With Every Christmas Card I Write

We are beginning to excavate the wicker picnic hampers stuffed with memories of Christmases past. Uncovered was this little collection of Christmas card survivals - I'll let you judge if they deserved to live another season. Christmas cards were once a bigger deal (mail was a bigger deal). These paper labels were distributed by the Post Office in the… Read More

Explosion Memories

In three years it will be the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. Recently I came across a packet of material that accompanied an exhibit for the 60th anniversary. Got me thinking, in not a very orderly fashion, about my evolving understanding of the event. When I grew up in Halifax in the 50s it's… Read More

Old Mall / New Mall

Noticed that the Halifax Shopping Centre announced plans for some BIG renovations. This felt like the moment to trot out my snapshots of the mall in its original form. The Centre opened in 1962 and my photos were taken about three years later. It is hard to imagine that folks were excited about the pre-classic stage of shopping centres… Read More

The Place is Loaded with Rustic Charm

A couple of recent posts had images of Halifax businesses 30 or 40 years ago. I also got out of town a bit and photographed similar subjects around the province. I've never looked at my urban and rural images at the same time. Generally I think you can tell the difference. This tidy little shop was somewhere on the… Read More

Urination Infrastructure

On Twitter I noticed that interpreted reporter Frances Willick had spotted a cardboard urinal on (it looks like) Hollis Street. "Cardboard doesn't seem like a good idea here"  she mused. This reminded me that on the other coast we had seen an outdoor urinal made of stronger stuff.  In 2012 we spent  March in Vancouver to… Read More

Only the Strong Survive

Folks seemed to enjoy my last post of downtown commercial buildings in the 1960s and 70s.  That has encouraged me to put together this little collection of photos from the later 70s and 80s. After the mid 70s I generally took slides, because I no longer had access to a dark room, so now you… Read More

Boring Pictures of Halifax

In the late 1960s I saw a few photos by the American photographer Walker Evans.  I was particularly attracted to his images of quirky places of  business. Occasionally I'd take a picture with his influence in mind and also I was interested in making photos that were just dreary.  As a consequence my little collection of… Read More

The Perspiration of History

While out in the garage, trying to get the  bird feeders back into operation, I came across a full page newspaper ad from May 2000. The page had been saved because it was nicely designed and  captured a particular moment in time. The ad had been bought by the Urban Pest Management Council of Canada at… Read More

Grow Your Own

This time of year we start some indoor plants. Not those house plants that hang around for decades and are given embarrassing names. The mantra of these plants is be brief, be brilliant and be gone: sprouts to eat and paper whites to amaze. Sprouts appeared in the 60s and 70s as a staple of the Birkenstock crowd. Somehow… Read More