* * *
Here is the banner we worked up to celebrate Imagining Winnipeg's four nominations for the 2013 Manitoba Book Awards. Fun!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
MBA banner!
* * *
Here is the banner we worked up to celebrate Imagining Winnipeg's four nominations for the 2013 Manitoba Book Awards. Fun!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Imagining Winnipeg gets FOUR nominations!
The Manitoba Book Award shortlists were announced last week!
And Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L.B. Foote by Esyllt W. Jones was nominated for FOUR Manitoba Book Awards! CONGRATS to Esyllt!
Imagining Winnipeg was shortlisted in the McNally Robinson
Book of the Year, Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Carol Shields
Winnipeg Book Award, and Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba
Publisher categories.
The awards will be presented at the Manitoba Book Awards gala, on Sunday April 28th at the West End Cultural Centre and hosted by Ismaila Alfa. Doors open at 7:15 p.m., with the ceremony beginning at 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
And Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L.B. Foote by Esyllt W. Jones was nominated for FOUR Manitoba Book Awards! CONGRATS to Esyllt!
Imagining Winnipeg was shortlisted in the McNally Robinson
Book of the Year, Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Carol Shields
Winnipeg Book Award, and Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba
Publisher categories.The awards will be presented at the Manitoba Book Awards gala, on Sunday April 28th at the West End Cultural Centre and hosted by Ismaila Alfa. Doors open at 7:15 p.m., with the ceremony beginning at 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Monday, February 4, 2013
A year (and a bit) of L.B. Foote
A little more than a year ago, our press launched this blog dedicated to the photography of L.B. Foote. Over the last 14 months, guided, corralled, and inspired by the irreplaceable Ariel Gordon, nearly three dozen contributors have written about Foote and his photos. We’ve had contributions from journalists, visual artists, historians, archivists, musicians, film makers, collectors, and of course photographers, all riffing off whatever Foote inspired in them.
Over the year, as we worked with Esyllt Jones on her book Imagining Winnipeg, these different voices became a kind of running commentary on the book. I want to thank all of the blog writers for their contributions — it’s been a delight to discover what new side road or even back alley each of you would take us down. Now, as a new year begins, it is time for us to bring this regular blog to an end as well.
How to explain the persistent appeal of Foote’s photographs to so many different people? Photographers admire his art, and I think many also respect his stamina – it’s hard work being a freelance photographer, always on move to the next job. I suspect historians and archivists are fans because they don’t often have such beautifully composed and arresting photographs to work with. And for the rest of us, I think, it has something to do with what Guy Maddin calls Foote’s “peculiar and ennobling eye.” How is it possible that one photographer could record in one place such an abundance of the odd, the majestic, the ridiculous, and the painful?
To be honest, nostalgia of a sort also plays a part in our fascination with the world Foote chronicles. Those of us who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s (and were lucky enough to be introduced to Foote by the likes of Bob Lower and Doug Smith) discovered in Foote’s photographs the big, bustling prairie metropolis whose traces and ghosts we could still glimpse. His was the city for which those magnificently overblown public and commercial buildings were built, like the Legislature building and the banks with Roman columns. Foote’s city seemed to be a “live wire city,” its streets jammed with people, like the crowd watching Houdini or the 1919 strikers, in which a dynamic downtown was the hub of civic life. It seemed like a vanished place worth missing. At the same time, Foote’s photos also made that Winnipeg a place hard to take seriously — how else to react to his many portraits of the city’s powerful decked out in beanies, fezzes, and grass skirts, or dining at the bottom of sewers? Even through the filter of this nostalgia, though, there are still many parts of Foote’s world that remain far too familiar in the city we live in today, especially his images of inequality and smugness.
Since we’re coming to the end of the regular Lost Foote Photos blog, it seems appropriate to end with a photo of the Foote family also celebrating the end of a year—in this case New Year’s Day dinner 1940 (reproduced on page 149 of Imagining Winnipeg).
Here the Footes are gathered for a festive dinner, in the same cramped dining room that L.B.’s son Eric and his jazz band hammed it up in thirteen years earlier (page 109). Eric (with glasses) is now a husband and father, and his wife and two little daughters are at the table, along with Mary Foote, L.B.’s wife. We think the man with the moustache may be L.B.’s other son, who had moved to Detroit in the 1930s and was perhaps home for a visit.
I like all of the little traces of everyday life in this photo. Although the Christmas tree is gone, there are still paper holiday ornaments throughout the room — the tin foil stars twirling down from the light fixture are an especially nice touch. The sheet music on the piano includes what seems to be a simple arrangement of Christmas music on the piano (perhaps for one of the granddaughters to play?). If you look closely, you’ll see that the other music on the piano is “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Walt Disney’s great Pinocchio, which is curious because that film won’t be released until a month after this photo is taken. At the centre of the table is a smallish fowl – its hard to tell if it’s a turkey, chicken, or goose — and not too far away seems to be a bottle of HP sauce, that once ubiquitous part of many WASP meals. There’s no sign of wine or beer or other alcoholic libations, so presumably this was a teetotal household (it looks to me, though, that the older, visiting son at the end of the table looks like he could use a drink about now). Those of us who still live in drafty old Winnipeg frame houses like the Foote home on Gertrude Avenue will appreciate the heavy curtains around the window and covering the doorway — anything to keep those Manitoba winter winds out.
All and all, this seems like a modest but comfortable household, with nothing remarkable going on. And yet that this was likely not an easy time for the Foote household. Thanks to Mary Horodyski’s recent discovery in theCity of Winnipeg archives we know that just a few years before Foote was desperate for work. In early 1933, he had lost his long-time downtown studio to fire. We don’t know what exactly was lost in that fire, but it must have included much of what he needed to make a living. As Mary found, nearly two years later Foote wrote to the city waterworks department, asking (actually pleading) for work. This was the photographer who had famously photographed royalty and visiting celebrities just a few years before, but who now had to come cap in hand to ask for the chance to photograph a municipal construction site.
This New Year’s Day dinner comes less than five years after that letter. Foote did get the contract to shoot the water treatment building. But the photos he took after that are of increasingly smaller and more modest. He’s no longer asked to record the homes and formal dinners of the city’s rich and powerful. By the late 1930s, his photographs are more likely in smaller middle-class homes or apartments, much like his own. When he photographs businesses, they are now small as well, like a hatchery on Logan Avenue (page 145). On New Year’s Day in 1940, L.B. Foote would have been 67 years old. He would have gone through all types of travails, including all of the usual indignities of someone who works freelance. And he would have to keep working well into his seventies — in the 1950s he would persuade the Free Press to carry an irregular column highlighting some of his “olden days” photos.
L.B. Foote didn’t take many photos of his family. In the over 2,000 photos at the Manitoba Archives, there are no more than a dozen Foote family photos. These include the wonderful shot of the Footes swimming atthe original YMCA on Portage Avenue (in what later became the Birks Building) and a mysterious one of the Foote family camping on a southern California beach around 1912 (what were they doing there?).
