Photos from the Climate March: Vancouver

Some photos from the Climate march here in Vancouver on September 27th, 2019. It felt really good to flex my street photography muscle and with 100,000+ people who took part, there was lots to take photos of.

Alongside the images below I want to paint a picture of one of the key moments for me which I did not get a photo of:

It was the beginning of the day and a massive group of people had gathered at Broadway City Hall for the kick-off speeches. I’d made my way to the front of the crowd - which definitely had taken some effort as there were people shoulder to shoulder all eager to see the going’s on. I had my camera in my hand and I was tapping people on the shoulder; ‘excuse me, so sorry, I’m just going to squeeze through’.

EVERYBODY’s response; ‘oh yes, of course, come on, there you go’.

(so polite - I’d find it hard to believe would happen in many other places).

Once at the front there were the main steps going up to City Hall, where the main organisers and speakers of the march had arranged themselves and were using a mic to speak to the crowd. There were First Nation drummers, and youth from the organising team, Sustainabiliteens and some other people who shared on the mic. There were tons of TV cameras and other photographers at the bottom. And when it wrapped up, there was a girl of about 8 who was sitting on the bottom step and I think she must’ve been the daughter of one of the cameramen who were there and she was crying - like, CRYING - and the only word I would associate it with would be despair because she looked so hopeless and helpless and all I could hear was her dad saying to her, ‘it’s ok, it’s going to be ok, these people are passionate about it and want change too’.

I can only guess and make up stories about why she was crying, and what exactly about what had been said that struck a chord with her.

It was one of the moments that will really stick with me.

Here are some of the photos I took on the day. Hope you enjoy.