Walking Winnipeg: Youth Photography in Black and White Under City Bridges

Under the railway bridge at Higgins and Main in Winnipeg, the walls are never the same twice.

Every time I go back, something has changed. New tags cut across old pieces, layers of paint stack and peel, and whole sections get rewritten overnight. It feels less like a wall and more like a sketchbook no one is protecting. I’ve come to know it by its movement rather than any single image.

When I photograph it in black and white, the place shifts completely. Colour disappears, and what’s left is structure: contrast, texture, shadow. A fresh tag becomes a sharp line in a larger composition. Older paint softens into ghosts underneath it. The chaos starts to look intentional, almost like the bridge is editing itself over time.

I keep going back with my camera. I treat it like a living archive, knowing I’ll never capture the same surface twice. Cars pass overhead. Wind moves through the concrete spaces. People come and go. The walls keep changing anyway.

What I’m left with are fragments—moments where everything lined up for a second before being covered again. In black and white, the underpass becomes less about graffiti and more about time itself, layered and temporary, always in motion.