The Sights And Sounds Of Granville

I had intended to have this post up weeks ago. It was supposed to be a photo essay about Granville Island in Vancouver. But photo essays are hard to do without photos and I’ve been having a hard time processing our images from BC. I have managed to turn my back into a pretzel and sitting in front of my computer is proving to be one of the most uncomfortable places in the entire house. So photos are being processed, albeit very slowly. I can’t process photos because I screwed up my back and the way I screwed up my back was by….. (are you ready for some irony?)….. picking up a camera bag. Write a song about that, Alanis Morissette! 

My wife and I were in BC recently and we both did a lot of photography – 4,000+ images between us. So the process of thinning out the “meh” and processing the best is taking some time.

I treat every vacation like a photo junket and my photos are my favourite souvenirs. I am primarily a nature and wildlife photographer, but when we’re in a different city I also do a lot of street and architectural photography. There are always cool buildings and unusual people to shoot (and Vancouver has LOTS of unusual people!). My wife does mainly street and people photography although, when we’re in more natural settings, she is very good at capturing them, too.

When we travel, I typically take 2 camera bodies and 4 lenses. Four lenses may sound like a lot, but I’ve found that that is what is required to cover the focal range that I usually find myself wanting to shoot. Doing street photography at a place like Granville Island requires a different lens than shooting eagles feeding offshore in a bay or a waterfall from 300 yds away. Different gear for different shooting situations. So the 4 lenses range from a 10mm super-wide landscape lens up to my absolute favourite lens, my 100-400mm zoom, appropriately nicknamed “the critter lens.” It’s the heaviest of all my lenses, checking in at just under 6 lbs, but it’s kind of like that old American Express buzz phrase – I don’t leave home without it. If all of this sounds like I’m rationalizing a bit, it’s only because I am. I need those lenses to get the shots I want. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I have several camera bags – a couple of backpacks and a bunch of different shoulder bags, but my preferred bag for traveling is my trusty Tamrac Pro12 shoulder bag. It is small enough to meet the airline allowable carry-on limits (barely) but still big enough for all of my gear plus extra batteries, chargers, memory cards, lens brushes, yada yada yada (it’s a long list). And with a little bit of shifting and some bubble wrap for padding, it can also hold my wife’s camera and lenses when we’re on the plane. It’s tight, but it all fits. Once we arrive at wherever we’re going, she is on her own for toting her gear around but, since she prefers not to use a camera bag when we’re away, her stuff rides on the airplane safe and secure inside my bag. But a pound here, two pounds there…. it all starts to add up.

So as we were preparing for this trip, we had the baggage scale out to see what our luggage weighed because we knew it was going to be much heavier coming home and we wanted to be sure that we had room for, ahem…. “growth.” On a whim, I hung my camera bag from the scale. TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS! That was more than my suitcase and it’s on wheels! No wonder my shoulder hurts! 

So when we got home I started thinking about switching to a backpack-style bag to distribute the weight more evenly over both shoulders. I got out the backpack that, ironically, I had bought for traveling but had never actually travelled with, loaded it up with gear and headed for the park for an afternoon of shooting and just walking around to see how it felt. The problem with a backpack is that, while it is great for transporting gear comfortably, it is terrible for easily accessing that same gear. You have to take it off every time you need to get something out of it. It was on one of these occasions, putting it back on, that I was twisting to get the second strap over my shoulder and something in my back just popped. Loudly and painfully! And I knew right away that this was no light sprain that would heal with a soak in the hottub and a couple shots of rye. Go ahead, Paul. Hit me with your best shot. We both know I deserve it.

So now I am best friends with a physiotherapist named Ron who is planning on using me to put his kids through university. You know it’s bad when they start giving you cute little pet names like, “Two First Class Tickets to France.” But I am (far too slowly, in my opinion) getting better and so enough of this digression. I have to get this post finished.

Granville

Our time in British Columbia was split into 3 segments: Vancouver Island and two different stays in Vancouver. Our first 5 days in Vancouver were spent in a hotel on Broadway about 3 blocks south of False Creek. It was a block away from Vancouver General Hospital which, as several people who know me well pointed out, would be very convenient for when the inevitable traveling kidney stone decided to make an appearance. But, sorry guys, no stone this trip. (Yay for me!) The Broadway location was a nice jumping off point for getting to lots of different places in Vancouver – a couple of blocks from the Skytrain and only 3 blocks away from the seawall and a 15-minute walk along the seawall to Granville Island.

