Favourite Footes at the WFP News Café

Please join UMP at an event focused on Winnipeg’s photographers and filmmakers!

When: Wednesday, October 10, 7:00 pm
Where: Winnipeg Free Press News Café (237 McDermot Avenue)
Cost: FREE

Favourite Footes features Erna Buffie, Colin Corneau, Bob Lower, Ian McCausland, and John Paskievich talking about their favourite Foote photos, accompanied by a slideshow of images from Imagining Winnipeg: History Through the Photographs of L.B. Foote.

The Winnipeg Free Press is also sending photo editor Mike Aporius and photographer Mike Deal to share photos from the WFP’s archives.

Light refreshments will be served.

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About Imagining Winnipeg
In an expanding and socially fractious early twentieth-century Winnipeg, Lewis Benjamin Foote (1873-1957) rose to become the city’s pre-eminent commercial photographer. Documenting everything from royal visits to deep poverty, from the building of the landmark Fort Garry Hotel to the turmoil of the 1919 General Strike, Foote’s photographs have come to be iconic representations of early Winnipeg life. They have been used to illustrate everything from academic histories to posters for rock concerts; they have influenced the work of visual artists, writers, and musicians; and they have represented Winnipeg to the world.

But in Imagining Winnipeg, historian Esyllt W. Jones takes us beyond the iconic to reveal the complex artist behind the lens and the conflicting ways in which his photographs have been used to give credence to diverse and sometimes irreconcilable views of Winnipeg’s past. Incorporating 150 stunning photographs from the more than 2,000 images in the Archives of Manitoba Foote Collection, Imagining Winnipeg challenges our understanding of visual history and the city we thought we knew.

About L.B. Foote
Born in Newfoundland, Lewis Benjamin Foote arrived in Winnipeg in 1902, where he bought a house on Gertrude Avenue and began a career as a professional photographer. For more than 50 years, Foote’s photographs chronicled the development of the city. He was an active photographer until 1947 and died ten years later.

Favourite Foote Photos: Ken Gigliotti

Lewis Benjamin Foote’s photographs are a time capsule of early Winnipeg. They are quiet, strong photos, like silent movies.

These are pictures taken at a time of great change, they are reflections of the hopes and aspirations of a new century. His photographs are significant not because of what the photographer imposes on the subjects but rather the photographer seeing clearly the greatness in the everyday people, places, and events he was present to photograph.

L.B. Foote brings expert technical execution of the very difficult task of photography. There wasn't anything easy about being a photographer in years of the early 1900s. The cameras, the process, and archiving, everything was hard, but the times were also hard.

Foote brought simplicity, order and clarity. The medium was restrictive and bulky, but his pictures are full of interest. There is nothing haphazard, almost every picture is intentional, almost mathematical.

These were optimistic years of building, creating and expanding. He defined the times and place he live in. He created living, breathing representations of the greatness of his time.

Of course, pictures can set the scene, they can tell others where you have been, and what you have seen, they can map tragedy, record greatness, chronicle failure, they can record details of time, place, personality, and changes that might other wise be lost.

Pictures tell stories, reveal character, happiness, joy, ambivalence, sadness. They verify, and quantify, justice or injustice, they can tear down or build up.

A single picture can say a thousand words or next to none at all, it is the photographer’s choice. Pictures reveal passion, THEIRS and Yours.

Pictures look into soul, it is believed they steal spirit, they can expose evil or show the very best our culture has to offer.

Pictures are personal, they are about SOMETHING, they are about SOMEONE, they are about yourself. Pictures are the connection between your brain, your eye, your shutter, and your commitment to the world around you.

We are saying I NOTICED THIS! Lewis Benjamin Foote's pictures are a testament to his time.

His pictures last, they say something about a time that would be otherwise lost.

Pictures start with a subject, but they also have background and foreground. Clothing and hairstyles and automobiles that can be dated. In time the importance of the subject will diminish and the background and foreground will gain in importance.

- Ken Gigliotti

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Ken Gigliotti started at the Winnipeg Free Press as a staff photographer in 1979. He has won numerous awards for his work, including Canadian Press Photographer of the Year (2001), the Western Canadian News Photographers Association News Picture of the Year Award (1997) and three Canadian Press Pictures of the Month. Ken started his career shooting pictures for his high school yearbook in Thunder Bay. He studied photography for two years at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto and worked at the Chronicle Journal in Thunder Bay as a staff photographer before joining the Free Press. Ken has contributed to several book projects, including the Free Press’ A Red Sea Rising: The Flood of the Century and The Way We Live in Manitoba, The Winnipeg Jets: a Celebration of Hockey in Winnipeg and the A Day In the Life of Canada project in 1984. Ken has worked with Canadian Press photo teams at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, and covered six Grey Cups. He is married to Sherri and has two grown children, son Jade and daughter Joelle.

Further to Colin Corneau's Favourite Foote Photo

Last week, Brandon-based photographer Colin Corneau wrote about a Foote photo entitled The King and Queen of Siam.

For those of you who might be interested, specifically, they were King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambhai Barni.

According to Wikipedia, Prajadhipok was crowned King of Siam in February 1926 at the age of thirty-two.

