CHINATOWN
I photograph a lot in black and white but some times I break out the colour film and go to (China) town.
In this image, I waited for the girl to enter the circular door to create a sort of frame within the photograph, contrasting the other people to the far left.
I recently walked around Chinatown with a good Pentaxian friend of mine Jack Simpson. While I enjoy walking on my own at times, it's nice to have a friend along to talk to. I learned a bit about the old Chinatown days while we walked and explored together and it's really interesting to hear about the changes that have happened since the days of long ago.
Read MoreI've grown to like Chinatown. It has it's character, it's charm, it's personality. I try my best to document as much of it as I can every time I'm in the area. While Chinatown is still quite vibrant in some ways, in other ways it is still an old shell of it's former self. It is unfortunate to see the "For Lease" signs in various place and hoping this continuous project will bring light to this great little area in Vancouver that has much more history than I could ever imagine.
The images above were mostly taken during a Summer festival that occurred in Chinatown (over a weekend I believe). Other images were my documentary observations of Chinatown when I visited.
Below are a set of images that I had taken inside a little shop called "Chinese Art Crafts". One of the things I've mentioned in various blog posts about Chinatown is the friendships I've developed through these projects. The people at Chinese Art Crafts are some new friends of mine. Please say hi to them if you're in the area :)
I keep finding myself back in Chinatown in Vancouver. There's something about the place that keeps drawing me to it and I can't really put my finger on it. If anything, it's a combination of nostalgia for me in combination with a connection to such a lively and unique community. I've been documenting since 2013 and at first it was a way to "improve" my photography but now it has evolved into a story that I hope to tell people through another book some time in the future.
We'll see what happens :)
In the meanwhile, here's a few images from 2014:
At the end of my 2013 Chinatown Project year, I came to realize how little I had actually documented in that year. That is to say... I don't think a year was long enough to really photograph and document the essence of Chinatown.
So here I am, 7 months after "finishing" photographing for my Chinatown book and I'm still itching to go out there and photograph.
This time around, I want to meet more people. Be bolder. Be fearless. Be #tangible.
Also, I think I will be taking this project to... well, at least another year... or for that matter, I think it's really an on-going project that I will be working on for the next few years. I think over a few year's time we'll be able to see more of the changes and the shifts that may occur and also I'll have more photographs to have to document this place we call Chinatown.
Here are a few I've taken recently:
Sun Yat Sen Garden was recently painted a light blue color.
The imagery of the chinese writing against the newspaper blocking out the windows made for an interesting dissonance in this photograph. At least I think so.
Here I try to use the window to not only show what's ON the window but also what's reflected. The reflection, in essence, becomes the image.
It was a sunny day and I really wanted to make use of the shadows.
For those of you who have followed me at my old blog at www.jonathandesmond.blogspot.com, thank you for your interest and your support. I started that blog in 2010 to really focus on my creative vision and sharpen my instinct for my photography. The result is almost 4 years of blogging and also slowly seeing my interest and passion turn to Documentary-Style Photography (and Documentary and Street Photography in general).
Just as I started my old blog, this is how I will start my new blog: This is the start of something NEW. I look forward to taking this photographic vision adventure with you folks along side me :)
-Jonathan Desmond-
Documentary Photographer
