Photopost: Saskatoon Riverbank Graffiti
I couldn't sleep at all last night. I rolled around for a while, and after a few hours of that, gave up on sleep altogether. I was awake when the sun rose, and after thinking about what to do with my morning, I decided to go down to the river to take photos of graffiti.
Man, there was way more new stuff than I expected. Shooting these was awesome. As usual, I risked life and limb climbing over enormous rocks to get at them. Not gonna' lie, doing that probably is a little dangerous -- it's pretty damn easy to slip and get one's head bashed in. Fortunately I remembered to wear proper shoes this time. Anyway, let's go.
A lot of the graffiti that was there last year is still there, but it's starting to get worn down by weather.
Here's the mysterious Swedish flag from last year, looking rather worse for wear. It's kind of a shame that the paintings get worn down like that, but on the other hand, that's just one of the things about graffiti -- it's ephemeral.
With every summer, tons of new graffiti pops up in this area. I've been meaning to go and take pictures for weeks. There are a few that I did photograph a couple of weeks ago -- so I'll start with those first.
Paper graffiti in a bench near the river-park. I thought it was stencil at first, but no. I was surprised to see it there, because that particular area isn't very popular for graffiti.
And a close-up.
Anyone remember the old console game "Duck Hunt"? Yeah, these would be images from that. I was really surprised to see something like this. These figures are on one of the pillars on the underside of the bridge, and they are very high up, so it was difficult to photograph them properly.
And closer. They aren't the usual kind of graffiti; they're made of foam, cut out and painted.
Now, this is just plain tacky, but I appreciate the scale of it. This one is very large, stands taller than I am, and washed over with silver paint.
This figure looks familiar; swear I've seen it before, but I have no idea where. Ah, apparently it's a character from a cartoon I'd never seen. Thanks, anasyrma and schizoauthoress
Now, onto the new photos.
This is the first of the ones I photographed today. I like the subtlety of this one, stencilled onto one of the bridge-pillars. It's small, about the size of the palm of my hand, and cannot be seen from the walk-path under the bridge. You have to go down a good way and crawl over a ton of rocks to find it. I like little secrets like that.
Again, under the bridge. I have seen this one elsewhere in the town, usually on electricboxes.
This was in plain view from the walk-path. I still had to crawl over rocks to get to it, but... well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have found all the other stuff down in around there.
It's a bit unusual to see stencil graffiti of animals. Only came across one or two in the past.
Aaand the last of the stencils. I'm pretty sure I've seen this same one sprayed onto pillars at the USask library.
Now we'll start with the riverbank photos. This was the first one I found. It was in the part directly under the bridge, which is unusual; most of the rock paintings tend to be done out in the sun - possibly so that they can be seen if one looks down from the top of the bridge.
This one was picked out with gold paint.
While the riverbank graffiti tends to be really nice, this is not the kind that I usually expect to find. A lot of the new stuff is done in a similar style to this, but I don't know if it's all the same person.
One of three that were done very close to the path entering the riverbank rocks. Not a usual place to find them - they're usually a bit farther down.
And the second. This is one of my favourites. From the look of it, the artist had a load of purple paint left over - it was drizzled all over some of the rocks nearby.
The third.
A change of pace from the paintings. Another very small one. I like that a lot of the paintings can be seen from the bridge, but in some ways I think surprises like this are even better, because you don't know they're there until you stumble upon them.
Stencil, slightly faded. Another favourite.
At this point, it was getting a bit farther out from under the bridge, more into the sun.
I love this one. I wish I had been able to get a better photograph of it - with the way the rocks were arranged, I just plain couldn't get down directly to where it was.
Same for this one - just couldn't balance myself well enough.
"Love". I like that even the simple messages are so colourful.
...What.
I repeat: What?
Another difficult-to-photograph one.
I turned around and saw this staring at me. It was rather unnerving.
As one gets farther away from the bridge, the amount of graffiti decreases. My guess is that it's just a damn pain in the ass to get out that far.
Still, there are a few nice ones.
I usually don't go close down by the riverbank because generally the graffiti there isn't as good - tends to be more crudely-drawn and more worn down by weathering - but I'm glad I did, because I found this.
And closer. I am absolutely in love with this; it's just so bizarre.
And detail.
