Last Call

As North American cities continue to grow and downtown cores evolve into suburban shadows of their former urban selves, the shabbier realities of contemporary life at the citys heart are forced to migrate and disappear as villages are torn down, reimagined and redeveloped into upscale properties.

With a gentle touch, George Webber takes his camera into the mysterious half-light of these disappearing interior spaces, penetrating them with a thought-provoking humanity and then withdrawing without creating a ripple. This is an area that transcends place, lying between a citys mountain and prairie landscapes, a purgatory of dark and light, hope and despair.

Over a five-year period between 2004 and 2009, photographer George Webber hung out in Calgarys East Village. In what he describes as my little personal battle against time, he touched the feral heart of the place, capturing its gritty, shattered beauty with his camera.

Last Call is an unforgettable and astounding collection of colour photographs of Calgarys East Village in all of its lurid glory, along with touching and poignant excerpts from Webbers journals.

George Webber is a renowned documentary photographer whose previous books include Prairie Gothic (RMB, 2012), Last Call (RMB, 2010), A World Within: An Intimate Portrait of the Little Bow Hutterite Colony and People of the Blood: A Decade-long Photographic Journey on a Canadian Reserve. He is the recipient of numerous National Magazine Awards (Canada), two Awards of Excellence from the Society for News Design (USA) and the International Documentary Photography Award (Korea). His photographs have been featured in American Photo, Canadian Geographic, Lenswork Quarterly, Photolife, The New York Times and Swerve magazine. In 1999 he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in recognition of his contributions to the visual arts in Canada. George lives in Calgary, Alberta.