For many yearsโbefore Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Grindr, Match, OKCupid, Gaydar and other online dating and hookup sites and appsโone of the most popular places online to seek out casual sex was the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist.
Posting was anonymous, oversight was minimal and thousands of postings went live daily across North America. From to , the Vancouver photographer Duncan Cairns-Brenner contacted people in British Columbia who posted these ads and photographed them before, during and after their encounters, as well as the locations and surrounding areas of where the encounters took place. But every ad was posted by a real person, wanting to connect with someone else.
These people were sending their most intimate sexual desires into the ether and hoping for a reply. In April of , the United States Congress passed bill HR , which subjected websites to criminal and civil liability in the event they are used for unlawful activity related to prostitution and sex trafficking.
Craigslist shut down all of their personal ad listings, including Casual Encounters, shortly after the bill was passed. A snapshot in the life of Hiroshi Morita: nuclear bomb survivor, Canadian interment camp inhabitant and prolific photographer of Toronto. For centuries the Saharawis have called the desert home, but they don't belong here. At least not on this side of the Wall. Modern photography is steeped in the instantaneous: exposures are so brief that the unassisted eye in the same interval less than half a second would see nothing.
The modern photograph always shows us what we have never seen before, hence its etern. Arrow Right. About authors volunteers contact.