Because he took so few photographs of his family, it does make you wonder why he decided to record this particular family dinner at this particular time? Its hard to think that this might have been a time to celebrate — age and finances being what they were, not to mention with the Second World War just beginning in the background. But despite all that we can conjecture about his circumstances that day, Foote still has that slightly cocky half-smile that shows up in his other self-portraits. In spite of everything, he’s still willing to document his family and their progress into a new year, and seems to be doing it with some élan.
We are likely never going to know very much about the man behind the camera in these thousands of photos, but that spirit and that face—energetic, optimistic, with a twist of either irony or mischief—seems to persist each time we catch a glimpse of him. And it’s that spirit, I think, that keeps us coming back to his fascinating and baffling treasure trove of photographs.
- David Carr
Over the year, as we worked with Esyllt Jones on her book Imagining Winnipeg, these different voices became a kind of running commentary on the book. I want to thank all of the blog writers for their contributions — it’s been a delight to discover what new side road or even back alley each of you would take us down. Now, as a new year begins, it is time for us to bring this regular blog to an end as well.
How to explain the persistent appeal of Foote’s photographs to so many different people? Photographers admire his art, and I think many also respect his stamina – it’s hard work being a freelance photographer, always on move to the next job. I suspect historians and archivists are fans because they don’t often have such beautifully composed and arresting photographs to work with. And for the rest of us, I think, it has something to do with what Guy Maddin calls Foote’s “peculiar and ennobling eye.” How is it possible that one photographer could record in one place such an abundance of the odd, the majestic, the ridiculous, and the painful?To be honest, nostalgia of a sort also plays a part in our fascination with the world Foote chronicles. Those of us who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s (and were lucky enough to be introduced to Foote by the likes of Bob Lower and Doug Smith) discovered in Foote’s photographs the big, bustling prairie metropolis whose traces and ghosts we could still glimpse. His was the city for which those magnificently overblown public and commercial buildings were built, like the Legislature building and the banks with Roman columns. Foote’s city seemed to be a “live wire city,” its streets jammed with people, like the crowd watching Houdini or the 1919 strikers, in which a dynamic downtown was the hub of civic life. It seemed like a vanished place worth missing. At the same time, Foote’s photos also made that Winnipeg a place hard to take seriously — how else to react to his many portraits of the city’s powerful decked out in beanies, fezzes, and grass skirts, or dining at the bottom of sewers? Even through the filter of this nostalgia, though, there are still many parts of Foote’s world that remain far too familiar in the city we live in today, especially his images of inequality and smugness.
Since we’re coming to the end of the regular Lost Foote Photos blog, it seems appropriate to end with a photo of the Foote family also celebrating the end of a year—in this case New Year’s Day dinner 1940 (reproduced on page 149 of Imagining Winnipeg).
Here the Footes are gathered for a festive dinner, in the same cramped dining room that L.B.’s son Eric and his jazz band hammed it up in thirteen years earlier (page 109). Eric (with glasses) is now a husband and father, and his wife and two little daughters are at the table, along with Mary Foote, L.B.’s wife. We think the man with the moustache may be L.B.’s other son, who had moved to Detroit in the 1930s and was perhaps home for a visit.
I like all of the little traces of everyday life in this photo. Although the Christmas tree is gone, there are still paper holiday ornaments throughout the room — the tin foil stars twirling down from the light fixture are an especially nice touch. The sheet music on the piano includes what seems to be a simple arrangement of Christmas music on the piano (perhaps for one of the granddaughters to play?). If you look closely, you’ll see that the other music on the piano is “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Walt Disney’s great Pinocchio, which is curious because that film won’t be released until a month after this photo is taken. At the centre of the table is a smallish fowl – its hard to tell if it’s a turkey, chicken, or goose — and not too far away seems to be a bottle of HP sauce, that once ubiquitous part of many WASP meals. There’s no sign of wine or beer or other alcoholic libations, so presumably this was a teetotal household (it looks to me, though, that the older, visiting son at the end of the table looks like he could use a drink about now). Those of us who still live in drafty old Winnipeg frame houses like the Foote home on Gertrude Avenue will appreciate the heavy curtains around the window and covering the doorway — anything to keep those Manitoba winter winds out.
All and all, this seems like a modest but comfortable household, with nothing remarkable going on. And yet that this was likely not an easy time for the Foote household. Thanks to Mary Horodyski’s recent discovery in theCity of Winnipeg archives we know that just a few years before Foote was desperate for work. In early 1933, he had lost his long-time downtown studio to fire. We don’t know what exactly was lost in that fire, but it must have included much of what he needed to make a living. As Mary found, nearly two years later Foote wrote to the city waterworks department, asking (actually pleading) for work. This was the photographer who had famously photographed royalty and visiting celebrities just a few years before, but who now had to come cap in hand to ask for the chance to photograph a municipal construction site.
This New Year’s Day dinner comes less than five years after that letter. Foote did get the contract to shoot the water treatment building. But the photos he took after that are of increasingly smaller and more modest. He’s no longer asked to record the homes and formal dinners of the city’s rich and powerful. By the late 1930s, his photographs are more likely in smaller middle-class homes or apartments, much like his own. When he photographs businesses, they are now small as well, like a hatchery on Logan Avenue (page 145). On New Year’s Day in 1940, L.B. Foote would have been 67 years old. He would have gone through all types of travails, including all of the usual indignities of someone who works freelance. And he would have to keep working well into his seventies — in the 1950s he would persuade the Free Press to carry an irregular column highlighting some of his “olden days” photos.
L.B. Foote didn’t take many photos of his family. In the over 2,000 photos at the Manitoba Archives, there are no more than a dozen Foote family photos. These include the wonderful shot of the Footes swimming atthe original YMCA on Portage Avenue (in what later became the Birks Building) and a mysterious one of the Foote family camping on a southern California beach around 1912 (what were they doing there?).
Because he took so few photographs of his family, it does make you wonder why he decided to record this particular family dinner at this particular time? Its hard to think that this might have been a time to celebrate — age and finances being what they were, not to mention with the Second World War just beginning in the background. But despite all that we can conjecture about his circumstances that day, Foote still has that slightly cocky half-smile that shows up in his other self-portraits. In spite of everything, he’s still willing to document his family and their progress into a new year, and seems to be doing it with some élan.
We are likely never going to know very much about the man behind the camera in these thousands of photos, but that spirit and that face—energetic, optimistic, with a twist of either irony or mischief—seems to persist each time we catch a glimpse of him. And it’s that spirit, I think, that keeps us coming back to his fascinating and baffling treasure trove of photographs.
- David Carr
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Book chat / Slide show
* * *
I've literally taken a page from the Winnipeg Public Library's latest newsletter so that I can share details around Esyllt W. Jones' upcoming events at the Henderson and Louis Riel libraries.
If you haven't heard Esyllt speak on L.B. Foote's photographs and their place in Winnipeg's history - and you really should - here's your chance!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Found Foote Photo #14: Labour Day, Part Two
"Late last August, just in time for Labour Day, I shared what is called a 'real photo' postcard by L. B. Foote.
The image shows some Stonewall residents, back in 1913, apparently preparing for their annual Labour Day parade. As an avid collector of Manitoba postcards, I have only occasionally come across any by Foote. While he did occasionally produce postcards, Foote was by no means prolific.
