James Shearer

I’ve decided to showcase some of my photographs with a daily photoblog. The Blog contains images in no particular order listed by the day they were put online. There is no method to the madness, completely random, completely fluid, completely mine.

Posts start from September 14, 2005 and are a collection of all kinds of subjects from all over the world.

Have a look and feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Visit the Photo Blog, click here

From my window I can see a man lying in the street. I passed by him about 20 minutes ago and I didn’t even go to see if he was ok. He is lying in the middle of the road with the rain coming down. A handful of people are standing beside him. Bystanders, commuters, people from the neighbourhood who, like me, were walking by and saw him lying there, unconscious. They stopped. I didn’t. They stopped, but not to help, but to watch.

A few more minutes have gone by. There is still no sign of an ambulance. I assume someone called an ambulance by now. Only a couple of people remain, the others gave up watching. I guess nothing interesting had happened.

I’ve seen this man before. I’m sure a few of the other people who had walked by without stopping also recognised him. The man is probably about 30. His endurance of life has added years. He is often seen around this area of town. He begs on the street in front of the supermarket. He just sits there, with his cap turned up. It is usually empty. He seeks pity from passers by, hoping they will spare some change. I doubt many do. In a city full of homeless people it is a common sight.

In my travels and in this bustling city, I have witnessed people being hit by cars, shot, stabbed, punched. I’d always go to help. I don’t cross over to the other side and ignore them in their moment of need. There is a man out there, less than 100 meters away, I can see him quite clearly, still lying there in the rain. He is in need but like many others, I just walked by.

I probably couldn’t have done very much. I’m not a trained medic but that’s not the point. The point is making the effort to help someone, to be humane, to endorse humanity by reaching out. I just walked past.

I know why he is lying out there in the road. He wasn’t hit by a car. He wasn’t assaulted. It’s probably not his fault. His lifestyle caught up on him. He spends his money earned begging in the local liquor store. He is a homeless, aboriginal and like many he has serious alcohol abuse problems. People look down on these individuals, blaming them for the choice they made. If it was as simple as that then the solution would be somewhat simple too. However it isn’t. Actions by people many years ago created a narrow path for this man. His fate was sealed as soon as he was born. Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is prevalent in many natives in North America. One of them is lying in the wet road.

The last time I saw this man collapsed the ambulance crew were already there. I could see the look on their faces. One that said it all. This is a regular occurrence and one which they, as emergency medics can do little to prevent a repeat of. I’m sure the paramedics didn’t think they’d be embarking on a career where this was a regular part of their job.

It is a shame that people walk by. There is little most people can do to help. He needs medical assistance and he will get it. But he will probably be back, in the same spot in front of the supermarket in a day or two. Begging for more booze money. He is an addict. An addict with no one to help him. He cant help himself and society walks by without even giving it another thought.

The ambulance just turned up. The lights and sirens weren’t even on. It is 11am in the morning. I suspect the dispatcher has heard the story many times, as did the ambulance crew - “Aboriginal Canadian male, West End, unconscious, no obvious signs of trauma, smells of alcohol”. No rush. They are probably fed up dealing with the same problem over and over, powerless to prevent a repeat.

The man is propped up against a tree. They give him his cap and the soaked newspaper he was carrying. In a month or so I’ll probably be walking down the street and see him, or another person just like him, lying there, unconscious on the pavement. His details are put down on paper. Next year he will be part of this years statistics. That will probably be his contribution to society. That and the cost of regular ambulance call outs and the occasional hospitalisation.

He is a drain on the system. People look at him and think that. The attitude is wrong. People need to be helped and people walk by because they know they can’t help. The people who can help him don’t. The ambulance paramedics help him the best they can but they can’t help him either. The people who run the shelter where he will sleep tonight can’t help him, even with generous donations of money, clothing and time people give. It is the year 2005 and a man with a problem he is powerless to control can’t be helped. There is no one to help him.

But there is. His problem landed him on the street. But the problem isn’t a street-level one. It is a problem which the government is responsible for. There is not sufficient resources allocated to helping prevent repeats and give this man a life. He has no life. It was taken away from him. He only has one life and this is it. Lying in the road, people walking by, rain coming down, nothing to look forward to. He has been abandoned.

It isn’t a simple solution. People walk by and see the problems. Over the dinner table possible solutions are discussed. Politicians discuss these kinds of problems all day long. But what ever is being done isn’t working. A better plan needs to be put forward. The concentration is on giving people a better life but there are still many people who don’t have the life we lead and never will. They can’t catch up. The government is always making it better for us, easier so we can take our lives for granted more and more each day. They make our lives more comfortable. It’s not very comfortable leaning up against that tree, soaked to the bone, penniless, hungry, walking a path to an early grave.

