(over) VANCOUVER

Our latest photo walk was with a big group!

Like the very first one I joined earlier this year (Fred Herzog at the Equinox Gallery), this was another one centered around a gallery exhibit: Greg Girard at The Polygon Gallery.

But first, we walked!

We passed by a woman who asked me what our deal was. Were we photography students? Minutes later, she was one of us and taking photos with her phone.

I aspire to hit that level of outgoing, brave, and spontaneous one day.

I’m working on it.

After sticking to black and white on the last walk, I switched to colour this time around.

As expected, the hazy skies temporarily shed their depressing reality and transformed into a gorgeous hazy filter at sunset. It never fails; the sun hits a certain shade, a hint of smoke tickles my nose, and I’m in India again.

Places can follow you like that.

You take the ferry across the harbour and you’re on the other side of the world.

After our steps and snaps, we made our way up to the gallery and were treated to a tour with the photographer himself.

The event was packed, but the gallery had this amazing sound system set up so that, no matter what room you were in, you could still hear the thoughtful discussion that was going on between Greg and curator Elliot Ramsey.

MÉLANIE
(softly)
Vintage iPad babies.

Although you could literally get swallowed up in his large scale colour prints, I found myself especially drawn to his black and white work.

(Also, my iPhone photos of his colour photos really don’t do them justice.)

One of the blurbs on the walls really spoke to me:

“Magazine pictures accompanied magazine stories, and frankly illustrated them and their point of view. I went at that whole-heartedly in the beginning, but after a decade or so that was starting to play itself out. There’s an obviousness to those sorts of pictures, a point of view that is considered successful if it’s in lockstep with the headline. I wanted to make pictures of what I was seeing around me that didn’t necessarily fit into the framework of a magazine’s needs and certainties.”

WOOF.

Too real.

Anyway, I was good and resisted buying a book (I have a problem), but I did get two postcards on my way out:

Outside, the sun had dipped below the horizon and Greg’s dreamy hues and neon lights somehow spilled beyond the gallery walls…