We postcard collectors, more officially known as 'deltiologists,' scour our worlds in search of items to add to our collections. Admittedly an odd lot, you’ll find us poking around garage sales, flea markets, auctions and antique shops. Nowadays we’ll often spend our evenings scouring internet sources like eBay. Egged on by the occasional thrill of acquiring a rare card, we likely have a lot in common with folks who play the slots. That Labour Day card by Foote was a “payday” for me – a rare treat.
Those of us who specialize in historic Manitoba postcards quickly become amateur detectives and 'accidental' historians. As is true of the Foote photographs of Winnipeg, the cards we acquire teach us about the past and many challenge us to discover even more. As an example; after I submitted Stonewall postcard to this blog, I noticed that the license plate on one of the automobiles was visible amidst its decorations – number 2828. I contacted a friend who has catalogued automobile license plates and vehicle owners from 1912. I learned that this vehicle was owned by William A. Williamson, born in Manitoba. In 1912, he was 26 years old, single, and employed as a clerk in a hardware store at Stonewall. That is likely William behind the wheel.
While Foote postcards are rare, lightning sometimes strikes twice. About a month ago, I encountered and acquired yet another one! Very surprisingly, it was taken in Stonewall on the same day as my earlier postcard – and shows the actual parade in progress. The parade is being led by two of the largest floats. The first, a horse-drawn canopied float is identified (by a banner in front of the lead horses) as “Presbyterian S.S.” (Sunday School?). Directly behind it is a self-propelled float in the shape of a boat, likely constructed over an automobile. Also shown in this image, on the left side, is Stonewall’s Canadian Pacific Hotel which was constructed in 1880.
Once again, a thankful salute to L. B. – for a lifetime of work that now enables us to retrace and reconstruct our own 'forgotten' history."
- Rob McInnes, Postcard Accumulator and Purveyor
* * *
Though this blog is shutting down, we thought we'd share one last 'found' Foote, again from Rob McInnes.
I will miss being able to share the contents of Rob's emails. But am consoled by things like the Manitoba Historical Maps flickr site, the Vintage Winnipeg page on Facebook, and even the sales of Imagining Winnipeg.
But do try to come out to the two final library visits, won't you? If you haven't heard Esyllt speak yet on this book and these photos, you've missed something...
The image shows some Stonewall residents, back in 1913, apparently preparing for their annual Labour Day parade. As an avid collector of Manitoba postcards, I have only occasionally come across any by Foote. While he did occasionally produce postcards, Foote was by no means prolific. 
We postcard collectors, more officially known as 'deltiologists,' scour our worlds in search of items to add to our collections. Admittedly an odd lot, you’ll find us poking around garage sales, flea markets, auctions and antique shops. Nowadays we’ll often spend our evenings scouring internet sources like eBay. Egged on by the occasional thrill of acquiring a rare card, we likely have a lot in common with folks who play the slots. That Labour Day card by Foote was a “payday” for me – a rare treat.Those of us who specialize in historic Manitoba postcards quickly become amateur detectives and 'accidental' historians. As is true of the Foote photographs of Winnipeg, the cards we acquire teach us about the past and many challenge us to discover even more. As an example; after I submitted Stonewall postcard to this blog, I noticed that the license plate on one of the automobiles was visible amidst its decorations – number 2828. I contacted a friend who has catalogued automobile license plates and vehicle owners from 1912. I learned that this vehicle was owned by William A. Williamson, born in Manitoba. In 1912, he was 26 years old, single, and employed as a clerk in a hardware store at Stonewall. That is likely William behind the wheel.
While Foote postcards are rare, lightning sometimes strikes twice. About a month ago, I encountered and acquired yet another one! Very surprisingly, it was taken in Stonewall on the same day as my earlier postcard – and shows the actual parade in progress. The parade is being led by two of the largest floats. The first, a horse-drawn canopied float is identified (by a banner in front of the lead horses) as “Presbyterian S.S.” (Sunday School?). Directly behind it is a self-propelled float in the shape of a boat, likely constructed over an automobile. Also shown in this image, on the left side, is Stonewall’s Canadian Pacific Hotel which was constructed in 1880.
Once again, a thankful salute to L. B. – for a lifetime of work that now enables us to retrace and reconstruct our own 'forgotten' history."
- Rob McInnes, Postcard Accumulator and Purveyor
* * *
Though this blog is shutting down, we thought we'd share one last 'found' Foote, again from Rob McInnes.
I will miss being able to share the contents of Rob's emails. But am consoled by things like the Manitoba Historical Maps flickr site, the Vintage Winnipeg page on Facebook, and even the sales of Imagining Winnipeg.
But do try to come out to the two final library visits, won't you? If you haven't heard Esyllt speak yet on this book and these photos, you've missed something...
Monday, January 21, 2013
MORE Library Events!
By special request Esyllt W. Jones will be doing two more events at Winnipeg’s public libraries this winter:
February 5, 6:30 pm
Henderson Library, 1-1050 Henderson Highway.
Book Chat and Slide Show from Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L.B. Foote.
February 28, 6:30 pm
Louis Riel Library, 1168 Dakota Street.
Book Chat and Slide Show
As you'll recall, we did two events this fall, at the Millennium Library and Westwood Library. They were great fun in addition to being well-attended, so the WPL asked us if we could consider doing a few more...
February 5, 6:30 pm
Henderson Library, 1-1050 Henderson Highway.
Book Chat and Slide Show from Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L.B. Foote.
February 28, 6:30 pm
Louis Riel Library, 1168 Dakota Street.
Book Chat and Slide Show
As you'll recall, we did two events this fall, at the Millennium Library and Westwood Library. They were great fun in addition to being well-attended, so the WPL asked us if we could consider doing a few more...
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Monday, December 24, 2012
Interviewing Esyllt: part three
6) Was it difficult to select 150 images from the thousands in the Archives of Manitoba?
Yes! David and Glenn Bergen from the press and I spent hours down there. We looked at literally EVERY photograph in the provincial collection, which is not even all the Foote photographs in existence. Many of them are simply extraordinary. Everyone should go down there and look at them.
7) What’s your favourite image in the book?
My favourite is a photograph I write about in the introduction. It appears on page 32 of the book. It is a woman in Aboriginal dress, her hair in braids, smoking a pipe. Many of Foote’s images are technically almost perfect. This one is partly hazy and has a ghost-like blur on one side, and a little girl in a white party dress. The woman is a mystery to me, and I like that. I don’t think history should be about definitive answers. Sometimes the questions are far more interesting.
8) What's next for you? What are you working on now, beyond the collections?
I’ve been working on a book about the men and women who designed Saskatchewan’s first medicare policies, after Tommy Douglas was elected in 1944. There are two Winnipeggers in it, actually. It is called Red Medicine: Transnational Lives and the Birth of Medicare.
