Montreal an urban horror story - Page 7

Rico Rommheim · #**121** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 2:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkoshvilli

Don't stop santa john. Can't get enough of this thread.

Its definitely a bitter, instigative, and downbeat thread. I've been loving every frame of it.

Avian001 · #**122** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 2:31 AM**

Sorry, but I just have to chime in again. I still have to wonder why decay and a general dreadfulness is so Romantic? Why do people romanticize conditions that would - in most other major world cities - be considered perverse? Do YOU really want to live in an urban landscape that looks like these photos outside your own front door?

YES, I KNOW MONTREAL IS NOT LIKE THIS EVERYWHERE! I HAVE BEEN THERE MANY TIMES. I actually LIKE the city!!!

Criticize me all you want. But to create a narrative that glorifies decay and abandonment of all hope is really strange to me!

kool maudit · #**123** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 2:47 AM**

and again, it's evocative of life's impermanence. ruins have always been meditative places, and the subjects of art.

Rico Rommheim · #**124** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 3:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avian001

Criticize me all you want. But to create a narrative that glorifies decay and abandonment of all hope is really strange to me!

Somebody needs to read more Susan Sontag. You see, there's something called "taste". Some people like the films of David Lynch, or Gaspar Noe, and other people like the film of Bret Ratner, and Steven Spielberg.

Well here on SSP, some people like to see older urban fabric. Some have developed a taste for industrial, dense and lively urban fabric, while others like places like Phoenix, or Sunshine, Florida.

Centropolis · #**125** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 3:08 AM**

I particularly enjoy these photos because I see a lived in deeply urban wildness in these. They push the same kind of buttons for me as those photos of Manhattan when things got a little sideways - but not exactly left to die - it's like a balance. I see a kind of life, where I guess others see destruction.

Double L · #**126** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 4:49 AM**

I hope I never meet somebody so stuck up that they don't like grit.

Islander · #**127** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 7:27 AM**

Jesus Christ... many places have been called the New Jersey of Canada, but I think we have a winner.

The Gibbroni · #**128** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 9:14 AM**

I don't see the purpose behind 'grit' shots, they're pretty much the same anywhere you go.

You can make any city look like shit if you want to: just hang out by the train tracks, walk around under a freeway, go out on garbage day and take photos of discarded toilets and mattresses. Downtown alleyways, industrial ports, abandoned factories.. they don't look much different from city to city. The question is, are these areas representative of the majority of the city or are they select bits taken out of context? If it's the former, then maybe it's worth a photo essay. If it's the latter, then maybe the photographer is simply a manic depressive.

And I always find it rather distasteful when people mock the poor by saying "Hey, look at this dump that someone calls home lololol."

What's the point?

Rico Rommheim · #**129** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 9:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Gibbroni

And I always find it rather distasteful when people mock the poor by saying "Hey, look at this dump that someone calls home lololol."

What's the point?

Again, this has to do with taste. You can't refute taste. Some people have a liking for some things, others for different things.

Mr. john has built his esthetic identify here by exploring a pessimistic angle of the city. And that's ok.

tayser · #**130** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 10:04 AM**

hahah, I want to meet and have a beer with this bloke:

The Gibbroni · #**131** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 10:09 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Again, this has to do with taste. You can't refute taste. Some people have a liking for some things, others for different things.

Mr. john has built his esthetic identify here by exploring a pessimistic angle of the city. And that's ok.

I understand that, grit is simply not my personal favourite. Spectacular grit? (ruins of Detroit, Berlin) Possibly..

Mr. john is one of the best photographers I've seen, I wish I had his eye, but he usually mixes it up. I'm surprised though that people don't seem to understand that this is a 'worst of' compilation and not indicative of the city in general or really, at all.

Centropolis · #**132** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 4:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Gibbroni

I understand that, grit is simply not my personal favourite. Spectacular grit? (ruins of Detroit, Berlin) Possibly..

Mr. john is one of the best photographers I've seen, I wish I had his eye, but he usually mixes it up. I'm surprised though that people don't seem to understand that this is a 'worst of' compilation and not indicative of the city in general or really, at all.

Man, I don't think there's many who have thought this was representative of MTL as a whole. These photos are like any good set, you either see something in them or you don't. What I don't understand is why people keep feeling the overwhelming urge to keep coming back to make the same point, as if some of us are defective pupils. It's largely a matter of art!

Look, I sway back and forth on the grit porn subject a little. I see places almost daily that look probably even worse and I've chosen not to photograph them because a) I just don't know how to approach it and b) it's just so fucking personal. These photos, however, work for me... I sit back and enjoy them how I do in a detached context. I can understand the other viewpoint if you are coming from MTL, but then, it's also in the context of a well off larger what I would call in the States "coastal" city.

kool maudit · #**133** Posted **Dec 13, 2011, 5:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Gibbroni

And I always find it rather distasteful when people mock the poor by saying "Hey, look at this dump that someone calls home lololol."

What's the point?

you're missing the point.

matt602 · #**134** Posted **Dec 14, 2011, 8:03 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avian001

Sorry, but I just have to chime in again. I still have to wonder why decay and a general dreadfulness is so Romantic? Why do people romanticize conditions that would - in most other major world cities - be considered perverse? Do YOU really want to live in an urban landscape that looks like these photos outside your own front door?

YES, I KNOW MONTREAL IS NOT LIKE THIS EVERYWHERE! I HAVE BEEN THERE MANY TIMES. I actually LIKE the city!!!

Criticize me all you want. But to create a narrative that glorifies decay and abandonment of all hope is really strange to me!

To speak of my own tastes, I prefer to see galleries of grit and abandonment because those are the features of a city that I view as most real. They're the features that most people pretend don't exist and that cities try their hardest to cover up and hide. They are also often the oldest parts of cities with the most interesting architecture, especially in cities like Hamilton and Detroit where most people have taken off to the suburbs, leaving behind the decay of the inner city.

I've only been to Montreal twice and had no idea there were parts of the city that looked so much like, well, Hamilton. It makes Montreal really feel so much more familiar to me and kind of makes me want to go back soon to discover this stuff.

Rumors · #**135** Posted **Feb 4, 2012, 11:24 PM**

Canada's toughest city.

boden · #**136** Posted **Feb 6, 2012, 12:39 AM**

Some very entertaining shots here..............