East Hastings Street

I’ve been to a few big cities, and I’ve seen some things. But I wasn’t prepared for my walk down East Hastings St. I was told by many about this little neighborhood in downtown Vancouver. I was aware that it has the highest levels of poverty, drugs, crime, and prostitution of anywhere in Canada so I thought it best to go in the day. I turned my music off to keep all my wits sharp and I zipped up tight all my gear. Except of course my camera.
Preset to F8 @ 1/800 ISO, and with a wide-angle lens on I knew my Depth of View was deep enough that I could lock that too. All the shots are taken ‘from the hip’, because I wasn’t about to put that up to my eye and draw even more attention to myself. I stuck to the main street with my head up and on a swivel. I stopped to talk to a few people on cross walks and was always referred to as Brother. I didn’t once feel threatened or afraid. Although I did feel many other things.
This is a problem that has been going on for far to long. What I got to see was a the cleaned up Olympic version, I shutter to think how much worse these conditions can become.
Ill be taking some more trips down to East Hastings over the next few weeks.