Finding your Rhythm
Finding your Rhythm
When we travel, our camera often becomes the witness to our adventures: monuments, busy streets, neon signs, and moments we want to remember. But over time, I began to realize that photography is not always about chasing images. Sometimes it is about finding rhythm within a place.
When I first started street photography, I would leave my hotel with a camera and immediately begin searching for photographs. I was looking, but not really seeing. I had not yet learned to slow down and understand the canvas I was walking through.
Now, whenever I visit a new city, I try to find places beyond the obvious. Hidden places. Places that may not produce a single great photograph, yet somehow help me understand the city itself.
For me, in Vancouver, that place is the Ovaltine Cafe on East Hastings.
The Ovaltine is more than a restaurant. It feels like a surviving fragment of another era. Opened in 1942, it has remained standing through decades of change while much of the neighbourhood around it transformed completely.
East Hastings was once the commercial and entertainment heart of Vancouver; filled with neon signs, streetcars, department stores, and busy sidewalks. Today, the area struggles with visible homelessness, addiction, and poverty. Some visitors may find it uncomfortable, especially at night. Yet despite those realities, traces of the old city still remain beneath the surface.
That contrast is part of what draws me back.
This is how I find my voice through photography when visiting a new place. It is not always about capturing the perfect image. Sometimes inspiration comes first, and the photographs arrive later.
Before searching for dramatic street scenes or famous landmarks, it helps to spend time somewhere real. Sit quietly. Watch people move through the space. Listen to the city breathe for a while.
At the Ovaltine, that means sitting in an old booth with coffee and blueberry pancakes while the neon reflects softly against worn mirrors that have watched generations pass through the room. For a brief moment, Vancouver stops feeling like a postcard and starts feeling human.
Finding your Voice
By Elizabeth Ewen, CEO Raven Tours Ltd.
“I photograph from the edge of things, where truth passes by without noticing me.”
