Monday, May 30, 2011

granville island:: upspotting

I had shot this series on Granville Island at the end of last summer and have been meaning to post them much sooner - but since this summer may be an elusive season yet, if not completely liquidized to hell, this is to remind us that it is always easier to look up when the SUN  [YO! come on back!!] is doing its great big shining thing...


silly emily...

[she was sitting nonchalantly on the edge of an awning on the Net Loft building while a throng of admirers gathered on the sidewalk below - not sure how long she hung around after being gawked at and paparazzi-ed, but haven't seen her again since...]

Monday, May 16, 2011

sidewall consign

Often I am compelled to check the sidewalls of older buildings for faded ghost signs left behind from another era or lavish markings by free spirits with lifted cans of spray paint or some other mysterious images of indeterminate origins...

 off Fraser Street...

 off East Georgia Street...

off Main Street...

off Campbell Street...
[I believe I was on gang turf as I was shooting this sign in the side alley as a racy black car with tinted windows pulled up real close and waited until I took off on my bike again!]


Saturday, May 7, 2011

concrete evidence

Like multi-barreled camera lenses or more sinister weaponry, these concrete pipes sit stacked three rows high on a dusty lot awaiting their fate to snake through some deep dank underground tunnel...

Something about the intricately messy and yet essentially functional structures of industrial sites always catches my attention, and on this deserted Sunday afternoon we had ventured down to the gritty part of the Fraser River where the sprawling Ocean Concrete Products outfit is located [near the Arthur Laing Bridge on West 77th Avenue]... 



[We admit to innocently trespassing on our bikes but we were only looking for a trail to ride along the river - really!]

Further along we came upon the decrepit remains [that only a savage eye could love!] of a home-made raft stuck indefinitely on the muddy bank...
 and presumably its owner still bunk out of this graffiti decorated metal container lodged on a concrete pad above with the same million dollar view as the macmansions proliferating up river in Southlands, [and its spacious river front deck is invitingly furnished with a table and comfortable patio chairs]...

 We "trespassed" again for lunch at the smallest picnic table ever built behind the studios at the old Celtic Shipyards while watching the mighty Fraser at work...[logs for money and the Chinese have new houses!]


Monday, May 2, 2011

eastside umbr-iage

In a frequently gray and wet city where living and non-living objects merge together into certain murky tones, the appearance of the ultimate light source creates almost blinding contrast where splotchy shadows fall onto brightly sunlit but mundane surfaces...
take umbrage with foliage and strong and intriguing patterns emerge in the most unexpected places to dazzle the savage eye...

evenly spaced in the Quest Metal Works parking lot at the corner of Venables Street and Clark Drive...

softly defined on a rough retaining wall around a playing field off Woodland Drive...

 filigreeing a blue concrete wall of a building on Adanac Street - the cherry tree about to erupt into hot pink flocculence...

fuzzy shadow play against a schoolyard wall off Woodland Drive...