There are probably a lot more down in there that I didn't even see. But by the time I got down to there, my legs felt like jelly and it was way too warm out and I'd had enough. But I might go down again in a month's time, just to see if there's anything new. We'll see.
Man, there was way more new stuff than I expected. Shooting these was awesome. As usual, I risked life and limb climbing over enormous rocks to get at them. Not gonna' lie, doing that probably is a little dangerous -- it's pretty damn easy to slip and get one's head bashed in. Fortunately I remembered to wear proper shoes this time. Anyway, let's go.
A lot of the graffiti that was there last year is still there, but it's starting to get worn down by weather.
Here's the mysterious Swedish flag from last year, looking rather worse for wear. It's kind of a shame that the paintings get worn down like that, but on the other hand, that's just one of the things about graffiti -- it's ephemeral.
With every summer, tons of new graffiti pops up in this area. I've been meaning to go and take pictures for weeks. There are a few that I did photograph a couple of weeks ago -- so I'll start with those first.
Paper graffiti in a bench near the river-park. I thought it was stencil at first, but no. I was surprised to see it there, because that particular area isn't very popular for graffiti.
And a close-up.
Anyone remember the old console game "Duck Hunt"? Yeah, these would be images from that. I was really surprised to see something like this. These figures are on one of the pillars on the underside of the bridge, and they are very high up, so it was difficult to photograph them properly.
And closer. They aren't the usual kind of graffiti; they're made of foam, cut out and painted.
Now, this is just plain tacky, but I appreciate the scale of it. This one is very large, stands taller than I am, and washed over with silver paint.
This figure looks familiar; swear I've seen it before, but I have no idea where. Ah, apparently it's a character from a cartoon I'd never seen. Thanks, anasyrma and schizoauthoress
Now, onto the new photos.
This is the first of the ones I photographed today. I like the subtlety of this one, stencilled onto one of the bridge-pillars. It's small, about the size of the palm of my hand, and cannot be seen from the walk-path under the bridge. You have to go down a good way and crawl over a ton of rocks to find it. I like little secrets like that.
Again, under the bridge. I have seen this one elsewhere in the town, usually on electricboxes.
This was in plain view from the walk-path. I still had to crawl over rocks to get to it, but... well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have found all the other stuff down in around there.
It's a bit unusual to see stencil graffiti of animals. Only came across one or two in the past.
Aaand the last of the stencils. I'm pretty sure I've seen this same one sprayed onto pillars at the USask library.
Now we'll start with the riverbank photos. This was the first one I found. It was in the part directly under the bridge, which is unusual; most of the rock paintings tend to be done out in the sun - possibly so that they can be seen if one looks down from the top of the bridge.
This one was picked out with gold paint.
While the riverbank graffiti tends to be really nice, this is not the kind that I usually expect to find. A lot of the new stuff is done in a similar style to this, but I don't know if it's all the same person.
One of three that were done very close to the path entering the riverbank rocks. Not a usual place to find them - they're usually a bit farther down.
And the second. This is one of my favourites. From the look of it, the artist had a load of purple paint left over - it was drizzled all over some of the rocks nearby.
The third.
A change of pace from the paintings. Another very small one. I like that a lot of the paintings can be seen from the bridge, but in some ways I think surprises like this are even better, because you don't know they're there until you stumble upon them.
Stencil, slightly faded. Another favourite.
At this point, it was getting a bit farther out from under the bridge, more into the sun.
I love this one. I wish I had been able to get a better photograph of it - with the way the rocks were arranged, I just plain couldn't get down directly to where it was.
Same for this one - just couldn't balance myself well enough.
"Love". I like that even the simple messages are so colourful.
...What.
I repeat: What?
Another difficult-to-photograph one.
I turned around and saw this staring at me. It was rather unnerving.
As one gets farther away from the bridge, the amount of graffiti decreases. My guess is that it's just a damn pain in the ass to get out that far.
Still, there are a few nice ones.
I usually don't go close down by the riverbank because generally the graffiti there isn't as good - tends to be more crudely-drawn and more worn down by weathering - but I'm glad I did, because I found this.
And closer. I am absolutely in love with this; it's just so bizarre.
And detail.
There are probably a lot more down in there that I didn't even see. But by the time I got down to there, my legs felt like jelly and it was way too warm out and I'd had enough. But I might go down again in a month's time, just to see if there's anything new. We'll see.