Effective commentary. The BIG building / corporation standing on top on two homeless...

At first I though you had photographed a shooting scene. Nobody else in the shot except those two fleeing into the building. Incredibly exposed place to sleep, cold or not.

Hey sam, did you use a tilt/shift lense? cause the lines are so straight and there is zero skew to the image, at this wide of an angle. pelase elaborate on that if you can.

very, cold and sad photo. nice job caputing that effect!

Sure they weren't dead?

One benefit of drinking antifreeze I guess...

are you shure the were only asleep?

simply amazing pic. So straight i love it.

And at what an unsheltered spot! Poor guys... Thanks for the view.

Another wonderful reflection, though the two guys sleeping at that temperature is quite sad.

Are you sure they were not permently asleep?

I get an impression of strength and security from the building, strength to keep out the elements but not enough to help these guys. The plight of the sleeping guys is indeed dire, no one for whatever reason, should have to live this way. - [Chuks]

just great!

... and they were stille alive...........??

Thanks for another great picture!

Nice picture. Kinda ironic that there is this huge building right behind them and these two guys have no place to seek shelter. This is what makes this picture even more colder than the temprature

a beautiful picture, but a sad one

brrrrr...

Fantastic shot combining the upper floors of the office block to give it that offensive superior air of commerce versus humanity. The Christmas window display only goes further and the whole scene reminds me of Tiny Tim in Scrooge.

ps. Love your work, you've been in my favourite box for ages now (since the shot of the frozen niagra falls)

A

All of your photo's deeply touch my heart,
but when you post the ones of the homeless
I cry each time.
I pray for them always!

I posted about this today on my flickr account
I am Jeanne8

Keep up the great work and I pray every person has a nice warm home this winter!
Love and many blessings to you!
Jeanne

One of your best photographs for really documenting the dirty side of Toronto.

Great shot showing extreme opposites and I like the fact you can just see the santa claus and his sleigh in the window

Nice shot there sam!
I enjoy all your photos. Pretty good stuff you got there.

awesome shot! love the reflection mixed with what you can really see through the windows! I hope those guys found/find some place warm!

It looks like three Sam... love the loonnng shot though. Perfect.

I have to admit, this does look like a really nice building to kill yourself from. I can see why it's so popular. I think the idea of watching youself across the road in the reflection is pretty wicked! But seriously, if these people are going to jump off, I wish someone would take them away, and throw them in a hobo garbage or something? Don't just cover up the problem with blankets! Homeless building jumping is real people, and thanks to Sams wonderful exploitation, maybe we can get Reagan down here to fix things! USA!! USA!

Great composition and nice use of selective colouring.

I'm wondering how you confirmed they were only asleep rather than frozen dead? They do look like two cadavers infront of this drab place made into an abstract painting by the wobbly window reflection.

A gross intro to our winter season. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanuka.

Have fun getting spaced - er - or whatever it is that will happen at that launch.

This is a definitely signature style shot of yours. I like it.

Personally, I think this is one of my most favourite/nightmarish shots of yours. Too big to fit my screen I thought it was another window reflection shot that you seem to have an eye for. Then you scroll down. Even the look of the nice warm Christmas setup inside the office building says something about the situation. I pass by these guys almost everyday by bike and don't know how they manage to survive the winter.

I enjoy your pictures regularly because they are often so beautiful.

Today I applaud your courage to so show something very ugly.

Each of these men have a story just like everyone in that people watching them.

Fantastic photo, just incredible. I agree with most of what has been said above, it's an excellent statement.

hi wvs,
you link to our photoblog on your links page, but unfortunately we had to change the url due to spam. it is now
www.istoica.com/everyday
we really appreciate that you link to our blog, we check ddoi everyday. great representation of toronto as always :)

An excellent shot, Sam - very thought-provoking.

Likely these unfortunate people are lying on warm-air grates - that's why it looks odd that they've chosen such an exposed spot to sleep. This morning they would be covered by a blanket of snow......brrrrrrrrr......

Heartbreaking.

Great shot. I love the whole thing, the composition is great and the men add a lot to the photo!

I'm reminded of the shots of bodies in the streets of New Orleans. Perhaps this is Toronto's tragedy!

I would jump too if I had to figure out how many degrees in fahrenheit -9c was.

Such straight lines at 17mm. How did you do it?

I agree with Jeanne, I hope everyone can have a warm place to stay this winter.

