Opening, Print This, Gallery 1313, July 9, 2026
Opening, Spectrum, Gallery 44, July 17, 2026
Narcissus Kissa Jazz Bar, Tokyo, December 28, 2026
Archival pigment inkjet print 12x22”. printed on baryta photo paper
World Pup Show, Gallery 1065, 1065 Bloor St. West, Toronto. Opening June 11, 2026
Group show, opening May 21, Toronto.
Photo of Steve Stober
Recent photo, with Hasselblad.
Gabor Szilasi, photographer / 1928-2026
The photographer Gabor Szilasi passed away on April 10, 2026 in Montreal. Over 100,000 of his negatives now are in the collection of Library & Archives Canada. Gabor was “photographer emeritus” of Montreal for over 60 years, documenting streets, signage, gallery openings and rural life in Quebec.
In 2018, I was invited to meet with Gabor at his home in Westmount, where we sat in his kitchen for hours reviewing my work and eating a delicious lunch he had prepared.
Not only did his humanity resonate with me, but his outstanding body of work which will live on through the LAC archives, where 125 of my photographs reside as well.
Photo Steve Stober, Montreal, 2018
Fundraiser at MOCA Feb 24, 2026 for CONTACT PHOTO FESTIVAL
https://can.givergy.com/CONTACTPhoto/?controller=lots&category=All%20Lots
My donation to the silent auction, click above.
Censored
These classic nudes I posted recently on my Instagram feed (@stevestoberpho) were deleted on the grounds of going “against community standards” and for “sexual content.” I argued that it was artwork I had produced many years ago and never had any complaints raised against them before. Besides, there is an abundance of sexually explicit material on IG that somehow gets past the gate. Their decision was upheld and I was given a one year restriction on posting any live content.
What do you think? Do you think these images warrant being removed in such a way?
São Paulo architecture
At the invitation of my friend, a professor of architecture at the University of São Paulo, I had the opportunity to experience first-hand in April, 2025 the brutalist form of architecture made famous by the likes of Oscar Niemeyer, on the skyline of São Paulo.
Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, 2022
After winning the top prize of Best in Photography last year at TOAF 60, I return with a portfolio of ten photographs from Cuba, a fascinating island country I have visited many times.
Arizona Rock Formations
I’m not trying to copy Ansel Adams but one cannot help but be inspired by the beauty of the landscape,
From the archives
Just came across this studio figure study I did about 20 years ago. Not for social media 😉
Memories and anecdotes: a personal memoir
Recently, a small group of about ten family members from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto met online through Zoom to reminisce for an hour about the past.
Sharing family stories is always fun with these relatives who I have known my entire life. Most had visited my family home in a suburb of Montreal called Town of Mount Royal over those topsy turvy times in the 1960s and 1970s. We knew each other well through close family connections and always welcomed each other into our homes.
Those memories also triggered something else inside of me: how turbulent and extraordinary that period of time was for all of us. Extraordinary in many contexts: political, social and cultural. There was the world’s fair extravaganza called Expo 67, the emerging and powerful youth and peace movements, (think Woodstock and Give Peace a Chance) and a totally renewed sense of energy and optimism. Then it all came crashing down sadly, with the October Crisis of 1970 followed by political and economic turmoil for many years after.
Coincidentally, I was just starting to get active in photography at that time, around 1969-70. So with my camera in hand, I ventured out of the comfort zone of the suburban home I grew up in and started going downtown regularly on weekends, exploring the different streetscapes and neighbourhoods of my city, previously unfamiliar to me. And what a contrast it was. So much to discover and learn, especially through the eyes of a young emerging photographer. My camera gave me the freedom I needed at that time to leave my safe neighborhood and explore the city of Montréal on my own, with no particular agenda or destination in mind.
Back to the recent family Zoom gathering, it occurred to me that memories serve an important function as we all grow older. As long-term memory seems to remain more intact through the aging process than short-term memory, I am grateful to be able to retain the awareness and visual acquity I have always been gifted with, and return to what I captured on film to share what I can through those extraordinary times I lived through. It serves a purpose, that ability to archive and conserve, and it’s to show younger generations how different yet familiar the past was from the present turbulent times. As the French expression goes, “plus ça change, plus c’est pareil.” The more that changes, the more remains the same.
