Monte Clark

When celebrated photographer Greg Girard landed in Tokyo in April 1976, he expected to spend only a few days in the Japanese capital. At that time a “broke traveler” in his early 20s, he was headed to more affordable destinations in southeast Asia.

He left his luggage at Haneda Airport and, with nowhere to sleep, spent his first night in Tokyo roaming the streets of the city’s lively Shinjuku district, camera in hand.

“I was just floored by the way everything looked, because it was never presented in the West, this modern city,” Girard recalled in a video interview, noting that his arrival was long before movies like “Blade Runner” and ’90s pop culture exposed mainstream Western audiences to Asian metropolises.

I’ll never forget the first time I came across City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City by Greg Girard. Even if the entire lawless enclave was long demolished by the time I made it to Hong Kong, the book was one of the reasons that I made the venture to the city. Girard’s ability to put viewers right in the middle of his clandestine locations transports you, not only back in time, but allows you to feel the rawness of each situation.

In his newest book, JAL 76 88, the Vancouver, British Columbia native highlights photographs he took from the years 1976 to 1988 in Tokyo, Japan. What was supposed to be a quick few days quickly led to weeks as the futuristic city enthralled his senses and fed his appetite for discovery and documentation. Spanning over a decade, the works in JAL 76 88 see the urban jungle of Tokyo through the lens of Girard as social and physical transformations were taking place from the pre-bubble era, the full-on explosion in wealth afforded by the bubble economy, and the cusp of what we now know as the Lost Decade.

Every city is home to thousands of stories. If you look through photographer Greg Girard’s new book JAL 76-88, you’ll find dozens of evocative images taken across Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. Some feature neon-drenched urban landscapes, the kind of haunted cityscape that seems tailor-made for the opening shot of a film noir.

The opening exhibition at UCCA Edge looks back at the moment Chinese contemporary art entered into global dialogue and the transforming urban fabric of Shanghai

As part of the Nocturnal Landscapes project, photographer and sociologist David Schalliol is leading a series of conversations with photographers who regularly work at night.

The BIG Picture: Giant Photographs and Powerful Portfolios is a two-part exhibition that highlights recent photography acquisitions at the Fitchburg Art Museum. The Giant Photographs

to mark the release of his latest book, ‘tokyo-yokosuka 1976-1983’, greg girard has shared a collection of largely unseen images offering a nostalgic glimpse of

Greg Girard’s interest in east Asia was cemented by a single image. Nestled in a Time-Life photography book, the still depicted a Hong Kong harbour

Greg Girard’s photographs of Asian cityscapes, notably shot in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Hanoi, have firmly established his reputation, both locally and internationally. During the

In this year’s Thessaloniki PhotoBiennale 2018, the central exhibition entitled “Capitalist Realism“, which is structured in two large sections, at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography

From dive bars to neon lights: a look into the underside side of Hong Kong’s colourful nightlife Read more

The Vancouver Art Gallery goes beyond expectations by exposing visitors to a more contemporary picture of life in B.C. Read more  

Photographs can take you back in time and that’s certainly what Greg Girard’s photography show accomplishes: returning viewers to an era in Vancouver’s history before

David Campany: The oldest images in this book are from 1972. Clearly Vancouver has changed a lot, and large parts of the city would be