I walked along here yesterday too, one block over in front of FCP, I was with a client and he mentioned how odd it was that the homeless seem to come out more in the winter in Canada than in the summer. He is from Australia and I was there recently and noticed the dramatic lack of homelessness. He wondered if they came out in the winter to draw more "sympathy". I suggested that perhaps they were more visible in the winter as they need to find warm places to sleep and the steam grates happen to be "in the open" as in this picture. In the summer they have less open and more secure places to sleep as the weather is more favourable.

For those not familiar with Toronto, this scene is especially powerful in that this building is a bank, and it is reflecting a bank and each corner of King and Bay has a bank on it. Many of the banks in Canada now post (boast?) profits of $1B Canadian per year as do some of the Insurance companies. This picture sums it up for me. The Banks have literally sucked the life out of these Canadians who are now forced to sleep on the streets. (Without getting into the whole "forced" to vs "Chose" to argument)

I can see the prez of CIBC looking at this scene yesterday and wanting to have someone go ask these gentlemen to "move along"...

Awesome work Sam! I love the way you see Toronto. Yes it is beautiful and it does have it's ugly side and it's not just Jane and Finch, or Parkdale. It's also King and Bay.

-Pete

Yeah, this one's another amazing "does of imagery". To all those wondering whether they were alive, they almost certainly were. They sleep on (as Pete mentioned) steam grates to keep warm (they're truly resourceful). There are shelters, but from what I hear they're crowded and uncomfortable. When it does get especially cold, people drive around giving them food and trying to persuade them to go to a shelter. To question whether they are alive is harsh. This photo is incredible, I see the reflection of another office tower in the window, but what is the explination for those "animated" houses reflecting in the windows close the ground on the right hand side?

The woman (?) on the left appears to have no shoes. And it doesn't look like they're on grates. I'm also willing to bet they are very much alive but unconscious - the gift of two liters of Listerine, thank you very much. Ain't no way to pretty this up - it's awful any way you look at it.

You know, it's not the abject poverty that still stuns me but the huge disparity between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless even - something this photo says much more eloquently than I ever could.

hey sam, i was wondering, do you do any warping of the image in photoshop to get those vertical lines to run perfectly vertical without skewing towards the top? if not, how do you take such perfectly boxed in shots from street level?

Amazing shot! I really like the muted colours and the way the homeless guys are just carelessly sprawled out on the pavement.

I'm absolutely fascinated by your photos! You're incredibly talented. Congratulations!

This photo puts my Thanksgiving Day into perspective. Thank you for sharing this haunting image.

Sleep tight.

perhaps im seeing something, but what are the 2 black horizontal lines across this picture, they both run above the first set of windows, they don't seem to belong there? or is it just me? amazing pic regardless though

Owesome picture. Quite shocking when you scroll down the page to see those two homeless people. I don't know how you take these pictures, but apart from the technique you're using the subjects are brilliant in your shots. A true artist, that's what I call you.
Well done.

A.R. - Those houses aren't actually reflections, they are Christmas decorations in the window of the building.

rhymes with kerouac - There are grates there, also that particular "lawn of marble" they are on is heated from underneath so that they do not have to shovel and no one ever slips and falls and sues thier arses, as a result, there is rarely snow on the property.

-Pete

excellent photo because of the contrast - office building and the two homeless.

Amazing - I had no idea that section of concrete was heated. Hopefully, between that and the grates, it's enough to keep them alive.

Still, we've hardly seen the worst of winter yet...

It's ironic how this photo blog skewers our modern life.

No matter how technology distorts our self-perception, the Dickensian truth continues to be reflected at us thanks to artists such as yourself.

Exquisitely sad.

http://www.ocap.ca/

More exciting with this picture is that this picture is like a 3D picture, semantically I mean... You can see 2 more towers' reflection in the windows. This means that those poeple sleeping there are surrounded by many towers... maybe these towers are walls of their house! Anyway, seems their house hasn't got any ceiling...

The top of the foto is lovely. Then, scrolling down and seeing the starkness of the homeless men, I find the contrast between the two rich. Smart shot.

nice dollhouse in the lobby. actually, i can stare thru these windows for a very long time. many reflections build pictures inside a pictures. thanks for the activity here.

Just a quick question ? Do people in canada acctually think -9c is very cold or is it just to "please" the majority ?
I live in sweden and here it doesn't get very cold until about -20 to -25 degrees, and anything under that is freezing cold. Although I'm not usually outside for longer periods of time when it's below -10...