1922 Self Portrait – Arthur Goss
Toronto. In 1869/70, the Brooklyn Bridge construction began and was dutifully recorded by photography. In 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began as was recored by Peter Stackpole using a Leica camera.
In between these two events, Arthur Goss became our first official city photographer in 1911. Goss’ talent was artistic so each of his professional photographs were both a record and an artistic item. Goss was also a member of the Toronto Camera Club and he was included in Lilly Koltun‘s epic 1984 book on “Amateur photography in Canada/1839-1940“, called “Private Realms of Light“. The massive hard cover book was published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside in Markham (I bought my copy from their representative June 18th, 1985). Many of the book’s writers were/became speakers at the monthly meetings of the PHSC.
The story of Arthur Goss and a selection of his photographs were published in issue 12-3 of Photographic Canadiana (Nov-Dec 1986) under the guidance of editor Doug Gilbertson.
Self portrait by Arthur Goss – “This image is available from the City of Toronto Archives, listed under the archival citation Fonds 200, Series 372, Sub-series 41, Item 597.This tag does not indicate the copyright status [it is public domain] of the attached work. A normal copyright tag [you are reading the tag] is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24271999
By recording in detail the construction of extensive projects, photography entered into a new and historical area (mind you some even earlier outdoor photography recorded existing structures).
