Vancouver Downtown Eastside portraits a positive amid overdose crisis

It's become a Christmas tradition: photographers and make-up artists volunteering to take portraits of some of Vancouver's most vulnerable people.

For 2016, it cameat a dark time in the history of the city's Downtown Eastside, where hundreds of people have died from overdoses related to powerful opioids circulated on the street.

"I'd say things are really sad right now. So much death and grief and loss in our population," saidDr. Christy Sutherland at an outreach methadone clinic on Saturday next to a volunteer-run pop-up safe injection site.

Despite the crisis, the neighbourhood's annual portrait events took place.Photographers and make-up artists volunteered to try to bring a smile to the faces of those coping with poverty, homelessness and addiction.

with files from Deborah Goble.