The Chinatown Photowalk
This is a bit of a late update but I’m only now starting to write blogs again so here we go.
Last year I partnered with local community advocate Alice Lam. We’d been kicking around ideas of Asian-Canadian culture and podcasts when she scored a grant through her main organization Volly App to fund a guided tour of old Chinatown here in Calgary. We decided to make it a photo-walk and with my relationships in the space we were able to partner with The Camera Store and Flic Films to provide 19 photographers with half frame Double Shot cameras and a roll of film.
We then followed Alice through the neighbourhood learning about the history of Chinese Canadians in Calgary (generally tragic) and she opened some hidden doors (literally) to grant us back room access to Chinese community organizations.
We ended up with some great photographs in spite of some light leaks and no real tutorial on the ins and outs of the camera itself. I should have put in a bit more effort as I had tested the camera out by this time but the Flic Film rep was on site and I honestly thought he’d be more thorough. It’s hard to gauge who needs to learn what. And to be fair half our participants had shot with film and seemed ready to get going. We were also standing in the lobby of the Chinese Community Centre - not the best space for a tutorial.
Here are some of the results. Edited after developing by me.
We were then funded to put on a one night gallery event. I sourced affordable prints from Ryno Printing - a smaller commerical poster/promotional printer. But they did a great job with these poster prints. The event was a success and with some luck and a lot of planning, the first in a new series of photography-related community activities in the years to come.
