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DTES in living colour – Metro US

DTES in living colour

A yearly calendar of black-and-white photos that allows Vancouverites to see the Downtown Eastside in a different light will this year be available in colour.

The Hope In Shadows calendar, which yesterday launched its photo contest campaign by distributing 200 disposable cameras to DTES residents, will also be available in colour this October.

John Richardson, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society who came up with the calendar, said the point of the campaign is to show the rest of the city “a different way of seeing” the neighbourhood.

“There are all sorts of ways you (enact) social change,” he said. “Sometimes you get there through the courts, sometimes through hearts.”

He said the contest lets us “reflect upon the neighbourhood and the people we know, and it makes the people in this neighbourhood very proud.”

Steven Mayes, who has had more than eight of his pictures in the calendars, said he already has some ideas for a landscape shot.

Last year, he took home $500 for his winning photo — a picture of his neighbours’ children — which was on the cover.

“There’s a sense of pride and the recognition you get (when your photo is chosen),” he said.

Daphne Pierre, whose grandchildren were the subject of Mayes’s photo, said the calendar reminds Vancouverites that there is more to the neighbourhood than homelessness and drug addiction.

“It lets people know people who live (here),” she said.