Vancouver is a city that I often dislike -- it lacks a sense of being and doesn't feel like a mature city. Despite this, however, I just can't shake my deep-down love for it. Every so often it calls me back west to the grey shores of the Georgia Strait with a siren song of seagulls and showers. Vancouver is so young and haphazard is it best described by its contrasts: condos next to drug ghettos, grimy alleys overshadowed by pristine mountains. It is a city of glass towers but also a city of wet brick and puddle-filled alleys. People come to Vancouver to escape; it is Canada's paradise. Spring starts in February and joggers crowd the seawalls even on the bleakest rainy day. It is an advertisement for yuppie lifestyles (dog on beach, handsome, outdoorsy couple strolling barefoot), the problems that plague urban Canada (drug addicts shooting up in alley doorways, an AIDS epidemic and legions of homeless) and the hip underground (pierced squeegee kids and punk rock junkies). Vancouver is hard to define. Hopefully these photos offer a vague outline of this green-grey jewel.

- Christopher DeWolf, January 2002

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