After it is finished, I want to write a book about my father. He was a music teacher, a Welshman. His family members were Welsh nationalists. He taught me a lot about curiosity and independence of thought, but also tolerance. We lived in rural Saskatchewan, where he built rock gardens, took me bird watching, drove a turquoise Peugeot, and wore a Sherlock Holmes-style hat and a British overcoat to work. As you can imagine, he was considered a total weirdo. This never bothered him. He developed Alzheimer’s Disease when he was in his fifties. Last year, I inherited his old records, which he often played in the house when I was young. My plan is to write my memories of him one record at a time. My partner Todd and I are building a cottage on the beautiful Whitemouth River, and I plan to listen to my dad’s records and write a sort of biography, which will also be a history of an immigrant life. I am going to start with Peter Ustinov’s classic recording of Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.”
That record used to scare me to death.
Yes! David and Glenn Bergen from the press and I spent hours down there. We looked at literally EVERY photograph in the provincial collection, which is not even all the Foote photographs in existence. Many of them are simply extraordinary. Everyone should go down there and look at them.
7) What’s your favourite image in the book?
My favourite is a photograph I write about in the introduction. It appears on page 32 of the book. It is a woman in Aboriginal dress, her hair in braids, smoking a pipe. Many of Foote’s images are technically almost perfect. This one is partly hazy and has a ghost-like blur on one side, and a little girl in a white party dress. The woman is a mystery to me, and I like that. I don’t think history should be about definitive answers. Sometimes the questions are far more interesting. 8) What's next for you? What are you working on now, beyond the collections?
I’ve been working on a book about the men and women who designed Saskatchewan’s first medicare policies, after Tommy Douglas was elected in 1944. There are two Winnipeggers in it, actually. It is called Red Medicine: Transnational Lives and the Birth of Medicare.
After it is finished, I want to write a book about my father. He was a music teacher, a Welshman. His family members were Welsh nationalists. He taught me a lot about curiosity and independence of thought, but also tolerance. We lived in rural Saskatchewan, where he built rock gardens, took me bird watching, drove a turquoise Peugeot, and wore a Sherlock Holmes-style hat and a British overcoat to work. As you can imagine, he was considered a total weirdo. This never bothered him. He developed Alzheimer’s Disease when he was in his fifties. Last year, I inherited his old records, which he often played in the house when I was young. My plan is to write my memories of him one record at a time. My partner Todd and I are building a cottage on the beautiful Whitemouth River, and I plan to listen to my dad’s records and write a sort of biography, which will also be a history of an immigrant life. I am going to start with Peter Ustinov’s classic recording of Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.”That record used to scare me to death.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Favourite Foote Photos: PJ Burton
My father was born in 1927
into the sepia and grey-toned world that Foote's photos captured like a
bug in a mason jar. So many interesting things going on in there. It was
a small commercial miracle, notewothy and slightly impossible. In the
forties, mini-entrepreneurs stalked the streets of every city of any
size and offered to "take your picture", then hand you a fancy calling
card announcing where the results could be purchased. Say, at a near by
department store where you may become inclined to browse. Well, not
everyone had cameras and the alchemy that is photography gave one
existential pause.
"I was over there, but now I'm here, yet I can
see myself as I have recently been." Or, more astonishingly, I can see
them as they were; a handy portable piece of witchcraft on paper where
even the deceased live in permanent evidence of what we did that day.
My
grandfather was born in 1892 and fully inhabited the world Foote knew.
He was a full-share partner in the development of that world. They were
kids in Brandon which, at the time, had a population of maybe seven or
eight thousand primarily Britishers who took pride in their sense of
organization, and for the most part, always wore a specific kind of hat.
He went off to war in one, he and my great uncle, lying about their age
(they were only 16) but that didn't prevent him from being capture by
the Germans and spending many months in an unexpectedly accommodating
P.O.W. camp. There were amenities: musical instruments and some guy from
a nearby village who, like Foote, would take the band's photo so you
could send it home to the missus.
So Foote and the people like him, had a new gadget of fascination and anything was a reasonable target from the mundane to the most cunning of stunts. Some of Foote's works clearly predates "Everyone say 'cheese'" and its subjects appear to just mildly tolerate the invasive box while others are clearly posed, amused and ready to have even more great fun!
My father's great chum in Brandon was a lad named John Robertson. Together, they would run around the back lanes and streets of the west side of Brandon. Don't expect that they were up to mischief; they were just running around unfettered by the constraints of the mantle of responsibility that came with being an older boy of, say, fifteen. Since they were only nine and ten the worldly cosmos of encroaching maturity had yet to grab them by the coveralls and shake the dreamy dust of boyhood out of them. So, they just ran around and did things. They did, however, have pigeons and would get together to discuss different breeds and their qualities. One quality my father found particularly disturbing was that they tasted pretty good and grandmother (his mum) would occasionally prepare squab. Knowing each of his feathered charges personally, my father railled against the black fates that he was unable to control and the unfairness of it all let alone the barbaric horror of having to eat his friend.
But this idyllic garden can never last and just assuredly as spring will melt into summer, both John and George were growing up. It was time to get a hat.
But look at the hats! Look at Foote's photo of, say, the Winnipeg General Strike. By golly, you don't get that many men together in their sharp fedoras, slouches and bowlers without a serious commitment to common purpose. Don't tell me they didn't mean business. And just look at the hats!
- PJ Burton
* * *
PJ Burton was born in Winnipeg in 1952 and received his teaching degree at the University of Alberta in 1979. During a brief stopover in Edmonton, he appeared on SCTV as a drummer in an Earl Camembert sketch, and again in Mel's Rock Pile. When he moved back to Winnipeg in 1980, he formed the band The Smarties. Soon after he put together Winnipeg's legendary showband The Chocolate Bunnies From Hell. He currently teaches at West Kildonan Collegiate and performs regularly with his band.
"I was over there, but now I'm here, yet I can
see myself as I have recently been." Or, more astonishingly, I can see
them as they were; a handy portable piece of witchcraft on paper where
even the deceased live in permanent evidence of what we did that day.
My
grandfather was born in 1892 and fully inhabited the world Foote knew.
He was a full-share partner in the development of that world. They were
kids in Brandon which, at the time, had a population of maybe seven or
eight thousand primarily Britishers who took pride in their sense of
organization, and for the most part, always wore a specific kind of hat.
He went off to war in one, he and my great uncle, lying about their age
(they were only 16) but that didn't prevent him from being capture by
the Germans and spending many months in an unexpectedly accommodating
P.O.W. camp. There were amenities: musical instruments and some guy from
a nearby village who, like Foote, would take the band's photo so you
could send it home to the missus.So Foote and the people like him, had a new gadget of fascination and anything was a reasonable target from the mundane to the most cunning of stunts. Some of Foote's works clearly predates "Everyone say 'cheese'" and its subjects appear to just mildly tolerate the invasive box while others are clearly posed, amused and ready to have even more great fun!
