When Robert MacFarlane shared a photo online from his workplace on a cold night of snow squalls last February, he thought it would be seen by three people.

MacFarlane’s workplace is no ordinary office. It’s the top of a crane. He has unwittingly become the man behind one of Toronto’s most viral and expansive photo albums.

From his perch atop the L Tower, a condominium project downtown Toronto, MacFarlane has since and amassed close to 7,000 followers on social media. He’s known as “@skyjacked793.”

On Monday, his media count hit passed the milestone 5,000 photos and videos with an image of a gleaming sun rising above the Gardiner Expressway. The 56-year-old Scarborough father of three has become a mild social media celebrity since posting his first photo from the crane last winter.

Before the Star story went up online on a Friday night last March, he had just nine Twitter followers. By Monday, he had more than 1,000.

Despite the unexpected popularity (he’s turned down a number of media interviews over the last year), MacFarlane stays humble. He jokingly calls photo number 5,000 “nothing to write home about,” and he’s keeping mum on the tower’s progress.

“You only get a shot at this once,” he told the Star last year. “Every day there is beauty on the lake, and little swaths of the city that will light up while everything else is in shade, and one chunk in Mississauga will be glowing in the sun. I just gotta get that picture.”

Over the 18 months of photography, he’s gotten a lot of unique pictures from his vantage point atop the crane. He’s watched the Union Station constructionprogress from above. He’s seen grounded photographers turn the lens on him. He’s jokingly accosted men sleeping on a couch in Berczyk Park. He’s seen storms approach in the distance. He’s watched planes fly in through the fog and cloud.

MacFarlane has even turned political on occasion, joining the “#NoJetsTO” movement against bringing jets to the island airport, and tweeting his desire to see “#NoCondos” as part of the Ontario Place revitalization.

The crane may be dismantled one day soon, but as for the photos, “stay tuned for more,” MacFarlane says.

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