Greg Girard – Trailblazing on Color Schemes

Drawing with artificial colors… Greg Girard collects urban memories of surreal modernity of South-East Asia with accentuated dramatic hues capturing the unique character of the city’s culture. Pioneering and exploring in the shores of retro-futuristic and neo-noir aesthetic he clicks his shutter. 

Greg Girard’s interest in photography started in high school where he was enrolled in a graphic design class which exposed him to photography and all its components. This spark of inspiration combined with his adventurous personality drove him to get an SLR camera. From that moment on, he roamed his hometown Vancouver experimenting with various techniques. Capturing the blooming natural essence and urbanization of downtown Vancouver in the tender era of the 70’s. As he started to develop a unique artistic vision he was also gazing at the unseen parts of photography at that time and stated “You have to remember in the 1970s there weren’t a lot of ways to see photography. The more I started paying attention to different transparency film stocks and the color shifts under various sources of artificial light, the more I felt like I had “night” all to myself…” This led him to take photography as a profession and later establishing a formal practice as an artist.

It was the late 70’s and Girard set foot on Tokyo. Through the neon washed hazy atmosphere, the never-ending expanse of skyscrapers reaching their arms out all around the city skyline, the Japanese way of living and the breathing ambiance of Tokyo he discovered his signature aesthetic. His creative impulses turned into a very subjective, highly stylized, almost novelistic way of picture making. Playing with the intricate tension between the subject and the photograph’s integrity Girard developed his taste of long exposures, artificial light paintings, and film photography. 

Through his travels around Vancouver, Toronto, Tokyo, Okinawa, Vietnam, and various other (mostly Asian) cities he started documenting the process of urbanization and ever-changing human life revolving around the subject of it. With the belief of photography as a tool to showcase what’s on the surface and peel it back at the same time, Girard archives 50 years of change within the cities. The results are a lifespan of images of what could be called an anti-documentary, merging present with the past.