Pounding the Pavement

A film by Vincent Lafrance | 2025

Canada
fr
en
24'

Pounding the Pavement

Trailer

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Synopsis

Filmed in Montréal in November 2024, this film introduces six photographers who embody contemporary street photography in Québec’s largest city. Spanning different generations, they roam the streets by day or by night, alone or in groups, following chance or a preconceived idea, carrying either minimal or more substantial equipment, and working with film or digital cameras. Each, in their own way, captures what the city has to offer: the distinctive character of its neighbourhoods and residents, the visual anecdotes that emerge around a street corner, and the ways in which light shapes Montréal and transforms its appearance.

Directed by artist Vincent Lafrance, the film accompanies the exhibition Pounding the Pavement: Street Photography in Montréal, conceived by the McCord Stewart Museum as a celebration of the practice from the nineteenth century to the present day.

What you will find in this film

Montréal through the eyes of its street photographers · Choosing photographic equipment · The relationship between the photographer and urban space · Everyday life and ordinary scenes as photographic subjects · Chance, intuition, and anticipation in the act of taking a photograph · The ethics of the encounter between photographer and subject

Keywords

Street & Architectural Reportage & Society History of Photography

I look for what moves me: a sense of humanity, something emotional. It doesn’t have to be a person. It can be found in a silhouette: a trace of human life.

Marik Boudreau Photographer

I think of street photography as a stream, a river. You’re simply moving through it, trying to capture little snippets of life and, hopefully, make sense of them.

Martin Akwiranoron Loft Photographer

I don’t particularly like being invisible or ‘sneaky.’ When I take a photograph, I don’t mind people knowing that I’m doing it.

Daniel Cross Photographer

If I arrive somewhere with too many expectations about the place or the photographs I want to make, I don’t find them.

Serge Clément Photographer

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The authors/artists

Vincent Lafrance

Vincent Lafrance

Further exploration

Zoë Tousignant – Pounding the Pavement: Montreal Street Photography, McCord Stewart Museum, 2025. (English) – The essential companion to the film and exhibition, devoted specifically to the history and diversity of street photography in Montreal.

Colin Westerbeck & Joel Meyerowitz – Bystander: A History of Street Photography, Laurence King Publishing, revised edition, 2017. (English) – A foundational history of street photography, spanning Atget, Stieglitz, Cartier-Bresson, Evans, Frank, Arbus, Winogrand and contemporary practice.

Sophie Howarth & Stephen McLaren, eds. – Street Photography Now, Thames & Hudson, 2010. (English) – A broad survey of contemporary street photography that helps extend the questions raised by the Montreal photographers toward different cities, cultures and visual approaches.

Clive Scott – Street Photography: From Atget to Cartier-Bresson, I.B. Tauris, 2013. (English) – A critical rather than purely historical account, especially useful for thinking about framing, spontaneity, the everyday and the ambiguous boundary between documentary and street photography.

Andrea Kunard – Photography in Canada 1960–2000, Canadian Photography Institute / National Gallery of Canada, 2017. (English) – Provides the wider Canadian context through documentary, street, conceptual and artistic photography, including several photographers closely connected to Montreal.

Chris Wiley – “What Is Street Photography Today?” – Aperture, 2024.

Pauline Vermare – “The Joy of Seeing: Magnum Street Photography” – Magnum Photos.

Department of Photographs – “Early Documentary Photography” – The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Garnette Cadogan – “Vision & Justice: Radcliffe Roye” – Aperture. International Center of Photography – “We Are Here: Scenes from the Streets”.

@lafrance_vincent