He abdicated in 1935 after political turmoil in what was to become Thailand.

This helps to date the Foote photo, as does a similar photo taken in Germany in 1934.

Thanks to UMP director David Carr for the research on Thailand's last absolute monarch!

Favourite Foote Photos: Colin Corneau

It doesn't take too many viewings of LB Foote's work to realize he was an unique soul.

The well-honed sense of the absurd he clearly possessed came through in such surreal images as a toddler and a bulldog standing atop a pile of ammunition, a banquet being held - for some unknown reason - in an ornate underground sewer, or a severed horse's head staring lifelessly up to the heavens.

Also notable were his many acts of daring, such as his high-altitude photographs from atop the newly constructed Hotel Fort Garry or the shot of the Eaton's building being raised. Speaking from personal experience, these are nerve-wracking moments but to do so with the limitations of the camera technology he had at that time is simply astounding.

However, one image I keep coming back to is his relatively straightforward photograph of the "King and Queen of Siam."

Photographs made with the limited technology of the time often needed much more time to set up and longer exposures. This made candid photography challenging, if not impossible. So, when subtle details on the part of subjects shows through, it's more than luck - it speaks to the skill and insight of the photographer.

In this image, we see a range of expressions and moments that, taken together, tell an interesting story (maybe enough for a great story, novel or movie). On the face of the King we see a bemused expression, perhaps smiling out of duty or perhaps wondering how he ended up in such a strange faraway place.

Beside him, his queen is decidedly less amused. Her pretty features are devoid of any pleasure. One can only speculate, but this may be protocol, it may be gender roles of the time and culture or perhaps weariness at what must have been a long journey.

Flanking the honoured guests on either side are the local dignitaries with the obligatory expressions. I can't imagine why the royal couple of what is now Thailand would come to Winnipeg, but the occasion was clearly an important one and these men would have been entrusted with the impression these exotic foreigners would have of our city.

All about them are fellow passengers or dignitaries, wearing expressions that range from from happiness and pride to stoicism. Of particular note to me was the person at the left, in the background beside the head of the uniformed man, seemingly craning his head to see what's going on or to be included in the event.

It's difficult enough to find such subtleties in quiet, everyday moments. But to do so in the middle of the pomp and circumstance of an 'official' event - not to mention some probable constraints on time - shows a skill not only technically based but with people as well.

- Colin Corneau


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Colin Corneau is a Manitoba photographer with a particular interest in film and analog processes. His photographs of China have been exhibited around the province and he currently documents the people and events of southwestern Manitoba as a staff photographer with the Brandon Sun. His work can be seen at www.colincorneau.com.

Favourite Foote Photos: Ian McCausland

This image has been widely used as visual shorthand for the flood of immigration in Western Canada. We see it small in textbooks, or Wikipedia entries, but as with all things about our history, once you zoom in and personalize it, it resonates more.

As a photographer here in Winnipeg, I've spent over 20 years looking at our faces, finding the stories.

Zoom in...see the children in the front row: a whole book could be written on the brother and sister in the very front! The warm embrace four rows back, of one friend to another as they set off to that plot of land in the Interlake they've been promised.

I sit here warm and cozy in February and look at the scarves, the furry collars on wool coats, imagine the long train ride and shiver. This being Winnipeg, you probably know someone who's claiming their great-grandpa is that guy holding the box of Harvest bread. Whether it's true or not? Look hard at this photo and you see men who've given up everything to come over to this wild, strange, and cold land and make something better for themselves and their families back home. But you also see hope.

In my mind's eye...I see Foote standing on a rickety wooden luggage wagon, pushed out to the train by a couple of porters. He's under the cloth, focusing a big clunky 4X5 camera on a tripod.

A translator stands in front of the wagon, explaining to all in Ukrainian or German or Hungarian that they all have to have a photo taken to represent the process of immigration for a story in the newspaper and they must stand very still for the exposure.

Foote blows on his bare hands, cold from handling the gear, as he cocks the shutter and pulls the dark slide. Grabbing the cable release he tells the translator it's time. The translator yells louder: this is the time to stand very still and look at the camera. Foote looks out in the sea of faces, gauges when it's time and gently presses the cable release for the 1/2 of a second. Of course that one guy, there is always ONE guy, moves during the exposure. Foote shrugs, no time to do another, he's already late for the next job. He replaces the dark slide and gives the translator a little nod.

As Foote packs up, everyone files past the wagon silently.

I see this photo happening this way, vividly, because I've done big shots like this (in fact, I’m shooting a 240 person group shot this week!). I've also worked with the essentially the same camera, the 4X5.

As well, a few years ago I captured the same moment for the Province of Manitoba, promoting immigration. A family of four from Ghana rather than a sea of white faces, this time at the airport instead of the train station, but in the eyes, the same hope for a better life.

- Ian McCausland


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Ian McCausland has been a commercial photographer in Winnipeg since 1988. He lives in St James with his wife and son. His website is http://www.ian.ca/ and his blog is http://www.ian.mb.ca/.

