Renovations, Fan Tan Alley, 500 Block Pandora Avenue, Victoria, 2015

Fan Tan Alley (番攤里), in Victoria, British Columbia’s Chinatown, joins Fisgard Avenue and Pandora Avenue in the block between Government and Store Streets.

The passageway, its narrowest point only 0.9 metres (35 in) wide, was named after the Chinese gambling game Fan-Tan. It was originally home to restaurants, gambling joints and opium dens. Today it is a tourist destination lined with small, eclectic shops.

I made my first urban photographs in Victoria in the nineties, as an outsider. These days, more familiar with the nooks and crannies of British Columbia’s capital city, I document its changing face with a certain apprehension arising from the disastrous results of real-estate speculation that has beset the Vancouver I once loved.

The street scene on Pandora Avenue, made three winter’s ago, hangs on our living room wall. I’ve had time to, well, live with it. It endures. I consider it one of the best photos I’ve made in recent years.

Besides recording renovations in and around Fan Tan Alley, highlighted by the serendipitous exit of contractors from the alley, it is also a self-portrait of sorts, reflected in the window left of the workers. Though tripod-mounted, the “decisive moment” prevails. I love the detail of the couple in the café, immersed in animated conversation.

Like many of the images in this series, post-processing treatment runs counter to the modern trend towards over-saturated garishness. In fact, the first thing I do here is desaturate colour. Though I am consciously referencing monochrome or early historic colour processes for these historic Victoria scenes (Autochrome), my processing choice also represents a protest against the tyranny of clarity and vibrance sliders.

Check out my recent Fujifilm X-Pro2 video test for more scenes from Victoria’s Chinatown.

Limited and open editions of the photo are available.