Heritage Matters | Photography & History

Suppose you look back at my catalogue of images. In that case, you’ll see a lot of repetition regarding the historic communities I’ve visited and continue to visit, especially if they’re a short drive away. I count a short drive as anything I can get to in an hour or under. I have hundreds of photos of downtown Milton, Oakville, Stratford, Hamilton, Dundas, Elora, Guelph and many others. But when I look at these images, one thing is clear: there are changes, sometimes significant and other times small, but changes are all the same. I’m reminded of the Midsomer Murders episode, Picture of Innocence, which features a local photography shop owner taking a photo at the same spot and the same time each day as part of an ongoing project that traces back. Now, that’s not something I’d get into. It shows that photography and history go hand-in-hand when tracing a community’s heritage.

Despite being relatively new, the visual capture of the past has always been done. Elizabeth Simcoe and other early British and French explorers would capture how things looked in text and visually. Elizabeth was known for her watercolour work of early Upper Canada when her husband (Sir John Graves Simcoe) served as the first Lieutenant-Governor. From these images and that followed into the photographic medium, we can get a nearly complete visual record of how Ontario has changed over time. Even further along, we can see the changing face of the urban centres as buildings change; some are kept and restored, and others are lost in the ever-shifting world of urban renewal. Even in the short time I have been photographing Milton and Oakville, I have seen many things change. Some of the buildings in the downtown went from looking rundown to being now upscale shops. In Milton, my favourite pub, the building is undergoing extensive renovations, like the former Thompson House. And that’s only getting started because where I’ve seen the most change has been in downtown Hamilton.

Today, we are the continuation of those past people who took it upon themselves either through the nature of their employment or out of a personal sense of history. The photos we capture now, or the watercolours, sketches, and other mediums, are a part of that greater historical record. Today, it is more important than ever. Recent changes in the laws in Ontario will eventually wipe clean the listed heritage buildings and prevent the designation process from starting on them for several years. While it won’t be too disastrous, it might spell the end of some of the province’s historical buildings and landscape. A designated building has a lot of protection against changing too many designated parts; a listed building shares some of these protections but not all, and many local governments are scrambling to start processing some of these listed buildings before the deadline.

So what does this all have to do with you? While I do tend to try and target my post to a broad audience, both those who practice photography and those who enjoy looking at photography. This last bit is specifically for photographers. And its a simple ask, don’t stop photographing the towns you visit especially the historic sections. And try and go back and keep photographing them. It may seem boring to many but it helps capture that moment in history, framing it forever on whatever medium you choose to use. It doesn’t have to always been film, it can be digital, you can store it in multiple places or make prints or books. But also make sure you have a way to share these images with local historical societies of the places where you photograph. Because it helps them building that visual record of the town/city/village. And that’s because while so much has been changed, so much has also already been lost. And thanks to photography there is still a visual record of what things used to look like. So don’t stop revisiting these locations and capturing them again and again, because one day it may be too late and the location is gone.