Adrian Morillo, Hi Montreal

Ellie John
May 13, 2016
2 min read

Spanish Photographer Adrian Morillo moved to Montreal in June 2015, he speaks to WAYFARER of his experiences of moving from Spain to Montreal.

What do you try to capture in your photographs?

Montreal is a city where Canadians feel as foreigners and Europeans at home, an island where sometimes you feel yourself in a North American suburb, other times on a busy New York Avenue, and others in a small town in the north of France. There are the politics of French-speaking and immigrants, separatists and Anglophones. All these things construct a city made up of reflections of so many places, yet still so unique. I have managed capture, in a visual diary, what I have found Montreal to be since moving here, a city with a lot of immigration and a lot of different moods in all it’s neighbourhoods.

What is your favourite part of the city and why?

My favourite part of the city is Little Italy. It is a neighbourhood where the main part of population are Italians that move to Montreal in the sixties and their sons, so you can find restaurants, shops and a style of live very Mediterranean in a central area of Montreal. Sometimes I forget I’ve left Spain. Italians and Spanish are so similar!

How do you work as a photographer?

I work with my phone and constantly take pictures as I go about daily life - when I go to do groceries, when I go to parties… It is like a diary, it is not prepared and I think that is the beauty of this project.

What compels you to document your surroundings?

Photographing my surroundings is something very important to me. It allows me to better understand the people that live around me. For me, photography is a key that opens a lot of knowledge about society and human beings. I wanted to capture my day to day experiences of this new place I was living, that is so different from my hometown of Cadiz, Spain. Whilst the places that I visit are important to me, what makes me grow as a photographer is the people. I don’t think I could have a memorable experience in a beautiful place if there’s not interesting people that I can meet there.