Stephen Bulger, whose gallery was the next stop on our tour, has been in the forefront of Toronto’s documentary photography scene for some time, and he was also recently elected president of the board of AIPAD, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers. His current exhibition of beautiful monochromatic works by American artist Alison Rossiter, “Lament,” gives a good indication of his superlative taste. Rossiter has been intrigued with the materials and processes of gelatin-silver-based photography since 1970, and in 2003, she volunteered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was immersed in the field of photograph conservation. That experience led to a profound appreciation of the history of photographic materials, and the resulting experimentation led to the haunting, lonely landscapes in “Lament.”

Nothing could have been more different from Rossiter’s creations than Canadian Geoffrey Pugen’s surreal, digitally altered landscapes/dreamscapes, being shown in the nearby Angell Gallery. One of them, Morning After, shows a Cadillac floating in a swimming pool and another, Swan Lake, depicts swans being bombarded by explosions. Witty and theatrical, they appeared almost futuristic. For each one, he used innumerable photos to create a digital montage, building his intriguing scenes as meticulously as a stage director.

Jordan had barely covered the length of Queen Street, and already we were overwhelmed, with Richmond Street and Spadina Avenue still to be explored.