Mark and Buffie Irvine are inseparable, so it’s no surprise that the subject of one of Buffie’s entries into last summer’s Hope in Shadows photo competition—which placed in the Top 30—featured Mark.

The father-daughter duo are together a lot—shopping, walking, running errands and hanging out. That’s what was happening on the day in June 2019 when Buffie snapped this shot.

“We were just running around like we usually do… we were on Cordova Street, just outside the [Megaphone] office… I don’t know, just having fun,” Buffie recalls. “We were just out in the park and on our way back, and I was like, ‘I have one more picture left!’ And Dad turned around and looked at me and I went ‘click’.

“So it was just a wonderful moment of just being like, ‘this is my last concluding picture of my Papa, who was always my muse’.”

The theme for the calendar is “Belonging” and Buffie says the image of her dad reflects that.

“I belong with so many people, so many communities, but first and foremost, I do belong with family,” Buffie says. “And Dad is my very, very, very important family that I’m so happy to have in my life and have the fine, adventurous, curious relationship that we do have, just to go do whatever.”

Buffie adds that Mark—who is also a longtime Megaphone vendor—is a fantastic person to have brightening up your day, with the beautiful colour red, a little splash of yellow and being all casual, jacket flung over his shoulder. 

“Like James Dean,” Mark laughs.

Says Buffie simply: “It’s a picture that makes me feel joy.”     

Buffie Irvine is Gitxsan and Coast Salish, and was born in Vancouver and raised in the Downtown Eastside. She’s been involved with Megaphone and the Hope in Shadows calendar project for about eight years. 

Recently she has been enjoying beadwork and dabbling in home projects.

“All things… decorating, picking up furniture, fantasizing about refurnishing things, ripping apart things, making new things… mostly just creating in whatever way I can, or putting together little mosaics—just different craft products so I continually use that aspect of myself that I so appreciate. It’s not really any one thing.”

Both Buffie and Mark sell Megaphone publications on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.