My father's great chum in Brandon was a lad named John Robertson. Together, they would run around the back lanes and streets of the west side of Brandon. Don't expect that they were up to mischief; they were just running around unfettered by the constraints of the mantle of responsibility that came with being an older boy of, say, fifteen. Since they were only nine and ten the worldly cosmos of encroaching maturity had yet to grab them by the coveralls and shake the dreamy dust of boyhood out of them. So, they just ran around and did things. They did, however, have pigeons and would get together to discuss different breeds and their qualities. One quality my father found particularly disturbing was that they tasted pretty good and grandmother (his mum) would occasionally prepare squab. Knowing each of his feathered charges personally, my father railled against the black fates that he was unable to control and the unfairness of it all let alone the barbaric horror of having to eat his friend.
But this idyllic garden can never last and just assuredly as spring will melt into summer, both John and George were growing up. It was time to get a hat.
But look at the hats! Look at Foote's photo of, say, the Winnipeg General Strike. By golly, you don't get that many men together in their sharp fedoras, slouches and bowlers without a serious commitment to common purpose. Don't tell me they didn't mean business. And just look at the hats!
- PJ Burton
* * *
PJ Burton was born in Winnipeg in 1952 and received his teaching degree at the University of Alberta in 1979. During a brief stopover in Edmonton, he appeared on SCTV as a drummer in an Earl Camembert sketch, and again in Mel's Rock Pile. When he moved back to Winnipeg in 1980, he formed the band The Smarties. Soon after he put together Winnipeg's legendary showband The Chocolate Bunnies From Hell. He currently teaches at West Kildonan Collegiate and performs regularly with his band.
Interviewing Esyllt, part two
3) What is it like researching and writing about a city/province that you didn’t grow up in? (You were born/raised in Saskatchewan, correct?)
Historians are trained to glean some sense of the past in its own right, and while personal connection has something special about it, a lot of great history is written without that.
I was born in the UK, and moved around the prairies a lot as a child after we emigrated when I was three. I have lived in Winnipeg for over 25 years, and so it is home to me, and I value that. I am very attached to the place. I love its perception of itself as a failed project, although I also argue with it in my work. Winnipeg is a city where people are very aware of local history, and their place in it. I think we take this awareness a bit for granted. It’s a great town to be a historian.
4) What drew you to working on a book about the photographs of L.B. Foote in particular?
David Carr asked me to do it! I took it as a compliment, so I said yes. I have been looking at Foote photos for twenty-odd years, mostly as illustrations. A few years ago, David Churchill from the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Manitoba asked me to be on a panel associated with the show “Subconscious City” at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan. I called my contribution “Getting Lost in the North End,” and I used some Foote images, along with others, to illustrate how historical photographs of poor families in the North End have generated these extremely persistent and negative stereotypes. My talk was about the possibilities of ‘getting lost’ in that part of the city, to see it with fresh eyes – to actually go there! The things I thought about for that talk formed my way in to the Foote archive; how certain images carry so much weight in a city’s history, and how we should sometimes re-assess what we think photos tell us.
5) What was your goal for the project?
I don’t think I had a goal. I started writing without knowing for sure what I had to say, because I am not a historian of photography. I looked at the records. I read Foote’s odd little half-memoir, and tried to figure him out.
I would like people who read my essay to think about the stories we tell ourselves about the past. Especially, I would like us to re-think the story of decline, which says nothing great happened in Winnipeg after 1919. I agree with what Guy Maddin says on the back of the book – Foote’s collection gives this impression of Winnipeg as a frenetic place full of people who get up to all kinds of stuff all the time. His photographs have this intensity, this enthusiasm. It’s a selective impression, of course, but all does not all end after the war and the general strike. Some historians have written about Winnipeg as if that was an endpoint, a rupture. I think this sensibility is too pervasive.
Historians are trained to glean some sense of the past in its own right, and while personal connection has something special about it, a lot of great history is written without that.
 |
| William Eakin's mug shot, 2004-6, Subconscious City exhibit. |
4) What drew you to working on a book about the photographs of L.B. Foote in particular?
David Carr asked me to do it! I took it as a compliment, so I said yes. I have been looking at Foote photos for twenty-odd years, mostly as illustrations. A few years ago, David Churchill from the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Manitoba asked me to be on a panel associated with the show “Subconscious City” at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan. I called my contribution “Getting Lost in the North End,” and I used some Foote images, along with others, to illustrate how historical photographs of poor families in the North End have generated these extremely persistent and negative stereotypes. My talk was about the possibilities of ‘getting lost’ in that part of the city, to see it with fresh eyes – to actually go there! The things I thought about for that talk formed my way in to the Foote archive; how certain images carry so much weight in a city’s history, and how we should sometimes re-assess what we think photos tell us.
5) What was your goal for the project?
I don’t think I had a goal. I started writing without knowing for sure what I had to say, because I am not a historian of photography. I looked at the records. I read Foote’s odd little half-memoir, and tried to figure him out.
I would like people who read my essay to think about the stories we tell ourselves about the past. Especially, I would like us to re-think the story of decline, which says nothing great happened in Winnipeg after 1919. I agree with what Guy Maddin says on the back of the book – Foote’s collection gives this impression of Winnipeg as a frenetic place full of people who get up to all kinds of stuff all the time. His photographs have this intensity, this enthusiasm. It’s a selective impression, of course, but all does not all end after the war and the general strike. Some historians have written about Winnipeg as if that was an endpoint, a rupture. I think this sensibility is too pervasive.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Reprint: Winnipeg Bestsellers (again!)
* * *
Thanks to everyone who helped Imagining Winnipeg get back on the bestseller list! Yay!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Interviewing Esyllt, part one
As the Lost Foote Photos blog winds down, we thought we'd share author Esyllt W. Jones' thoughts and impressions around working on a project like Imagining Winnipeg:
1) In the last two years, you’ve co-edited three texts:
Epidemic Encounters: Influenza, Society, and Culture in Canada, 1918-1920 (with Magda Fahrni),
People's Citizenship Guide: a response to conservative Canada (w/Adele Perry), and
Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada (w/Adele Perry & Leah Morton).
And now Imagining Winnipeg.
Is this breakneck pace normal for you? What has it taught you, in terms of managing your workload as a prof, parent, and community member?
I like to be busy! Editorial work is different from writing. Editing is collaborative work, and the collections you mention are things I’ve done with others. This book, too, belongs as much to the press as it does to me. It’s a cliché to say that academic work is solitary, but there is truth to it. I need projects that bring me into connection with other people, and sometimes this means I work on several at once. Finding time to write is more difficult. I’ve never really mastered that Alice Munro ability to write in between everything else going on in life.
I don’t know about managing workload. Our family always has a lot on the go, and it usually works out. A lot of opportunities come your way when you are a university professor, and there are obligations, too – to your students, to your community. Ultimately, I appreciate commitment more than its absence.
2) How did you come to working on social history and the history of health and disease? Did you have a particular mentor who piqued your interest?
I was a labour historian first, and for that I owe Doug Smith, who sent me to the archives, and also my employers at the union where I worked, for letting me help to write its official history.
