Last week I wrote about Darren Bernaerdt who teaches Photoshop at Langara College. Each year Darren sends his students to the Vancouver Archives to look at old photographs, choose one that resonates with them, research it and then go out and photograph the same scene from the same angle and merge them together.
Four years ago Darren Bernaerdt decided to give photography students at Langara College a different kind of assignment. He sent them to Vancouver Archives to research 100-year-old photographs of the city, and then he put them on the streets to capture those same images, matching the exact perspective and angle of view.
While it could have been a really interesting then and now assignment, Bernaerdt was teaching Photoshop so he had the students put the old and new together and the finished results went into the Merging Time Exhibit at Vancouver Archives’ home at Vanier Park.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Bryan Adams has collected a ton of hardware over the years, but the one I find the most interesting is the City of Vancouver Heritage Award he was given in 1998 for transforming a derelict Gastown warehouse into a world class recording studio.
Casa Mia is on this year’s Vancouver Heritage House Tour. I finally got to tour it with my partner in crime Aaron Chapman
Casa Mia is featured in Sensational Vancouver: Built on Rum
Owned by Rum Runners:
Casa Mia must be one of Vancouver’s most storied old mansions, and at the moment, one of the most controversial.
I was standing on the 7th floor of the Regent Hotel a few weeks back when a rat the size of my miniature schnauzer blew past. I just managed to stop myself from vaulting on top of John Atkin’s shoulders (the tallest structure in the hallway). John, it turns out, doesn’t just know buildings and neighbourhoods, he also knows rats.
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to get in on a tour exploring several DTES buildings with Judy Graves, Tom Carter and John Atkin. Judy spent decades advocating for the homeless, and this is her stamping ground. Tom lives and paints from his downtown loft, and John lives in Strathcona, so I’m the only one from the ‘burbs (and with a driver’s licence as it turns out.)
We started at the Carnegie Community Centre, which is an amazing place that I’ve driven past thousands of times, but never ventured inside.
It was Anzac Day in Australia yesterday, an important national holiday back home that honours those who fought and were slaughtered at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. I was thinking of this when John Mackie’s story in the Vancouver Sun today caught my eye. A 12-page letter written by Victor Odlum and dated May 1, 1915 had found its way to MacLeod’s Books almost a century later.
You would think that if a couple of young entrepreneurs wanted to bring business to the Downtown east side, one that offered a safe haven from the streets, served healthy, affordable food, and breathed life back into an old icon, the City and the myriad of agencies that have made an industry out of the poor and troubled would be there to help.