A quiet record of Canadian city life
scenetraxly.net is a long-running documentary photography series that follows the everyday routines, familiar faces and gradually changing streetscapes of cities across Canada.
Why we started
Cities rarely announce their transformations. They change block by block, season by season, in details most people walk past without noticing — a repainted sign, a new bus shelter, a familiar face missing from a familiar bench. scenetraxly.net began as an attempt to notice these small shifts on purpose, and to keep coming back to the same streets to see what had changed.
We are not a newsroom and we do not chase events. The photographs in this archive are ordinary on purpose: a commute, a market stall, laundry on a balcony line. Put together over months and years, they form a picture of daily life that a single headline photograph never could.
How the archive is built
Revisited neighbourhoods
A rotating list of streets and neighbourhoods across several Canadian cities, returned to on a regular schedule.
Unposed photography
Every photograph is made on location using natural light, without staging or direction from a contributor.
Field notes
Short written notes accompany each visit, describing what has changed since the last time a place was photographed.
An ongoing, informal record
scenetraxly.net has no fixed end date and no commercial component. It exists simply to keep a visual record of how Canadian cities and the people in them continue to change, for as long as that change continues.