Society has abandoned him, not on purpose, but because he is on the outer rim of society. The focus is on the centre, the people who have a life to lead, who contribute to the world. He can’t contribute. He relies on contributions. He didn’t choose that path although many people say he did. He hasn’t ever had the opportunity to contribute. His life is ruined and whatever the government does it will probably be too little, too late.

The next time he is lying unconscious on the street, in need, I can only hope that someone walks by and is in a position to not just call an ambulance and see if his is ok, but to do something about it to stop there being a repeat, to give this man a life, to give him a chance to contribute and catch up with the rest of us. I hope that by reaching out impacts them in such a way that they realise more needs to be done than they are currently doing and it needs to be done before walking by and not helping becomes normal and we all loose our humanity.

With all that Canada has to offer and the constant flow of festivals and events it can be difficult to decide where and when to visit Canada.

Thanks to a handful of provincial tourist boards and the Canadian Tourist Commission, Trail Canada has launched a blog with articles by respected journalists and other sources.

This new blog is a perfect guide to inside information into very specific topics, be it dining in Prince Edward Island or visiting the Northwest Territories or exploring Victoria in Autumn, Trail Canada has a growing base of articles.

Visit the Trail Canada blog to read more and contribute your own articles.

From time to time I have run into instances in Canada where, as a Brit, Canadians haven’t been able to understand me because of my accent or because what I believed was a simple request, turns out to be something a little bit less simple or bizarre over here.

One of the more common occurrances is my use of English. It can differ, sometimes considerably, to the use of the English language in North America, Canada, and the West Coast. Regional dialects might not be as distinguishable as they are in the UK but they are present and the overall difference to British English can, in some cases, be extreme.

Wikipedia has some interesting articles about Canadian English but a good list of examples of the differences can be found on Dave VE7CNV’s website - whoever that is!

Even the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) admit they have some difficulty working out what words they should and shouldn’t use. The have a large archive of previous stories and reports on the Woe and Wonder of Words. A particularly interesting article is the one about the reliance on the CBC to promote English and standards.

Although many Canadian’s don’t realize what color is in the center or if they realise the center has no colour. At least the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms knows what it’s talking about!

One thing I do know is that Canadian’s say Pop, American’s say Soda, and in the UK we say tea , 2 milks and no sugar… please!

On Friday we said goodbye to the view and made the move to our new apartment.

Although we are in the same building, we are now living a little bit higher up and have quite a bit more space. We desperately needed the space and love living in the West End where people look and laugh if you ask for a spacious apartment. However, we found one. We managed to stay in the area we love, a building we enjoy living in and still maintaining a modern interior but surrendering the view.

I think it is worth it.

All we need to do now is get our stuff moved in and tell people where we live So if you are going to send something to either me or Vanessa, then you need our new address.

It’s been a long time in the making but it is finally online - JT Music website has landed

May the internet make way. Other websites will be envious, bloggers shall rejoice, search engines will lick their lips and people from across the globe will take a look, double take then bite right in and may they savour the sweet, sweet taste as jtmusicshop.com is here to stay.

And stay it must, for this is no ordinary website… oh no, this website is filled with evidence of burnings, mucus, excessive party going, strings and things, and experimental rocking like there has never been.

Monkey can switch off, lean back and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger can get some Tiger and Monkey time while the Mighty Thurstons mightiness grows mighter with their sudden and loud landing in cyberspace.

Watch out world. The local shop is not just for local people now, oh no…. No longer will people have to use the road to bring their strange accents and funny money to buy. Now the road of cables and computers links the local shop to the rest of the world. The local music shop is local to us all.

There is no excuse, they put in the effort, now you go check it out because if you don’t, they will know. They might be rocking, but they are watching….

JTMusic - Fort William, Scotland
“The coolest, friendliest and over-rocked music shop”

Today I was going through my old emails and I came across some rather interesting photographs (not mine!).

They are of an artist and his work on city streets. The art is all made using chalk and the 3 dimensions is a complete illusion apart from the occasional prop or the artist posing himself!

Despite all the interesting sights, unusual smells and fascinating goings on along Davie street there are regularly occurances which still surprise me.

Last night at the corner of Davie Street and Burrard as I walked past the Celebrities Nightclub I overheard a group of 25 year old men. One turned to the group as they were heading in the opposite direction and remarked,
“that Pantene Pro V makes my hair feel so good”.

The sound of mumbled agreement then followed.

hmmmm…

I came across a great little flash video by an interesting British band - Nizlopi. The video is about a five year old boy going for a drive with his dad in his dad’s JCB.

Check out the JCB song video

Life in Vancouver is great. But not for everybody.

The city’s lack of low-cost housing and housing for the homeless causes some serious concerns for all of the residents of Vancouver.

The downtown eastside of Vancouver, around the Main Street and East Hastings Street has sunk into such a slum it can best be described as a Canadian ghetto.

I’ve taken some photographs of this area of the city and will update them from time to time.

Photographs of Vancouver’s downtown eastside.