TORONTO -- From two Tibetan monks strolling down a busy city street wearing blue disposable masks to a couple posing for a photo while holding hands and wearing matching fashionable black masks, a Toronto photographer has captured glimpses of how life has changed in Canada’s largest city during the coronavirus pandemic.

When Toronto shut down in the middle of March in response to the growing health crisis, John Hryniuk grabbed his bicycle and camera and took to the streets to document how life around him was beginning to look a little different.

“I would go out all day cycling all over the city and just noticing and capturing the changes that are happening around the city during a pandemic,” he told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Friday.

As the use of face masks became more widespread in Toronto, Hryniuk started to take more portraits of individuals adapting to their new realities.

For instance, Hryniuk said he came across a couple in the city’s gay village who were early adopters of the fashionable mask trend. He said they agreed to pose in their stylish black masks while holding hands in front of a fence for what he described as one of his favourite photos.

“It’s basically just their eyes and the masks and the fact that they're holding hands next to each other,” he explained. “It’s a good description of the times of the moment, everybody’s panic and worry of the time.”

John Hryniuk

Another memorable portrait for Hryniuk was a photo he took of Dr. Brian Li in the parking garage of Sunnybrook Hospital. Li has been involved in modifying snorkeling masks using 3D printing technology for health-care workers to use during the pandemic.

“He’s looking up at this sort of strip lamp in the garage and he’s wearing full gear with his blue gloves and his gown and he’s wearing the mask and I think it’s a very powerful photo,” he said.

John Hryniuk

Hryniuk said he also was struck by a photo he captured of two Tibetan monks who were wearing red robes and disposable face masks on bustling Islington Avenue in May.

“Two Tibetan monks wearing their red outfits and running shoes against a backdrop of green trees… it was just so pretty, but it was also surreal,” he said.

The professional photographer said his photos were mostly black and white at the beginning of the pandemic, but as people adjusted to life and news of potential vaccine development lifted spirits, he started taking more photos in colour.

Eventually, Hryniuk said he was contacted by Magenta and Partners in Art to put together an outdoor installation of his photographs from the pandemic to display outside of the Drake Hotel from July 8 to September 8.

Hryniuk agreed to share his work because he wants people to be able to relate to the images he shot of everyday life during this historic time.

“I wanted a project other people could identify with in the future, that they could understand, and that would convey a message of how the regular, urban population lived through the pandemic… how we're still living,” he said.

“They’re very interesting times, very historic times.”

John Hryniuk

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