Greg Girard’s photographs of Vancouver from the 1970s and early 1980s show us the city’s final days as a port town at the end of the railway line. Soon after Vancouver began to be noticed by the wider world (Expo 86 is generally agreed on as the pivotal moment), the city began refashioning itself as an urban resort on nature’s doorstep and attracting attention as a destination for real estate investment. At that time, long before post-9/11 security concerns sealed off the working waterfront from the city, many of Vancouver’s downtown and east side streets ended at the waterfront, an area filled with commercial fishing docks, cargo terminals, and bars and cafes for waterfront workers and sailors. Pawn-shop windows downtown displayed outboard motors, chainsaws and fishing gear. Wandering these streets, living in cheap hotels, Girard photographed the workaday (and night) world of the city where he grew up. The photographs in Under Vancouver 1972–1982 were made before Girard began earning a living as a magazine photographer, later establishing a formal practice as an artist. They reveal an early interest in the hidden and the overlooked, the use of color film at night, and the extended photographic inquiry of a specific place, all of which became signature features of later books such as City of Darkness and City of Darkness Revisited (about the infamous Kowloon Walled City), Phantom Shanghai and Hanoi Calling. Under Vancouver 1972–1982 is the first comprehensive collection of Girard’s early photographs of Vancouver. Made in and of the moment, a young photographer’s earliest engagements (often featuring the underside of the city), the pictures now form an unintended photographic record of a Vancouver that has all but disappeared.

格雷格·吉拉德（Greg Girard）於70－80年代初拍攝溫哥華的系列照片，向我們展示了一座舊城港口作為鐵路終點線的最後日子。在溫哥華開始受到世界的廣泛關注（後來很快就商確了1986年世界博覽會）之後，這座城市便開始重塑自己，成為城市度假勝地，並吸引更多人的關注，成為了房地產投資的熱門地。《Under Vancouver 1972-1982》是 Girard 尚未成為雜誌攝影師之前，更未確立要成為藝術家前所拍攝。它們揭示了一些被隱藏和被忽視的取向，如在夜間使用彩色菲林，以及對特定地方的擴展探索；而這些都成為了後來 Girard 出版的攝影書籍當中的特色，例如《黑暗之城》（關於知名的九龍城寨）、《Phantom Shanghai》及《Hanoi Calling》。《Under Vancouver 1972-1982》是 Girard 早期在溫哥華拍攝的第一批系列照片，是作為一位年輕攝影師最早期的探索，現在這些照片構成了一輯溫哥華最意想不到的攝影記錄，而這些記錄已幾乎消失。