Downtown Vancouver in April

Store fronts at night on Granville Street, Vancouver

Granville (and its adjoining streets) has joined the list of favourite promenades for tourists, people young and old.  The colourful lights enliven the area nicely.  Some store fronts had activity, some awaited customers, and others were closed for the evening.

As the saying goes, "Sometimes things happen". On Saturday, January 24th, I went into Vancouver to deliver a car to a friend. I had already spent 2.5 hours shooting downtown in the morning, so I only tucked the G9 into my pocket for this quick trip, just in case. After delivering the car, I noticed these brilliant reflections caused by the very low winter sun, the unusual break in the clouds, and, since it was a late Saturday afternoon, the office buildings had few lit lights so the glass windows were excellent mirrors. I shot quickly, solely while on Georgia and then on Howe. By the time the bus arrived, the sun had been covered by low clouds and the magic disappeared.

Graffiti in downtown Vancouver (part 2)

It seems that, as Vancouver prepares for the 2010 Olympics in February, there is a concerted effort to clean up the downtown area. Every week we hear of both rumours and concrete plans for 'looking after' the homeless in our city, some of whom are locals and some immigrants from other, colder parts of Canada.

I was surprised, however, to see how difficult it is becoming to find graffiti in Vancouver. Some alleys have allowed spray paint artists freedom to depict things of their choice in what we might call the International Style. There is also ample evidence of taggers (graffitists who only paint their practiced and uniform 'signatures') here and there, particularly on telephone poles, which apparently are not the responsibility of the store owners. But more often than not, there are many neat newly-painted squares on walls and doors, squares whose paint which is similar in colour but does really blend in perfectly with the rest. Each of these thousands of squares covers graffiti, testifying to the industry and determination of store owners and civic-minded citizens to stamp out graffiti. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find interesting graffiti to photograph.

But happily, Jesse and I managed to find some today. Under his tutelage, I have become interested primarily in sites which have layers of paint, either tag upon tag, or spray paint art by domesticated graffitists partially covered by the more spontaneous strokes of a hurried tagger working late at night. Today, I was particularly interested in taking closeup shots showing drops of paint superimposed on other paint.

I will begin with a doorway which faces an alley in the downtown east side. This exhibits both the squares of paint attempting to cover graffiti and, since the store owners did not act sufficiently promptly, there is also new graffiti, especially tagging. Thereafter, these pictures will usually include closeups of layered graffiti and some rather neatly-fashioned tags on bricks (a new interest of mine). Except for the initial shot, each photograph was taken with the 100mm macro lens, using a tripod. For additional photographs, please see my initial posting on Graffiti in downtown Vancouver.

Graffiti in downtown Vancouver

Vancouver is increasingly covered with graffiti. Even our garage door has not been exempt. Jesse Read recently introduced me to thinking about spontaneous graffiti, and particularly layers of graffiti, as quarries for lines and shapes which can be viewed as abstract art. His website gives some exciting examples of his thinking in this genre of art.

Jesse and I have now gone on several graffiti shoots in one of Vancouver's downtown alleys. The high walls on the alley's north side have been made legally available to spray painters, most of whom undoubtedly began years ago as taggers (signing their signatures everywhere imaginable) and then slowly worked their way up the ladder. Since this art is in the international style of spray painting, using gestures and idioms found throughout Europe and North America, I am not including it as graffiti. The alley's southern wall, on the other hand, exhibits a mixture of rival claims for turf, the contributions of many taggers, the remnants of posters, rusting staples, old telephone poles, and an emerging First Nations mural.

These photographs were taken jointly by Jesse and me with my equipment as we talked about what we were discovering, what might be worth recording, what constitutes art, and the techniques of photographing this type of work. [I have since added some more photographs of Graffiti in downtown Vancouver, part 2.]