I really love Granville. It is an easy place to lose yourself for a few hours. It is a shopper’s dream (happy wife) and a photographer’s dream (happy me). For us, the easiest and most scenic way to get to Granville was to walk down to Charleson dog park and along the seawall past the million dollar condos that face False Creek and the harbour. 

The seawall is long. You can walk for miles on it. It stretches all the way around False Creek, through Granville Market and around Stanley Park. It is a magnet for walkers, joggers, runners and dog walkers. Vancouverites love their dogs and they walk them everywhere. This was great for me because I love dogs and there was never a shortage of ears to scratch and heads to rub while I was there.

The condos along the waterfront are beautifully kept. The lack of a “typical” Canadian winter (speaking as a Winnipegger, where it’s winter most of the year) means that the flowers, the gardens and the landscaping are gorgeous.

This chick kept following me around. But I didn’t mind….

And it’s not just the gardens, the views of the water and Spruce Harbour Marina are beautiful as well.

As you near the island (which really isn’t an island), you find yourself surrounded by ferns, ivy and moss. It has a very tropical feel.

The Granville St. Bridge runs right over the island and the ivy and moss theme continues under the bridge.

There are plenty of reminders of Granville’s nautical heritage.

And no visit to Granville is complete without a visit to Tony’s Café……

This is a “me” thing, but there is something that I have always found very attractive about the shining stainless steel of the business end of a microbrewery like Granville Island Brewing. It just draws my eye to it.

There is a huge public market at Granville and, personally, I think that advertising the market by painting bundles of produce on the barrels of cement trucks is brilliant! What a novel idea!

Yes, there may be coyotes at Granville but they’re not the predators that you need to worry about. The dangerous predators are the seagulls. They call them seagulls in Vancouver but, quite frankly, they’re more like pterodactyls with feathers. They are at least twice the size of the seagulls in Manitoba and they swoop in on unsuspecting targets like World War 2 dive bombers. My wife got mugged by one of these flying marauders one afternoon.

We had just bought some food at Siegel’s Bagels and were walking out to take in the view from the harbour when I heard a scream and the sound of fluttering wings right behind me. I turned around just in time to see a seagull flying away with my wife’s partially eaten spinach-filled bagel while she stared on with a look of shock and disbelief on her face. She was not a happy person.

Sadly, no photo, though. I told her we should go back, get another bagel and then I’d keep a camera on her and wait for her mugger to strike again. But she said she would only do it if the seagull bought the second bagel. It seemed unlikely, so we just kept going. It could have been a great shot! (sigh)

There are two main aspects to Granville – the stores and the public market. 

The stores are very interesting but tend towards the expensive side. For example, there is a store called Rhinoceros whose mascot is (what else?) a rhinoceros. Rhinoceros is a quirky gift shop, as most typically are, with some very cool little gifts. The green monster was cute, but $330? No, thanks. I’ll pass.







Then there was the hammock store featuring all manner of laze-around-the-yard furnishings. This is my kind of store! Unfortunately, it was too hard to get a photo of the inside – crowded and busy. So I guess you’ll just have to go there.

And this place was great! An all-natural pet treat store built in a retired railroad caboose. The young man working there was a perfect choice for the store. He took pet treats very seriously and had a deep love for animals. He was a really nice guy to chat with and their selection of treats was overwhelming! Picasso, our cat, did very well.

Hat stores!
Lots and lots of hat stores! 

And the yacht store. At a half million dollars a pop, it’s probably a lot cheaper to buy a yacht and live on it than to buy property in Vancouver. Hmmmmm….. no Winter, lots of water……… Oops! Sorry! I lost my train of thought there for a minute…..

While there are plenty of unusual and interesting shops at Granville, I think my favourite is The World Music Store, Gandharva Loka. There are lots of musicians in the Mechler family and both of our kids are intent on marrying musical people, so this store was a must-see. It has the most unique selection of instruments that I have ever laid eyes on. 

