Jazz Trio, Robson & Burrard, Vancouver, 1981

On this day in 1981, I had decided to make like Henri Cartier-Bresson … or the Invisible Man.

Bryan Beard and I bussed out to Vancouver from White Rock, where we spent our days “bouldering” on the namesake glacial erratic and climbing the uptown cenotaph in training for our Squamish rock climbing exploits.

I can’t recall the reason for our Vancouver visit on this day — possibly to buy some climbing hardware from Mountain Equipment Co-op, where we’d both find work before the year was out. We walked around downtown, as the contact sheet records.

Contact Sheet

This photo was eclipsed by the serendipitous shot that, in theory at least, best illustrates Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” idea. The Bible Society and the strange story that arose from it 10 years later, has come to define for me how photography has a life all its own and, in turn, often influences the course of mine. There’s probably an essay in that idea.

But today, I have time to post this “outtake” from that day, exploring with my best friend in a city I loved.