Man shot on Dundas

I'm sure I didn't win any parent-of-the-year honors for taking our daughter to this stretch of Dundas Street for a quick Christmas Day photo shoot. While we were here, we witnessed a definite drug deal in an alley, a possible case of a prostitute turning a trick, and a cop hauling an abandoned pickup truck off of a filthy snowbank. All fairly predictable fare for this down-on-its-luck stretch of road just east of downtown that was once the city's prime shopping district.

So we were careful in our choice of subjects, because I'm guessing the drug dealer with the cheesy mustache didn't want his face shared on social media.

I normally wouldn't shoot a stranger on the street, but this particular scene seemed to capture the mood of the place, the stoic sense of the day-to-day that seems to define a part of town where nothing comes easy. The people who just want to lead their lives seem to wear that reality on their faces, and even in the way they stand.

As we finished shooting, put our cameras away and headed back to the car, I quietly wished to myself that they wouldn't have to endure the grit forever, that things would begin to change here.

New year, new hope, right?