Hammered Dulcimer

It can be difficult to navigate around the store. The aisles are narrow and it is jammed to the rafters with interesting instruments. But that is part of its charm and just makes it that much more a must-see.

These beautifully ornate instruments are Burmese harps, also known as saung-gauk. The strings are silk and the top is covered in gold leaf. It is considered the national instrument of Burma and dates back to 500 AD. 

The harps vary, with anywhere from thirteen to sixteen strings, and are played sitting on the floor with the body of the harp in the musician's lap. The right hand plucks the strings and the left hand dampens them promoting clarity and staccato notes.

And this interesting piece of furniture is called a Sound Cradle. Considered a therapeutic instrument, the back and the seat can be separated. This allows it to be used in a sitting, standing or prone position. You can lay in it like a cradle. The bowl has 18 strings per side and each side is tuned to the same note, typically A on one side and E on the other. There are also two bass strings per side which are tuned to the same note but an octave lower. Sitting in the chair you not only hear the sound, you also feel it and it has a very relaxing, massaging effect. 

And then there is the public market…..

My wife likes to shop and, for the record, she buys really nice gifts. So it’s to my advantage to just stand back and let her do her thing. Me, I like the ambiance of public markets and places like that – the stalls, the colours, the aromas, the variety of goods and the people - especially the people. There are lots of really interesting people there. Oh, and the food! Let’s not forget the food. There is always lots of food and I like food. Granville is overflowing with all of these things. A feast for all of the senses.

Many years ago a friend asked me why I never did any black & white photography. I didn’t have an answer. It bugged me for a while. Every photographer goes through a black & white period, even if it is only a phase in their growth as a photographer. Why hadn’t I? I was at the lake a few weeks later when I found the answer. I had never realized it but, more often than not, I was not shooting a subject, I was actually shooting the colour of the subject. Colour is one of the most compelling things that draws me into nature – the deep, rich colours of the sky, the lake, the trees. I photograph colour. And that is why I will probably never spend much time shooting black & white. And that is one of the reasons why I like public markets like Granville.

If you like brightly coloured scenes, Granville Island is a must-see. Fresh-picked produce is always colourful but it’s not just the produce fresh out of the fields. There were other things like this display of jams, jellies and flavourings that drew my eye to it every time I passed by. They lit it so that their products were backlit which made them just seem to jump out at you. You could not walk by without stopping to look.

And these looked just like the cement truck!

The goods for sale at Granville, both in the shops and the market, run the gamut. If you can’t find it here, it probably doesn’t exist. This hand-made hunting knife is a perfect example. The handle is made of elk antler and the blade is made of transparent obsidian. When backlit, the blade glows!

The bagels at Siegel’s bagels are extraordinary. Just ask the seagulls. They certainly seemed to enjoy Debbie’s. I just reread this and realized that my wife had her bagel from Siegel's stolen by a seagull. ACK! That's too weird!

In my last post, about Comox, I mentioned that my wife really likes tea stores. That is a very true statement. We probably have 50 varieties of tea stashed in our kitchen. She likes tea. I like the way tea stores look – rows and rows of identical canisters. My camera likes that kind of symmetry.

Stainless steel olive oil containers. Dozens and dozens of different varieties of olive oil. More symmetry for my camera to absorb.

The permanent stalls put a lot of thought and effort into their signs and they are very interesting. I could spend hours just photographing the signs. Anybody else feel like they spent most of their career working for The Nut Merchant?

















I get the feeling that the testers at Granville Bakery are pretty reliable. We used to have similar sized testers in our home and they were always extremely accurate! (“We work for cookies!”)

They bake everything on-site….. and you can watch. 

If you have a sweet tooth, I have a little advice for you – STAY AWAY! You can gain 5 lbs. just browsing. The variety of sweets is endless. 

We tried these blueberry tarts. As my wife would say, “YUM!”

I also noticed that there seems to be an unusual group of artisans operating on the island. They’re called “The Cherry Stackers.” They have a very unique talent, and they are exceptionally good at it!

These ones were good…….

……. but I think this one won the prize

But  there is more than just produce for sale at the market. There are lots of very cool non-edible products for sale, as well. 