I became interested in disease when reading documents from the Brandon and Selkirk mental hospitals. I had no idea how compelling these fragments of evidence from people’s past lives would be for me. I wanted to know how ordinary people lived with and through illness, and how it shaped their lives. I once read an interview with the novelist Ian McEwan, in which he talks about the influence on his writing of listening to the women in his working class family talk endlessly, without boredom or irony, about every gruesome detail of their own illnesses and those of their friends, neighbours, or mere acquaintances. I laughed when I read that, it was so deliciously familiar to me. That is my mother’s family. I grew up hearing stories of diphtheria, tuberculosis, pleurisy…it was sad, but also carried a certain meaning. It was a vocabulary for shared experience.
I had many good teachers when I did graduate work; Manitoba is fortunate to have such talented historians in our universities. I was inspired by gender historians like Ellen Ross, whose book Love and Toil about working class motherhood in England is still a model of humane scholarship to me.
* * *
Stay tuned for the next two sections from UMP's interview with Esyllt W. Jones, which will be posted December 17 and 24th.
1) In the last two years, you’ve co-edited three texts:Epidemic Encounters: Influenza, Society, and Culture in Canada, 1918-1920 (with Magda Fahrni),
People's Citizenship Guide: a response to conservative Canada (w/Adele Perry), and
Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada (w/Adele Perry & Leah Morton).
And now Imagining Winnipeg.
Is this breakneck pace normal for you? What has it taught you, in terms of managing your workload as a prof, parent, and community member?
I like to be busy! Editorial work is different from writing. Editing is collaborative work, and the collections you mention are things I’ve done with others. This book, too, belongs as much to the press as it does to me. It’s a cliché to say that academic work is solitary, but there is truth to it. I need projects that bring me into connection with other people, and sometimes this means I work on several at once. Finding time to write is more difficult. I’ve never really mastered that Alice Munro ability to write in between everything else going on in life. I don’t know about managing workload. Our family always has a lot on the go, and it usually works out. A lot of opportunities come your way when you are a university professor, and there are obligations, too – to your students, to your community. Ultimately, I appreciate commitment more than its absence.
2) How did you come to working on social history and the history of health and disease? Did you have a particular mentor who piqued your interest?
I was a labour historian first, and for that I owe Doug Smith, who sent me to the archives, and also my employers at the union where I worked, for letting me help to write its official history.I became interested in disease when reading documents from the Brandon and Selkirk mental hospitals. I had no idea how compelling these fragments of evidence from people’s past lives would be for me. I wanted to know how ordinary people lived with and through illness, and how it shaped their lives. I once read an interview with the novelist Ian McEwan, in which he talks about the influence on his writing of listening to the women in his working class family talk endlessly, without boredom or irony, about every gruesome detail of their own illnesses and those of their friends, neighbours, or mere acquaintances. I laughed when I read that, it was so deliciously familiar to me. That is my mother’s family. I grew up hearing stories of diphtheria, tuberculosis, pleurisy…it was sad, but also carried a certain meaning. It was a vocabulary for shared experience.
I had many good teachers when I did graduate work; Manitoba is fortunate to have such talented historians in our universities. I was inspired by gender historians like Ellen Ross, whose book Love and Toil about working class motherhood in England is still a model of humane scholarship to me.
* * *
Stay tuned for the next two sections from UMP's interview with Esyllt W. Jones, which will be posted December 17 and 24th.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Favourite Foote Photos: Mary Horodyski
I first came across Foote about twenty-five years ago in the basement of the Manitoba Archives.
I was an undergraduate history student searching for evidence of women’s role in the Winnipeg General Strike.
It seemed strange to me that women had made up one-quarter of the workforce in 1919 yet had never made it into any of the history books about the strike.
Foote’s photographs helped me prove that women attended public meetings and were on the street alongside the male strikers.
After this first Foote encounter, and over the next quarter century, Foote became intertwined with the city in my mind. Iconic, like the Golden Boy or the Arlington Bridge. So I felt surprised this summer to come across a letter from Foote – I had practically forgotten he was human, so mixed into the cement and metal of the city had he become.
I found the letter at the City of Winnipeg Archives where I had been working on the records surrounding the building of the aqueduct from Shoal Lake (how we still get our water, by the way, almost a hundred years later).
The letter is dated July 23, 1935 and in it Foote offers his photography services to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District. He needs the work, he says, because a “fire cleaned me out” and “my taxes are long overdue.” In fact, he says, “I am finding it very difficult to get along.” At the time of his letter, Foote would have been 62 years old—a pretty cruddy time, if you ask me, to be stuck hustling for money.
Esyllt Jones, in her Imagining Winnipeg essay, tells us that in 1948, when Foote was 75, both his legs were broken in a car accident.
So, my favourite Foote photo, now that I’ve learned a bit more about his life, and gotten a bit older myself, is the very last photo in Imagining Winnipeg: tough Mr. Foote, standing upright on the corner of Portage and Main, 77 years old, cane dangling from his overcoat pocket, and with his camera raised.
- Mary Horodyski
* * *
Mary Horodyski is in the middle of her third degree in history – an M.A. in Archival Studies at the University of Manitoba. She also has an M.A. in History from Concordia University and a B.A. in History from the University of Manitoba. In between (and sometimes during) history degrees, she works as a writer and researcher. She recently completed her archival internship at the City of Winnipeg Archives. Her Manitoba History article on women and the Winnipeg General Strike can be found here.
I was an undergraduate history student searching for evidence of women’s role in the Winnipeg General Strike.
It seemed strange to me that women had made up one-quarter of the workforce in 1919 yet had never made it into any of the history books about the strike.
After this first Foote encounter, and over the next quarter century, Foote became intertwined with the city in my mind. Iconic, like the Golden Boy or the Arlington Bridge. So I felt surprised this summer to come across a letter from Foote – I had practically forgotten he was human, so mixed into the cement and metal of the city had he become.
I found the letter at the City of Winnipeg Archives where I had been working on the records surrounding the building of the aqueduct from Shoal Lake (how we still get our water, by the way, almost a hundred years later).
The letter is dated July 23, 1935 and in it Foote offers his photography services to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District. He needs the work, he says, because a “fire cleaned me out” and “my taxes are long overdue.” In fact, he says, “I am finding it very difficult to get along.” At the time of his letter, Foote would have been 62 years old—a pretty cruddy time, if you ask me, to be stuck hustling for money.
Esyllt Jones, in her Imagining Winnipeg essay, tells us that in 1948, when Foote was 75, both his legs were broken in a car accident.
So, my favourite Foote photo, now that I’ve learned a bit more about his life, and gotten a bit older myself, is the very last photo in Imagining Winnipeg: tough Mr. Foote, standing upright on the corner of Portage and Main, 77 years old, cane dangling from his overcoat pocket, and with his camera raised.
- Mary Horodyski
* * *
Mary Horodyski is in the middle of her third degree in history – an M.A. in Archival Studies at the University of Manitoba. She also has an M.A. in History from Concordia University and a B.A. in History from the University of Manitoba. In between (and sometimes during) history degrees, she works as a writer and researcher. She recently completed her archival internship at the City of Winnipeg Archives. Her Manitoba History article on women and the Winnipeg General Strike can be found here.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Blogging Foote
Hey all,
As you've probably noticed, Lost Foote Photos has not maintained...much...of a posting schedule since Imagining Winnipeg was launched back in September.
