Montreal Gazette photographers go out on hundreds of assignments in the course of a year to snap pictures of news, sports and features that appear in print and digitally on our website and social media outlets.
However, out of those thousands of images, each photographer has their favourites and here are some of those we are sharing with you.
February 17, 2020: The assignment was to take photos of an Exo commuter train, preferably at sunset, so I set out for the West Island. I stopped at a couple of stations along the route and settled on the station at Woodland in Beaconsfield. I photographed a couple of westbound trains, but wasn’t 100 per cent satisfied. Fortunately, an eastbound train passed right when the sky was at its most colourful. The repeating pattern of the light poles on the left balanced the repeating pattern of the train cars on the right.Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal GazetteOctober 1, 2020: With Montreal going into the red zone, citizens are being asked to social distance and wear masks. I feel as though Leonard Cohen is approving of the woman wearing a mask in downtown Montreal.Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal GazetteSeptember 24, 2020: I was returning downtown and I thought I would get a photo for our files of the REM under construction along Highway 40 at Sources Blvd. in Dollard-des-Ormeaux. This image is a crop of my camera frame that originally included a crane above that was dropping the concrete blocks into place. But the workers were not in the frame. To my surprise, they slowly began to rise into my frame from below. It changed my whole photo. I would also like to point out the two workers are wearing masks.Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal GazetteApril 16, 2020: The bronze statue, Cloaked Figure IX by Lynn Chadwick, amid rainbow colours on the columns at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. For me, the statue represents the pandemic and the colours humanity and the struggle between the two for dominance.jpgJuly 16, 202: On the day the COVID-19 testing centre opened in Outremont, people lined up for three blocks around the building on Davaar St. While I was making pictures of the lineup, I was invited inside to take photos and was fortunate Sonia Egron agreed to let me follow her through the process of getting tests for her and her son Noah. After Noah get his nose swabbed, he watched as his mum got hers done.Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal GazetteApril 13, 2020: I was driving around the Plateau on this Monday in April when I came upon a scene where Montreal police were dealing with a homeless woman sleeping in a lane off Rachel St. While the police waited for an ambulance, one of them came over with a thermal blanket and covered the woman for warmth against the damp conditions.Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal GazetteApril 17, 2020: I just like the body language and the look on this woman’s face returning home after grocery shopping in Montreal during the early days of the pandemic. Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal GazetteJuly 19, 2020: Montrealers marched from Parc Lafontaine to the Palais de Justice in Montreal to bring awareness on sexual assaults of any kind, such as sexual coercion, sexual harassment, sexual violence and rape culture as a whole. Camila Vasquez, right, hugs her sister Mariana Vasquez after they told their story of sexual abuse, by a friend of the family who was “like an uncle” to them, in front of the Palais de Justice. I love the strength and courage it took for these two sisters to bare their souls to a crowd of supporters that they didn’t know. Photo by Dave Sidaway /Montreal Gazette
