Sunday, February 01, 2009



I took this photograph in 1984. While in my youth (in the 60s ) I would have never been caught going anywhere without a camera, by the 80s I only had one with me when when working for a paying magazine or corporate job. Through the years I have attempted to hang a little camera around my neck and take pictures wherever I go. I get ambitious and then frustrated thinking that I should have brought a tripod, or another lens, or colour film, etc. Within days my determination to have a camera with me falters and that's it.

Around 1980 I obtained a good deal on a Minolta camera that could accomodate Leica thread lenses. My Minolta CLE came with a wide angle, a normal lens and a telephoto. For a while I went everywhere with it. When I saw this hole (the corner of West Georgia with Howe I snapped a few. In retrospect I should have had the camera on a tripod as the picture is slightly fuzzy.

The hole became the Bank of British Columbia and its last director was Edgar Kaiser Jr. The bank folded and was taken over by the Hong Kong Bank.

Yesterday while going through the Stephen Drake files (for yesterday's blog) I found an envelope that did not belong there. It said:

Bank of Hong Kong
Hong Kong Bank
Construction hole

Every time I think of this bank and of the Hotel Vancouver (or is it the Vancouver Hotel?) I have the problem. That is why the envelope had both names.
I had lost the two negatives around 1990. Losing any of my pictures is painful. I am glad to have found them. Notice on the top right the name of the bar, Bradley's. It was run by Gary Taylor. It was a place that I haunted for some years.