TORONTO -- One shot. That's all Torontonians are being given to tell their story of the city.
Disposable cameras are being hidden around Toronto, along with a message inviting people to stop, look around, and capture what they see and feel with one photograph.
"We wanted to showcase the city through the lens of the people living in it," says Michaelangelo Yambao, one of the people behind "The Disposable Camera Project."
Yambao and his team of volunteers have placed cameras in spots they feel capture the identity of Toronto. Clues to the locations are posted on the project's website.
The initiative has been well received on social media sites such as Reddit, Instagram and Twitter.
"People dig it," Yambao says. "They dig the hints, they're looking for the cameras."
Organizers say they chose disposable cameras over digital snapshots because of the immediacy of film.
"When you think of a city, it's not pre-planned, it's not pre-ordained. It's not filtered," Yambao says.
The ten best shots will be displayed at the Lomography gallery on Queen Street West as part of the Toronto Urban Photography Festival, which takes place March 9 to 23.
The festival is the brainchild of Cliff Davidson, a Western University graduate student who worked on a similar event while studying in London, England.
Callum Pinkney, one of the festival's executive board members, says organizers wanted the event to "come about naturally."
"We have culture in urban environments," he says. "It's not just a bunch of concrete."
