Monday, June 27, 2011

lonetree standing


 sometimes it is enough to be a lone botanical sentry stationed high above it all...
[on West 1st Avenue off Burrard Street]

 sometimes it is enough to be the one well-groomed specimen gracing a modest yard...
[at East 38th Avenue and Rhodes Street]

sometimes it is enough to be a sidewalk loner unperturbed by a neurotic stronghold...
[on Powell Street]


Monday, June 20, 2011

seaforth detailed


75 years forth and the Seaforth Armoury still commands its whitewashed and castellated presence at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge - a protective fort and comfort zone for The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, a Primary Reserve Infantry which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year...
It is a building that I have been curious about but never had the urge to go right up to and really train my savage eye upon until this sunny weekday morning when I was nearby and had the time [and courage!] to approach...



There was a recruiting board set up outside the large front and side entrance doors and as I rode up on my bike to peek through the grated side door window, the door opened and a friendly reservist* welcomed me in...


He was kind enough to give me a tour of the great hall and adjoining rooms and  let me take some pictures...
I am always excited to be in an older building with its original interior still intact and retaining the atmosphere from another era...
The Seaforth Armoury was designed by the long-standing architectural partnership of John McCarter and George Nairne, [who had also built the downtown art deco landmark Marine Building in 1930 and who would eventually erect the modernist General Post Office building on Georgia Street in the 1950's], with the completion date in 1936 [the Armoury is now listed as a Class A Heritage Building]...







 
within the sparse gymnasium room hangs a lone black punching bag, almost poignant in its symbolic and literal stoic-ness, while the silhouette of an armed soldier lurks above...

[I was told that the recruitment age is from 16 to 55... - so I still have "lots" of time to think about it!]


*Thank you to Michael the Reservist for his time and generous info session.

Monday, June 13, 2011

eyeing windows

Who is watching me from behind glazed house-eyes when I aim my camera at them?...
nobody has opened up their windows [yet!] to confront me for imposing my lens towards them,
perhaps because sometimes they are all too oblivious to my intrusion!

 soundproofed - and sightless...
[at "Grave Level" - by Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery off Fraser Street - where an all-day multi-band infestation rocked the house last summer - and almost woke the dead!] 

 industrialized benign neglect...
[on that artist menagerie and tourista destination, Granville Island] 

 glass-blocked intervention...
[at the aging yet still life-supporting Vancouver General Hospital on West 12th Avenue] 

 seasonal adaptive decorama...
[on the determinedly DIY Commercial Drive] 

 sandwiched and grilled...
[on the warmed-up but still crunchy part of Cambie Street off Hastings] 

ghostly belle of the ball...
[sometimes "observed" floating around the grand ballroom of the Vancouver Hotel on Georgia Street]

Sunday, June 5, 2011

marking my clark park:: part IV


 the unstinting promise of summer...

from a relinquished spring...