Up the Down Escalator by Gabriel Francis at Franklin FOTO

January 2026 (on view for the full month)

Reception: January 3, 2026, 5 to 8 p.m.
Featuring live music by Growing Pains

Franklin FOTO
8953 N Lombard St,
Portland, OR 97203
Wednesday – Sunday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
https://www.franklinfoto.org/
Free

Up the Down Escalator is a street photography and handmade collage exhibition by Gabriel Francis, presented as Franklin FOTO’s January exhibition.

The work invites viewers to slow down, look closer, and reconsider what we define as beautiful by centering moments and individuals often overlooked or dismissed. Francis is drawn to struggle and resilience, and to the contrast between hardship and the strength people carry through it. Emotional, mental, physical, financial, and spiritual challenges are treated not as spectacle, but as shared human realities, approached with care, dignity, and respect. “These photographs are not meant to be sensational,” Francis notes. “They are meant to be seen without judgment or pity, and appreciated as reflections of our shared humanity.”

In early 2025, Francis expanded the project through a series of handmade collages that combine photographic prints with found and weathered materials. Inspired by boarded up buildings, notes left on walls and benches, and objects discovered on the ground, the collages create tactile environments for the photographs to exist within. Text and material fragments extend the work beyond documentation, allowing it to function as lived artifact.

Gabriel Francis is a photographer whose practice centers on human connection, public space, and emotional honesty. Grounded in curiosity and movement, his process is shaped by walking, riding public transit, talking with strangers, and sustained engagement with everyday environments. Through photography and mixed media, Francis explores the tension between light and dark, resilience and vulnerability, and the shared realities that bind us together.