Toronto’s burgeoning photoblogging community has pushed the city onto a list of the world’s 10 most photographed cities, nudging out more predictable candidates such as Amsterdam and Rome.
The recent online Life Magazine list, determined by the number of geotagged photos hosted by popular image hosting Web site Flickr, found that of the more than three billion photos posted to the site, Toronto raked in nearly two million pictures.
While international allure and historic charm helped London, New York and Paris land the top three spots, it is instead Toronto’s vibrant photography community, coupled with its penchant for social networking sites, that garnered the city its ranking.
Indeed, the city is home to the world’s largest photography festival, Contact, now ongoing, and boasts more than 200 exhibitions featuring the work of more than 1,000 photographers.
"Toronto has a very high per capita number of cameras floating around the city," said Toronto photographer Stephanie Fysh, who has been posting photos to Flickr since 2005. "It was amazing how many people were snapping photos of the cherry blossoms last weekend at High Park. It’s just part of our culture, and it’s also now part of our culture to share the photos online."
Though the city has a lengthy history of camera clubs, interviews with some of the Toronto’s active photobloggers reveal that a handful of people are credited with the recent mobilization of photos online — people who Ms. Fysh said "made it cool to wander the city with a
camera and then share the photos on the Internet."
Among those pioneering photobloggers is Sam Javanrouh, known for his award-winning site A Daily Dose of Imagery.
Mr. Javanrouh started his daily photoblog in 2003, joining only a handful of sites in Toronto and considered a brave endeavour among the online community at the time.
"The media started paying attention and suddenly people realized that a blog is a great way to showcase their photos," said Mr. Javanrouh, adding that Toronto usually takes at least one of the top five spots at the annual Photobloggie awards, a worldwide competition well-respected among bloggers.
"Toronto is a natural hub for this sort of thing," said Rannie Turingan, also known as ”photojunkie,” founder of a now-defunct site called the Toronto Blogging Community, which he said initally helped aggregate the city’s photobloggers.
Mr. Turingan said more and more people are ”photowalking” around the city and looking for accessible ways to showcase their shots.
"Toronto was initially the biggest network on [social networking site] Facebook, Flickr is a natural extension of that."
Also given credit: the city’s endless opportunities for off-the-beaten-track photography.
"The city really has next to no landmarks; it’s not like San Francisco or London," said Mr. Javanrouh.
"But Toronto is filled with so many hidden treasures."
Photoblog Who’s Who
Some noteworthy sites among the Toronto photoblogging community:
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