But between now and the end of the holiday season, we've a few humdingers in store.
First up is writer/archivist Mary Horodyski's discovery this summer of a 1935 letter from L.B. Foote to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District offices, asking for work.
Next is the story of Jennie (Kaleka) Kubara, who was photographed by Foote for the Winnipeg Free Press in 1938 with a group of students from Aberdeen School. Jennie attended the Imagining Winnipeg launch not knowing that she'd find a picture of herself inside...and it was such a treat to meet her!
After that comes a reaction to Imagining Winnipeg by P.J. Burton of Chocolate Bunnies From Hell fame.
Over the next few weeks, we'll also be serializing an interview the press conducted with author Esyllt W. Jones on the process of working on a book like Imagining Winnipeg.
And then...UMP Director David Carr will write a farewell to the Lost Foote Photos blog. We've greatly enjoyed sharing Foote's photographs and your thoughts on Foote's photographs, but there are five non-Foote books on our spring 2013 list...
* * *
In other, non-blog related news, the University of Manitoba Bookstore is offering what might be the best price in town on Imagining Winnipeg: $24.95. So if you're looking to give this book to family over the holidays, U of M Bookstore might just be THE place to do it...
U of M Press is also selling Imagining Winnipeg via our website. And we've recently created an e-single of author Esyllt Jones' introduction plus a few select photos that's for sale on Kobo and Barnes & Noble for $3.49.
Finally, I thought I'd let you know that there will be two more Imagining Winnipeg events in the new year.
Esyllt Jones will be doing a presentation on Imagining Winnipeg at the Louis Riel Library on Thursday, February 28 at 6:30 pm. A second event will follow at the Henderson Library.
Thanks!
Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant
As you've probably noticed, Lost Foote Photos has not maintained...much...of a posting schedule since Imagining Winnipeg was launched back in September.
But between now and the end of the holiday season, we've a few humdingers in store.
First up is writer/archivist Mary Horodyski's discovery this summer of a 1935 letter from L.B. Foote to the Greater Winnipeg Sanitary District offices, asking for work.
Next is the story of Jennie (Kaleka) Kubara, who was photographed by Foote for the Winnipeg Free Press in 1938 with a group of students from Aberdeen School. Jennie attended the Imagining Winnipeg launch not knowing that she'd find a picture of herself inside...and it was such a treat to meet her!
After that comes a reaction to Imagining Winnipeg by P.J. Burton of Chocolate Bunnies From Hell fame.
Over the next few weeks, we'll also be serializing an interview the press conducted with author Esyllt W. Jones on the process of working on a book like Imagining Winnipeg.
And then...UMP Director David Carr will write a farewell to the Lost Foote Photos blog. We've greatly enjoyed sharing Foote's photographs and your thoughts on Foote's photographs, but there are five non-Foote books on our spring 2013 list...
* * *
In other, non-blog related news, the University of Manitoba Bookstore is offering what might be the best price in town on Imagining Winnipeg: $24.95. So if you're looking to give this book to family over the holidays, U of M Bookstore might just be THE place to do it...
U of M Press is also selling Imagining Winnipeg via our website. And we've recently created an e-single of author Esyllt Jones' introduction plus a few select photos that's for sale on Kobo and Barnes & Noble for $3.49.
Finally, I thought I'd let you know that there will be two more Imagining Winnipeg events in the new year.
Esyllt Jones will be doing a presentation on Imagining Winnipeg at the Louis Riel Library on Thursday, February 28 at 6:30 pm. A second event will follow at the Henderson Library.
Thanks!
Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
SNEAK PEEK #14: Westwood Library!
Kirsten Wurmann, Branch Head of Westwood
Library, introduces UMP's Imagining Winnipeg talk/slideshow November 6.
We had a roomful of people ignoring the U.S. election hubbub and the gloomy weather...including a intent eight-year-old who loved the banquet-in-the-sewer photo.
At the event, we had someone from East Kildonan request that we bring the slideshow to her neighbourhood library.
We've been chatting with WPL organizers...and it looks like we'll be taking our proverbial show on the road in the new year, with two or three events at libraries around the city.
We'll let you know as soon as the dates are confirmed, but in the meantime, I thought I'd let you know about two upcoming events that author Esyllt Jones is doing.
First, she'll be speaking at the Fort Garry Historical Society's AGM on November 17 at 2:00 pm at the Pembina Trail Library.
Then, she'll be doing a signing at McNally's in the run-up to Xmas. On Sunday, December 2 at 1:00 pm, she'll be sitting by the cash desk with a stack of books and a bowl of come-hither candy.
Thanks!
Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Book Signing!
* * *
Want to buy copies of Imagining Winnipeg for friends/family for Xmas? You can get them signed by author Esyllt W. Jones at McNally Robinson!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
SNEAK PEEK #13: Esyllt at the Library
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| Erica Ball, Reader Services Librarian at the Millennium Library, introduces Esyllt W. Jones. |
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| Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography. |
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| Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography. |
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| Esyllt W. Jones, author of Imagining Winnipeg, lectures on Foote's photography. |
Monday, October 22, 2012
Precarious Foote-ings
"It was really a pleasure to attend the Imagining Winnipeg launch a few weeks ago at McNally's!
One of my surprise takeaways from the book launch was a new appreciation for the variety of perspectives from which Foote's body of work can be viewed, analysed and interpreted – from such overarching quandaries as what Esyllt Jones dubs the "mystery of his intent," to personal connections to memories and histories, through to John Paskievich's unveiling of Foote's evolution to the "fortuitous and dynamic arrangement of triangles" (in the photo of the young Queen Elizabeth).
As a collector of historic images, let me add to this mix – with yet another line of inquiry. Beyond the images themselves, I am often intrigued by attempting to imagine where, in taking a particular photo, the photographer might have positioned themselves. I don't think it readily occurs to many of us, but early photographers were often quite the aerialists. From the photos in Imagining Winnipeg, here are a few examples:
Page 1 – Looking out over a skating rink on the Red River.
Where was Foote when he took this picture? How was he able to take this photo from such a high elevation? My guess is he was atop the large wooden toboggan slide that was constructed every year next to this ice rink. In the image, can you see those smoke stacks in the distance? I have another photo postcard image, by an earlier photographer, that I believe was actually taken from atop one of those chimneys.
Page 2 – Overview of the construction of the new Legislative Buildings.
This picture was most likely taken from the top of the bell tower of the old Broadway Methodist Church (since burned and dismantled) on the South East corner of Broadway & Kennedy.
Page 58 – Peace Day celebration at Portage & Main. This one was likely taken from a second storey window of the building that stood on the SW corner of Portage & Main (current site of the Trizec Building).
Page 70 – Veterans’ march at City Hall.
This one is particularly intriguing. The shot is taken looking up the portion of Market Street that used to exist on the West side of Main Street – land now occupied by the current City Hall. Foote took this shot from the East side of Main. The side of the building that shows on the right of the photo was the south wall of a building that once stood at the North East corner of Main & Market. It was four stories high and, from images I’ve seen of it, there were no balconies or fire escapes evident on that building's south side. My best guess is that Foote took this west-looking shot from a high (4th storey?) south-facing window.
