Collecting old postcards of Toronto has been a fascinating hobby. Sometimes, the cards I find are in very poor condition, the colours faded and pieces missing. I photographed these cards, applied adhesives to the surface of the copies, and then employed acrylic paints to restore the pictures. I hid the cracks in the postcards, removed blemishes, eliminated hydro lines, and covered ink marks from the post office. Then I re-photographed the cards, sometimes producing interesting results. If examined carefully, in an enlarged copy of the re-worked pictures, brush-strokes are evident, particularly in the sky.
In each case, because I was working on a “copy” of the card, the integrity of the original card was preserved. Below are two of the postcards that I converted.
Bay St. looking north to Queen and the Old City Hal, c.1920
Yonge Street looking north to Queen St., c. 1910
My interest in the city of Toronto has been a life-long passion. Within the last ten years, I have published four books employing the city as either the subject, or in the case of the novels, as the background. The novels include many archival photographs to assist the reader to envision Toronto during the decade that the story takes place. The non-fiction book, “The Villages Within” was nominated for the “Toronto Heritage Awards.” The other three novels all received “Editor’s Choice Awards.”
For information of these books, following the link to my Home Page: https://tayloronhistory.com/