Meet Michelle Vulama, rock painter extraordinaire, and some samples of her craftsmanship. She paints rocks but she does it in a very unique way. She doesn’t carve the rocks or manipulate them in any way. She takes them as she finds them, finds the hidden faces or facets in the rocks and then paints them to highlight whatever nature has already carved into the rock. Very cool! And I can tell you from personal experience that she is also a very nice person and a pleasure to just chat with. 

Overall, Granville is an experience. As soon as you arrive, you notice that the atmosphere is different there. The location is unusual (under a bridge), the shops are eclectic and people are…. well, let’s call them eclectic, too.

The view of the harbour is beautiful if occasionally unexpected and unusual. (Did I mention that everyone in Vancouver has a dog and that they take them everywhere?) Try doing this with a cat!

There are lots of beautiful things to see in the harbour – boats, people, the views…. and then there’s this guy. “Ev’r bin t’sea, Billy? Harrrrrrrr….” The only way this scene could have been any better was if he had had a boom box onboard the boat blasting out “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” by The Arrogant Worms. But I’m sure he’s very nice…..

The buskers seem to be a step above, too. Well, most of them. There was one woman with a very beautiful voice who sang a lot of Peter, Paul and Mary songs. But she sang them like funeral dirges and she was, frankly, kind of depressing. But there was nothing depressing about this guy. 

This rather intense looking and very talented man is Les Finnigan and he is amazing. I am listening to one of his CDs as I type this. I enjoy guitar, especially finger-style.  Don Ross, Andy McKee and Antoine DuFour are three of my favourites. I can listen to them for hours. Mr. Finnigan is a solo guitarist who plays a variety of styles, finger-style among them, and he is rapidly rising on my list of favourites to listen to when I’m just chilling out. He doesn’t sing, there is no backing track playing behind him, nothing else to distract you. Just a single guitar, music in its purest form, and it is beautiful to listen to.

He was performing in the outdoor food court as we were walking through the market. As soon as I heard him I knew where I was headed. Since I am the guitar enthusiast, Debbie headed back into the market to continue her shopping and left me to spend a solid hour sitting outside enjoying Mr. Finnigan’s music and fending off the kamikaze seagulls. I had a brief chat with him and he explained that he doesn’t play any particular style of guitar because he doesn’t want to limit himself. He goes where the music takes him. I like that and it seems to be working for him. It takes him to some very good places. I encourage you to check out his web site. http://www.lesfinnigan.com/

So that’s my take on Granville. Next time you’re in Vancouver, check it out. You’ll appreciate it and, if you do any gift shopping (and you really should), your friends and family will appreciate it, too.

But Is It Art?

I would be remiss if I didn’t add one more thing. I confess that when I looked at this artist’s display I felt very much like John Cleese in the old Monty Python "Why Michelangelo Did Not Paint the 'Last Supper'” sketch. If you’ve never seen it, the premise is that Michelangelo was given the first chance to paint The Last Supper before da Vinci got the job. Cleese plays The Pope and he is questioning Michelangelo (Eric Idle) as to why he painted the painting the way he did – with 28 disciples, 3 Christs and a kangaroo. At the end of the sketch, Michelangelo storms off and Cleese turns to the audience and says, “I may not know much about art but I know what I like!”

Well, that was kind of like me standing in front of these paintings. Maybe I’m totally out to lunch on this. Maybe it’s the photographer in me who likes things that look like what they are (in the Python sketch, Idle, when challenged about having put 3 Christs in the painting, tells Cleese, “You want a bloody photographer. That’s what you want!”). 

The artist here is Tanya Doskova and her paintings all have a title, a description and a theme. They are…… what’s the term I’m looking for…… ummmmm….. thought provoking….. 

There is an explanation of the meaning for each image. But even with the explanations I still found myself shaking my head and I’m sure there was probably a “Huh?” thought bubble floating above me. One thing that I can say for sure is that, if you were to buy one of these paintings and hang it in your home before a party, you would never have to worry about a shortage of conversation during the party.

But art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So, BEHOLD! I give you the art of Tanya Doskova. You can make up your own mind.

,All photographic images on this site are copyrighted and are the property of Al Mechler Photography or Debbie S. Mechler Photography. Any form of copying or reproduction without consent of the owners is strictly prohibited.