Well, by now you get the picture (no pun intended). I'm just pointing out that L.B. Foote, like other photographers of his day, didn't always keep both feet firmly planted on the ground."
- Rob McInnes, Postcard Accumulator and Purveyor
* * *
Another beautiful little postcard from Rob McInnes!
One of my surprise takeaways from the book launch was a new appreciation for the variety of perspectives from which Foote's body of work can be viewed, analysed and interpreted – from such overarching quandaries as what Esyllt Jones dubs the "mystery of his intent," to personal connections to memories and histories, through to John Paskievich's unveiling of Foote's evolution to the "fortuitous and dynamic arrangement of triangles" (in the photo of the young Queen Elizabeth). As a collector of historic images, let me add to this mix – with yet another line of inquiry. Beyond the images themselves, I am often intrigued by attempting to imagine where, in taking a particular photo, the photographer might have positioned themselves. I don't think it readily occurs to many of us, but early photographers were often quite the aerialists. From the photos in Imagining Winnipeg, here are a few examples:
Page 1 – Looking out over a skating rink on the Red River.
Where was Foote when he took this picture? How was he able to take this photo from such a high elevation? My guess is he was atop the large wooden toboggan slide that was constructed every year next to this ice rink. In the image, can you see those smoke stacks in the distance? I have another photo postcard image, by an earlier photographer, that I believe was actually taken from atop one of those chimneys.
Page 2 – Overview of the construction of the new Legislative Buildings.
This picture was most likely taken from the top of the bell tower of the old Broadway Methodist Church (since burned and dismantled) on the South East corner of Broadway & Kennedy.
Page 58 – Peace Day celebration at Portage & Main. This one was likely taken from a second storey window of the building that stood on the SW corner of Portage & Main (current site of the Trizec Building).
Page 70 – Veterans’ march at City Hall.
This one is particularly intriguing. The shot is taken looking up the portion of Market Street that used to exist on the West side of Main Street – land now occupied by the current City Hall. Foote took this shot from the East side of Main. The side of the building that shows on the right of the photo was the south wall of a building that once stood at the North East corner of Main & Market. It was four stories high and, from images I’ve seen of it, there were no balconies or fire escapes evident on that building's south side. My best guess is that Foote took this west-looking shot from a high (4th storey?) south-facing window.
Well, by now you get the picture (no pun intended). I'm just pointing out that L.B. Foote, like other photographers of his day, didn't always keep both feet firmly planted on the ground."
- Rob McInnes, Postcard Accumulator and Purveyor
* * *
Another beautiful little postcard from Rob McInnes!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
FF event #2
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| Photos courtesy Trevor Hagan. |
* * *
Winnipeg Free Press director of photography and multimedia Mike Aporius and photographer Mike Deal, speaking at the Favourite Foote event on October 10.
After urging everyone to take photographs, Mike Aporius stepped back and took a photo of the audience.
FF event #1
Wednesday night was the Favourite Footes event at the Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe.
Focusing on photographers and filmmakers, the event featured Erna Buffie, Colin Corneau, Bob Lower, Ian McCausland, and John Paskievich.
The nice thing about the WFP News Cafe was that it had three large TV screens mounted throughout the cafe.
We were able to show the slideshow of images from the book on the screens, which was lovely...and also confusing.
I hosted, and in those intervals when I wasn't on stage, I watched both the audience and the presenters. And I would often catch members of the audience staring intently across the room instead of watching the stage. And I would have to remind myself that they were looking at one of the TV screens, not necessarily the one on stage.
It was very interesting to hear the blog posts out loud, to hear the reverence that these image-makers had for Foote.
Another interesting aspect to the evening was how respectful the photographers were towards John Paskievich. They brought their copies of The North End to be signed - or bought copies at the event - and then posted pictures of his signature to Facebook and Twitter.
Interestingly, of the six images discussed at the event, only two were used in the book.
The first and best explanation is that there were roughly 2,500 photos in the Foote Collection at the Manitoba Archives and the book only had room for 150, so photos had to more than earn their keep to be included.
The second reason was that two of the photos, both of royal visits, ultimately couldn't be verified as being shot by Foote.
The final reason is that one of the photos was from the Manitoba Archives collection of coroner's photographs owned by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. As we've noted elsewhere on this blog, Foote worked photographing crime scenes, but A) UMP would have needed to get special permission to use these photos, unlike the ones in the Foote Collection and B) they depict dead bodies.
These are not cartoonish scenes, sterilized for the viewer. They are photographs of dead people, people that you or I might be related to. Some of them are bloody, but most of them are just sad...
All that said, it was lovely to bring together one of Foote's communities for an evening to celebrate this legacy. (One of his communities, you say? What are the others? Well, historians, for one. Architects, possibly. Writers. Anyone interested in vintage photographs.)
Thanks to everyone that consented to speak at the event. Thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press for sending Director of photography and multimedia Mike Aporius as well as Photographer Mike Deal to tell the audience about the Foote images in their archive.
Finally, thanks to everyone who came out and shared the evening with us!
Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant
 |
| Photos courtesy Mike Deal |
The nice thing about the WFP News Cafe was that it had three large TV screens mounted throughout the cafe.
We were able to show the slideshow of images from the book on the screens, which was lovely...and also confusing.
I hosted, and in those intervals when I wasn't on stage, I watched both the audience and the presenters. And I would often catch members of the audience staring intently across the room instead of watching the stage. And I would have to remind myself that they were looking at one of the TV screens, not necessarily the one on stage.
It was very interesting to hear the blog posts out loud, to hear the reverence that these image-makers had for Foote.
Another interesting aspect to the evening was how respectful the photographers were towards John Paskievich. They brought their copies of The North End to be signed - or bought copies at the event - and then posted pictures of his signature to Facebook and Twitter.
Interestingly, of the six images discussed at the event, only two were used in the book.
The first and best explanation is that there were roughly 2,500 photos in the Foote Collection at the Manitoba Archives and the book only had room for 150, so photos had to more than earn their keep to be included.
The second reason was that two of the photos, both of royal visits, ultimately couldn't be verified as being shot by Foote.
The final reason is that one of the photos was from the Manitoba Archives collection of coroner's photographs owned by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. As we've noted elsewhere on this blog, Foote worked photographing crime scenes, but A) UMP would have needed to get special permission to use these photos, unlike the ones in the Foote Collection and B) they depict dead bodies.
These are not cartoonish scenes, sterilized for the viewer. They are photographs of dead people, people that you or I might be related to. Some of them are bloody, but most of them are just sad...
All that said, it was lovely to bring together one of Foote's communities for an evening to celebrate this legacy. (One of his communities, you say? What are the others? Well, historians, for one. Architects, possibly. Writers. Anyone interested in vintage photographs.)
Thanks to everyone that consented to speak at the event. Thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press for sending Director of photography and multimedia Mike Aporius as well as Photographer Mike Deal to tell the audience about the Foote images in their archive.
Finally, thanks to everyone who came out and shared the evening with us!
Ariel Gordon
UMP Promotions/Editorial Assistant
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