love-hate relationship with the TTC.  I love that I can get on the subway close to my home and that it will transport me to my final destination, without any worrying about traffic or parking.  I like that it is somewhat environmentally and that it can build a sense of urban community.  I hate that it lacks innovation, has been criminally underfunded and neglected by all levels of government for the last ten years or more and is manned at times by curmudgeons.

I propose to do a series of photographs to show the good and the bad of the TTC, illustrating my love-hate relationship with it.  I want to show the things that the TTC should keep, which give it some of its character and show the things that need to be changed to ensure that Toronto has a dynamic and efficient public transit system.

There have been several photo-essays conducted on the TTC and there are several sites that are dedicated to photographs of the TTC (URL - http://69stations.blogspot.com/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/castelmar/sets/1169190/, and http://www.ttcrider.ca).  The most detailed photo essay to date is David Topping’s 69 Stations (URL - http://torontoist.com/69.php) which was conducted in the summer of 2006 and took over 300 hours to complete the project.  While I will not endeavour to accomplish such a detailed project as his, I aim to give a glimpse into my relationship with the TTC which will hopefully resonate with viewers own link with public transit.

Project Conclusion

One of the key items that I learned in the creation of this project was the ability to transfer an idea into a visual project to convey the message, meaning and feeling of the artist to the audience.  I also learned that projects need to be more greatly defined, and the use of sketches, initial photographic ‘sketches’ and even descriptions of future photographic captures are helpful in ‘storyboarding’ the project and in creating the final compositions.  Ideas can be too broad in scope to capture everything that the artist wishes in a project, and given the limitation of eight photographs, the telling of a story has to be concise.  Time in planning the captures is well spent, as I found sometimes that I did capture an image that I liked, but it needed to be re-photographed to get exactly the desired result. 

The transition of the digital capture to a concrete print, and even the format of the display of the print all contribute to the aesthetic that the artist wishes to achieve with the project.  Printing and preparation of the final print for display, will always take longer than expected and there will always be unforeseen issues with production, so the estimate for production should always be very conservative to deal with these issues.  If production is rushed, the end-result can suffer.   Similarly, the artist should  produce a budget for the production of the project at its onset, which will help determine the visual medium and display.  

The production of this project was satisfying artistically, however I feel that it could be significantly expanded to create a larger project to address the issues of the TTC.