Meeting with Elodie Le Pape from Photowalk Montreal

During the holidays, you have had the opportunity to discover our guest Instagrammer, Elodie Le Pape, who shared her best shots of the neighbourhood under the snow. Let's take a closer look at the journey of this photography enthusiast and her love for Old Montreal!

For Elodie, Old Montreal is more than just a neighbourhood: it’s a source of inspiration. “Old Montreal is a place that inspires me a lot when it comes to photography,” she explains. “Each season, there are new scenes that I love taking pictures of. And during the holidays, the alleys are filled with thousands of lights. For a photographer, that’s a unique opportunity that doesn’t happen every day!”

Old Montreal is a real gold mine for architecture enthusiasts but also for lovers of beautiful things and instagrammable pictures as well! And once Elodie realized this, it led her to create Photowalk Montreal where she and the public walk around Old Montreal to capture beautiful shots: “I created Photowalk Montreal mid-2017. It all started when I noticed that there were a lot of people living in Montreal that also love photography. I’m often alone when I practice my passion, so I wanted to meet other photo enthusiasts to explore the city with me.”

Through these photo walks, Elodie helps photography enthusiasts or people curious about photography to discover hidden and unknown corners of the neighbourhood. It all started as a hobby with her friends, but ultimately the interest in these strolls around the neighbourhood kept increasing: “I started my first photo walk with 5 friends, then my second one was with 20 friends/acquaintances… And then, I had more and more questions like “when is the next one?” Very quickly, I created a Facebook and Instagram page to make registrations easier and then a website to have everything in the same place. As of today, I’ve done around 25 walks!”

For Elodie, offering these photo walks in Old Montreal comes first and foremost from the pleasure of creating and sharing with people, and she insists that this is her main goal with Photowalk: “to help locals (re)discover their own city by showing them secrets corners, unknown neighbourhoods or places where people have preconceived ideas, through the lens of their camera! ”

Elodie does meticulous research before proposing each of her walks to the public: “The research, the creation of the itinerary, the communication, the search for partners if necessary, then finally transcription of the walk on the website… That often takes me around ten hours of work per trip,” explains the young woman.

Last year, she was able to organize 4 walks with Amis de la Montagne in order to show a new side of Mount Royal to the public, and this year, she also intends to partner with a guide from Montreal to introduce a historical aspect to her photo walks!

As for her favourite places in the historic district, here is what she had to say: “My top 3 in Old Montreal: Place d'Youville, St. Louis Street and the Dalhousie station located behind, and (it’s hard to stick to 3 places!) St. Paul Street, surely, because it offers an incredible view of the Bonsecours Market.”

If you are interested in a photo walk, do not hesitate to contact Elodie on the Photowalk Montreal Instagram account to book your spot!