Author Note: A selection of these photos, which were awarded top prize at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair in July 2021, are available for sale on this website Store.
All photos ©️Steve Stober
Place Ville Marie, Montreal, 1969
USA Pavillion, Expo 67, Montreal, 1969
USA Pavillion, Expo 67, Alternate View, 1969
Isle Notre Dame, Expo 67, Montreal, 1969
Québec Pavillion, Expo 67, Montreal, 1969
USA Pavillion, M&HW fair, Montreal, 1972
Self portrait with Kodak Instamatic at Expo 67, Montreal, 1967
My mother in front of our home, Montreal, 1971
Suburban Snow Shovelling After a Big Storm, Montreal, 1970
Self Portrait at Home, Montreal, 1973
Man Reading Newspaper, Philips Square, Montreal, 1972
Man Selling Newspapers, Montreal, 1972
Streetscape, Old Montreal, Montreal, 1970
Streetscape, Old Montreal, 1970
Couple in a Phone Booth, Montreal, 1970
Exterior of Wilensky’s, Montreal, 1973
Moe Wilensky, Montreal, 1973
Interior of Wilensky’s, Montreal, 1973
Lunch Counter at Schwartz’ Delicatessen, Montreal, 1972
Cadillac Parked in East End of Montreal, 1972
Two Men on a Park Bench, Dominon Square, Montreal, 1972
Peace Campaign Billboard No. 1, Montreal, 1970
Peace Campaign Billboard No. 2, Montreal, 1970
John and Yoko at Bed-In with American Draft Dodgers/Political Activists Grant & Diane Fox & their baby Janis, Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal 1969
Shoeshine Boy with Customer, Montreal, 1970
Target Shooting at La Ronde Amusement Park, Montreal, 1970
Hydro Worker, Montreal, 1970
Robert Charlebois, Québec pop star, Montreal, 1972
Véronique Sanson, French singer, Montreal, 1973
St. Joseph Oratory with Signage, Montreal, 1972
Canadian Soldier and Wall Graffiti During FLQ Crisis, Montreal, 1970
Lineup outside Movie Theatre for Opening, Montreal, 1973
Couple Sleeping on Mont Royal, Montreal, 1973
Two Guys on a Chevrolet, Montreal, 1973
Streetscape, Montreal, 1973
Self Portrait with Rolleiflex, Montreal, 1971
Self Portrait with Asahi Pentax, Montreal, 1973
TOAF Award Winner
52 Self Portraits: a Pandemic Project in 2021
A series of self portraits, a portrait a week, completed at the end of the year in 2021.
“Watching TV,” photographed on January 3, 2021
“Meditation,” photographed on January 13, 2021
“Print Inspection,” photographed on January 17, 2021
“Looking Outside After Snowstorm,” photographed on January 24, 2021
“Light Therapy,” photographed on January 14, 2021
“Having a Cigar in the Sun,” photographed on January 28, 2021
“Up Close,” photographed on January 31, 2021
“Shower,” photographed on Feb. 5, 2021
“Peeping Tom,” photographed on February 25, 2021
“Bicycle Love” photographed on March 4, 2021
“Multi-purpose face mask,” photographed on March 10, 2021
“Not Yet Vaccinated,” photographed on March 15, 2021
“Panograph,” photographed on March 17, 2021
“The day after the Vaccine,” photographed on March 23, 2021
“Baseball is Back!” photographed on March 30, 2021
“Easter Egg,” photographed on April 5, 2021.
“Third Wave Lockdown,” photographed on April 11, 2021
“Healthy Living,” photographed on April 16, 2021
“Sakura cherry blossoms viewing,” photographed on April 23, 2021
“Yoga Pose,” photographed on April 30, 2021
“History Repeats Itself,” photographed on May 13, 2021
“Afternoon Espresso,” photographed on May 20, 2021
“Jihadi fighter,” photographed on May 28, 2021.
“Carefully removing mask after 2nd dose,” photographed on June 2, 2021.
“New shoes,” photographed on June 11, 2021.
