Double Your Money

Dad did a few trick shots in his day, these being two examples. I don't know exactly how he did this, I assume a double exposure. Dad had a little spot in the house where he could rig up a small shooting area with black cloth and a couple of lights, then he'd turn the bathroom into a darkroom. The subject of these photos is my maternal grandmother, my mother's mother. My mom's family lived in England, and this was taken in 1962 during Granny's only trip to Canada. The odd thing is that these are the only pictures I've found of her visit.

Autumn in Cottage Country

Our family owned a cottage at Lake Wentworth, Quebec, for a few years in the 1960s. At the end of summer, the trees would change from green to a luscious panorama of reds and yellows. That's the family car; a 1962 Valiant. And yes, it has the latest in modern automotive technology; a push-button automatic transmission. That's a feature that really caught on, eh?

Flower Friday!

Fishbowl

Traditionally, the Victoria transit system makes changes to its service on Labour Day, and 1974 was no exception as the new 26 Crosstown route was introduced, and service to the Gordon Head area was revamped. While much adjusted since then, the basic routing on the Crosstown and Gordon Head service remains to this day. This shot was taken on Shelbourne Street at McKenzie Avenue in front of the University Heights Mall. The greenhouses you can see on the other side of the street through the buses windows are long gone now, replaced by condos. Serving the then-new 28 Majestic route in Gordon Head was venerable bus #794, a 1973 GM "New Look" diesel bus (also known as a GM Fishbowl). It only served Victoria streets 2 years before being transferred to the Vancouver fleet where it served out its days.

1974 Long Beach

So far, I've been mostly going through my father's slides. He liked shooting slides back in the day, because he found a place that would not only develop his slides, but also make a negative out of them, something that was pretty rare. He liked this because he had a dark room in the basement, and would make his own prints, but he could have the slides handy to show to family and friends. Many of the slides are 40 years old, some even 50. Amazingly, many are still in great shape. However, a few look like this 1974 photo of a surfer at Long Beach:

A little on the pinkish side. But with a few clicks of Photoshop, it looks like it was taken yesterday.

What's Bugging You?

Dad took this picture of a mosquito on his arm while we camping at Schoen Lake in 1977. How do you get a shot like that? Well, apart from a whole lot of patience, you need a whole bunch of gear. Here's a shot I took of Dad getting that shot.

Charlottetown

This picture represents a bit of a mystery. This is a street in Charlottetown in early 1971. I think City Hall is on the left. The mystery is, what was Dad doing there in the middle of Winter? We think he was looking for work. My parents had decided that it was time to leave Montreal as a result of the October Crisis, and he applied to a number of places across the country. We made a trip to Calgary around this time to check things out, but he went to Charlottetown by himself.

Flower Friday!

Dad

Today would have been Dad's 90th birthday, so it's time for another one of his self-portraits. It's 1964, and dad has set up the camera on a timer for a family portrait. Note his unerring sense of timing as he blinks just as the shutter goes off. Also, this is clearly where my fascination with dolls action figures began. This is probably the earliest photo of the five of us: my parents, my two sisters and myself.

And this one, not taken by my father, is probably the last one taken of the five of us, from Christmas 1998, a couple of years before he passed away.

The Redcoats Are Coming

In 1971, my cousin Rob graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. Mom, Dad and I drove own from Montreal for the graduation ceremony. Dad took the opportunity to take his camera along.
I remember that at one point in the ceremony, probably depicted in the picture below, the graduates were asked to step forward. Not understanding that the rest of the group were continuing on in their studies, I blurted out, "Hey, look at all the guys who flunked!" The fellow sitting beside us roared with laughter.

1969 Montreal West Station

This might be a picture that I took with my Dad's camera. I have two reasons for thinking this: a) I've always been drawn to receding angles and lines in my photos, and I'm always looking for that when I'm shooting buildings and objects; and b) whoever took this shot was low to the ground. I may have been tall for my age, but not as tall as my Dad, at least not at that age. Or I just made him kneel. That's not out of the question, either.