For this assignment I wanted to challenge myself by going out with a preset plan of what I was going to photograph and seeing if a story would come to me as I explored downtown Montreal. Within a few minutes of taking pictures a few themes starting showing up: smokers, students on their way to school, elders navigating the snowy streets, … but the visual that kept pulling me in was the dozens of reflective jackets I kept seeing everywhere. At once hyper visible because of their colour and shine, yet unnoticeable in the blur of downtown action at the same time. Hidden in back of garbage trucks, in alleyways, under delivery boxes, behind the wheel of 18-wheeler trucks, the nature of the work done by the wears of these reflective jackets goes unnoticed by most daily. In fact the reflective gear is precisely on to make their presence be seen, protected, and respected. This mini series left me wanting to explore this idea of invisbilized labour more but for the sake of the assignment, I left it at 6 images.
Fun fact: When I uploaded these images my 7 year old son was with me so I casually asked him what he thought of these pictures, thinking he would say something about the reflective jackets but his response was ‘It makes me think of all the hard work these people do for us every day.’ I guess the story tells itself.