“Portrait of nothingness,” photographed on June 24, 2021
“Reflection,” photographed on July 2, 2021
“Beautiful Light,” photographed on July 10, 2021
“Haircut,” photographed on Juiy 12, 2021
“Scalp Massage,” photographed on July 30, 2021
“Today’s Mood,” photographed on August 6, 2021.
“The Gardener,” photographed on August 12, 2021
“Black and White,” Photographed on August 22, 2021
“Lazy Days by the Water,” photographed on August 25, 2021
“Last Outdoor Swim This Summer,” photographed September 5, 2021
“Farmer Steve,” photographed on September 13, 2021
“Back in the darkroom after one long year,” photographed on September 29, 2021
“Laundry,” photographed on October 6, 2021
“Birthday,” photographed on October 14, 2021
“King Size Hotel Bed,” photographed on October 21, 2021
“Karshed,” photographed on October 29, 2021.
“Retinal eye condition,” photographed on November 6, 2021
“Left eye “ photographed on November 12, 2021
“Irving Penn Opening,” photographed on November 25, 2021.
“First snowfall of the season,” photographed on December 2, 2021
“Hospital visit,” photographed on December 6, 2021
“Monkey Business,” photographed on December 15, 2021
“First snowfall of the season,” photographed on December 21, 2021
“Living in the Past,” photographed on December 31, 2021
This Is My Body, e-book version
Now available for purchase on website Store.
Critically-acclaimed 2008 exhibition on women’s body image.
Alternate cover now available.
Now available at Toronto Reference Library!
The Story Behind the Photo (A)
This photograph was selected as the opening image for the new Portrait Gallery of Canada’s first exhibition, Personae: Indigenous and Canadian Portraits 1861–2019. It was taken through a mirror high atop the National Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2014.
It is a self portrait, shot late in the afternoon when the light was pleasing. The soft and warm hues of the photograph along with the scratches and marks from the old mirror give it a semblance to analog film, which also is subject to dust and scratch marks. It is a raw, simply shot yet complex portrait because of the history behind the stadium it was shot in.
During the war, it was used as a killing field where thousands of local residents who did not adhere to the Marxist ideology of the Khmer Rouge, were rounded up and executed. It never served as an Olympic stadium throughout its history. Now the upper level functions as an aerobic fitness platform, where free fitness classes are given to middle- aged women who were undoubtedly all young girls at the time of the war and undoubtedly witnessed horror before their eyes.
I arrived later in the afternoon by tuk tuk, and took the long ascent up. The temperature drops to a more comfortable 28c by then. I was loaded up with 4 cameras, both analog and digital. By then, I was doing a lot of self-shooting through mirrors and found one on the upper level. At the moment this was taken, I imagined what it may have looked like behind me, when local city folks were rounded up and brought to the field to face their doom. Not a trace of the past remains in the stadium, unfortunately. Though one can visit other War sites, such as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Actually, this photo wasn’t even a contender for the Portrait Gallery website. The decision to submit it to the Portrait Gallery team happened in a tent I was sleeping in, in the Sahara Desert in Morocco in early March of this year. I was contacted by Robert Tombs, one of the gallery’s board members, about one of my submissions, an interesting portrait of the late Florence Richler, the widow of the late Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler. It was selected as one of my images for the gallery website.
After several attempts to secure permission from the Richler family for permission to use the photo fell through, I offered up this self portrait to Tombs as a last-minute alternative. All this happened by communicating with both the Richler family and Tombs, through my smartphone device from my tent in the middle of the Sahara, and by sending out the replacement photo file via a weak satellite connection. Technology surprisingly worked flawlessly in the middle of nowhere, under the clear Moroccan desert skies on a gorgeous evening.
I hope my photograph serves as an invitation to all viewers of the website to explore the wide range of beautiful portrait works presented by Canadian artists.
Self portrait, National Olympic Stadium, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2014
Portrait Gallery of Canada
Happy to be included on the newly launched website. www.portraitcanada.ca
Never Judge a Book by its Cover
I am happy to announce that my book is now being picked up by major public libraries such as the Toronto Reference Library and the Vancouver Public Library.
It is still available for purchase with choice of two covers. Free delivery within Canada.
www,stevestober.com/photo-store
Tamara, 2019, silver gelatin print.
Hasidic Rabbi, 1992, silver gelatin print