... The result was Facing the Eastside, an exhibition of Grabowski's photographs which opened in November at the Roundhouse Community Centre near the upscale condo developments in the centre of the city.

All of the portraits in Facing the Eastside are anonymous: they share a common plain backdrop and none of the subjects are identified in any way. This was the agreement Grabowski made with his sitters, who were willing to lend their appearances to the project but not their identities; and it was this arrangement that allowed Grabowski to present his subjects in a visual environment that belongs more to the history of photography than it does to the history of the neighbourhood.

... Ultimately, Mr. Grabowski's portraits strike me as less than Irving Penn's and more like those like Richard Avendon and even Edward Curtis. Both photographers are famous for laboring painstakingly to create the illusion that they have happened upon their subject's revelatory moment. Mr. Avendon's ruthless brilliance gave us the haunted faces of In the American West. Mr. Curtis gauzy romanticism gave us the noble savage. Mr. Grabowski's touch is lighter, no doubt, but his desire to channel his own intent through his subjects is every bit as present.