Yesterday, I posted about the work of John Allison, a fine-art photographer who has taken thousands of images of the city in an effort to track its ongoing transformation (read it here). In this interview, he describes why he does it, the buildings he wishes were still standing—and the one that may not be long for this world.

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We MOV staffers are constantly amazed and inspired by the archival-like documentation of Vancouver happening online; social media has radically altered the landscape. It’s a frenetic, messy, diverse, ongoing collection, and, perhaps unexpectedly, a high-tech throwback to the city’s original methods of record-keeping, when keen locals like Major James Skitt Matthews (later the city’s volunteer archivist) amassed hard copies of photographs, artifacts, news clippings, and ephemera as a hobby.

I recently came across the extraordinary work of John Allison, a fine-art photographer who’s worked in the photographic business for decades, first as a darkroom technician—even printing Jeff Wall’s Ilfochromes for “three or four years,” he estimates—and now in the digital realm, specializing in large-format printing.

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Not to delve back into the billboard issue—see last week’s blog post on the subject—but I came across this swell image on Flickr and just had to post it. What a sign! What a street. Many thanks to Flickr user lookingatdamascus for the upload. A larger version of the image is linked on their photostream here.

It’s not the original “W” that crowned the Woodward’s building, of course (that “W” will be displayed inside the redeveloped building), but what a symbol! The new version, consisting of 6,700 lbs of steel and lit by LEDs, was hoisted to the top of the building yesterday. Media coverage abounded. The Georgia Straight has a good summary on their website with links to video; click here for it. Coverage on CBC.ca links to past articles on the—complex? storied? controversial? acclaimed?—redevelopment project.

This image was taken by Honey Mae Caffin. Her Flickr photostream (linked here) has other equally striking shots of the event. We loved them all.

Duncan Rawlinson took this great shot from his balcony the other day and sent it over (larger image available on Flickr, linked here). Love it. Definitely a day brightener.

Rawlinson recently launched the site KitsKam, where a webcam snaps a shot of his view every minute. It’s a very nice angle of the Museum, especially right now with all the autumn leaves in the foreground. Check it out—and thanks DR!

We’re always looking for images of Vancouver—new, old, beautiful, strange, revelatory. Browsing photostreams on Flickr—a site invented locally, no less—has become a pastime at the Museum.

Vancouverites, it would seem, spend an inordinate amount of time photographing their surrounds. Two reasons, the first one obvious: we’re a photogenic city. Two: we’re a young city, and in so many ways still settling in. Some of our most populous neighbourhoods are only a handful of years old; others have been redeveloped many, many times over, and have no particular aesthetic. A typical Vancouver city block might include an arts-and-crafts-style cottage, a mid-century bungalow, and an 1980s-era, seashell-pink, stucco-clad two-storey. On so many occasions, you pass a new building on your daily commute and can’t recall what was there prior. Local photography has become a way to keep track; a powerful cataloguing tool, driven by photographers, both amateur and professional, who actively share their work online.

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