Favourite Foote Photos: John Paskievich

One of my favourite Foote photographs is the one of Princess Elizabeth, now Queen, taken in 1951 on the sidewalk in front of the Canadian Pacific Railway Station and the conjoined Royal Alexandra Hotel on Higgins Ave.

My reasons for especially liking this picture are two-fold; the first is nostalgic and the other is photographic.

Arriving with my family in Winnipeg in 1958 I remember us walking out of the CP station and then heading right on Higgins towards Main St. along the same strip of sidewalk where the photo was taken. However, I can't recall any crowds across the street atop Segal Drugs welcoming our arrival.

Growing up in Point Douglas, my friends and I would spend our Saturdays at one of the many movie theatres that lined Main St. from Higgins to Alexander Ave. To get to Main St. we would often take a short cut through the CP Station and Royal Alec via a little known back entrance located at the foot of Austin St. When we were older we shot pool and got educated in various subjects at the billiards hall in the rear end of the Princess Hotel which was located at about where the Alberta sign is in the Foote picture. I'm wondering if the Princess Hotel was formerly called the Alberta?

The photography that Foote did in the early part of the past century was in the formalist tradition of the time. The subjects were placed firmly in the centre of the frame and looked directly at the lens. The bulky cameras and individual large negatives with slow emulsions weren't conducive to spontaneity either in the photographer or the subject. The more candid shots that Foote took of parades, outdoor celebrations and, most famously, the Winnipeg 1919 Strike were done from a distance where the camera, mounted on a tripod, could be methodically operated with the most efficiency.

When Foote photographed Princess Elizabeth he was at the end of his illustrious career. By then cameras were smaller and films were faster, allowing for more spontaneous photography. Foote's photo of Elizabeth is thoroughly modern in its fortuitous and dynamic arrangement of triangles. The princess and the two uniformed men lead the viewer's eye past the spectators in the roof to the billboard while the motorcade, overhead wires and the drugstore recede into the right side of the frame. Elizabeth's legs, crossed at the ankles, form a delicate triangle that neatly punctuates the picture.

The photograph has the look of a somewhat surreal collage. The princess's posture is so perfectly elegant that it looks like it may have been posed and shot elsewhere and then cut and pasted onto the street scene in Winnipeg. Not knowing who else might be inside the car with the open door and wondering who or what outside the left side of the frame elicited such a lustrous smile from the Princess adds a fine anticipatory tension to the picture.

- John Paskievich


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John Paskievich is a Winnipeg photographer and filmmaker who has yet to get over the savaging of Portage Ave and North Main Street.

Favourite Foote Photos: Bryan Scott

Winnipeg has never looked more glorious than it does in the photographs of L.B. Foote.

Capturing image after image of the city at its economic zenith, Foote's archive is a treasure trove, providing a bittersweet glimpse into a Winnipeg that has been lost for decades.

My favorite Foote photo is perhaps a wide angle shot of the 1939 royal procession at the SE corner of Main and Higgins.

The high energy of the period is captured with incredible clarity in the sea of curious royal onlookers, as well as the meticulous and ornate signage that decorates every storefront in the frame.

Even the dampened streets add to the intrigue of the scene, reinforcing the notion that Winnipeg was, once upon a time, a gleaming centre of commerce, industry, and glamour. Foote's Winnipeg is as photogenic as any city in the world.

Significantly, little of the architecture in the frame remains today.

Decimated by good intentions in the name of urban renewal (arguably falling short of the mark), all that's left of the dynamism and joy of the corner is Foote's haunting, timeless photograph.

-Bryan Scott


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Bryan Scott is a Winnipeg-born photographer and graphic designer. His website winnipeglovehate.com features daily photos of the city's good, bad, and sometimes ugly sides. In 2010 he self-published a book version of the blog, Winnipeg Love Hate: Selected Photographs.

Favourite Foote Photos: Gerry Kopelow

This feels like the right moment to publicly reveal a secret I've carried for 62 years: I am, In Fact, L.B. Foote, reincarnated, right here, right now, back in my Beloved Winnipeg.

I chose the late 20th Century to come back because I was waiting for technology to develop to the point where I could carry on my exquisite obsession with photography of this very unusual city sans all that heavy, bulky, slow hardware I dutifully lugged around all those years through the unrelenting Prairie snow, mud, rain, dust, and wind.

Digital imaging is truly a gift from the Gods of Art.

All that being said, I am very pleased and proud to see my earlier work - originally produced under such difficult conditions - so respectfully preserved and presented.

I love photography, and I love all those images.

Every one of them tugs at my heart, stirring up Poignant Memories of people and situations of Great Interest to me and I hope all Manitobans.

Winnipeg and its inhabitants manifest a strange and wonderful creative energy which I found - and in my current life, continue to find - endlessly fascinating.

These archival works are my gift to my people, and my culture.

I submit a most sincere Thank You to everyone at University of Manitoba Press for the professionalism and kindness embodied in this undertaking.

Best Regards,
L. B. Foote
(a.k.a. Gerry Kopelow)


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Gerry Kopelow is a widely published veteran photographer with extensive experience in advertising illustration, executive portraiture, editorial illustration, architectural photography, and photography of the performing arts.