26 July 2022 – It couldn’t look more different, but this is the continuation of the walk that took us along the edge of Coal Harbour. I left you with those not-polite Canadians (feathered variety) at the Convention Centre — but I kept on walking.
On east into Gastown, following an alley squeezed between Water St. and the train tracks.
No more sparkling water, foliage, gamboling doggies, and cafés to tempt their owners and the rest of us.
Instead, the grit of an alley. Showing not its Water St. Gastown-tourist face, but its back-door strictly functional face. And displaying, in the process, powerful graphics. Once again, geometry at work. I’m captivated by the lines and curves, but I don’t romanticize them.
This is a DTES (Downtown East Side) alley, and it is not romantic. While I tilt my head in appreciation of a spiral staircase (below), three bicycle paramedics roll by on one of their regular overdose patrols.
Both/and, eh? The reality of those paramedics, but also the reality of these bold lines that make me tug my camera out of my back pocket once again.
The spiral, the verticals, the punch of yellow, the graffiti…
the stark “H” of this (I think) loading dock & the inadvertent colour-blocking all around…
the angles of the window security bars…
some zig-zag…
and gleaming loops of razor wire…
that ground a perfectly framed vertical to the sky.
And then I put my camera away. I really, truly do.
WALKING WOMAN 
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
/ 26 July 2022There is beauty everywhere. I agree with you about the lines of the building in your first photo. The overdosing is epidemic and deadly. I now have to keep an overdose kit in my office …
Bob Georgiou
/ 27 July 2022Some intriguing angles. Thanks!
bluebrightly
/ 15 August 2022Ah, your commentary in the beginning is quintessential Penny: open, observant, thoughtful. I missed your voice, I don’t know another like it. The gleam of razor wire, I love it! And color blocking…great stuff! 🙂