PHOTO 101 is a six-week photography workshop I co-facilitate with Kevin Clark in the Downtown Eastside at Union Gospel Mission for men working through addiction recovery.  Each week, we venture out on a photowalk in a neighbourhood, which many people around the world consider to be a ghetto, slum or skid-row. A place to avoid. A place to be scared of. The neighbourhood is full of heartache, addictions and atrocities. But it is also full of beauty, hope and community. In the DTES, you’ll see selfless acts of camaraderie and love that will move you.  We just wrapped up our third year of PHOTO 101 and the work that these students produce is remarkable. Each week we shoot a few rolls of 120 film with HOLGAS and celebrate the results the following week. Kevin and I just selected the images that will make up part of our art show on the Eastside Culture Crawl on November 18-20th. Be sure to mark your calendar. You don’t want to miss this. Special thanks to Rocket Repro. Their support makes this program possible. And Zach Bulick for makin’ our AWESOME new PHOTO 101 illustration (above).
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PHOTO 101 is a six-week photography workshop I co-facilitate with Kevin Clark in the Downtown Eastside at Union Gospel Mission for men working through addiction recovery. 

Each week, we venture out on a photowalk in a neighbourhood, which many people around the world consider to be a ghetto, slum or skid-row. A place to avoid. A place to be scared of. The neighbourhood is full of heartache, addictions and atrocities. But it is also full of beauty, hope and community. In the DTES, you’ll see selfless acts of camaraderie and love that will move you. 

We just wrapped up our third year of PHOTO 101 and the work that these students produce is remarkable. Each week we shoot a few rolls of 120 film with HOLGAS and celebrate the results the following week.

Kevin and I just selected the images that will make up part of our art show on the Eastside Culture Crawl on November 18-20th. Be sure to mark your calendar. You don’t want to miss this.

Special thanks to Rocket Repro. Their support makes this program possible. And Zach Bulick for makin’ our AWESOME new PHOTO 101 illustration (above).

The Evergeen Project

I’ve seen a few of these installations around the Downtown Eastside in a few locations but today “Georgina” stopped me in my tracks - right near the rail tracks where Powell + Cordova meet. I had my camera and was able to take a few shots.

These installations are in response to the abduction and subsequent murders of women who disappeared from the DTES from the early 1980’s to 2002. And who we now know, were victims of Robert Pickton.

From the artist:  

The sculpted names depicted in Evergreen will be randomly installed throughout the neighbourhood to both perpetuate the memory of these women and promote a continued civic awareness of and response to the ongoing violence and abuse which is, in reality, pandemic.

Learn more about the project here and view other installations in the series here.


“Pigeon Park Savings’ purpose is to bring financial services to people that are suffering from financial exclusion.”

- Kerstin Stuerzbecher, PHS Director

I’ve driven past Pigeon Park Savings hundreds of times in the last 3 years but never been inside. I know it is an important part of the community here in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

But I never fully understood how significant until I watched this piece.

I’ve had a bank account since I was 10. I had parents that took me to set it up. I’ve lost my ID before and never had a hard time replacing it because I have multiple pieces. A passport. A Care Card. A Social Insurance Card. A Driver’s License.

But what if you didn’t have all of that? What if you had a mental illness? What if you had a learning disability? Or difficulty speaking English? HOLY CRAP! How to you get a bank account? How do you get set-up? Things just got 100 times more difficult.

Pigeon Park Savings is an AWESOME example of a corporation and a social service coming together. Keep rockin Vancity + PHS. You guys are doing stellar work.

Watch this piece, and imagine what it would be like to be excluded.