Category: Short Subjects

We have this thing for trains and photograph them every chance we get. Some might call it a silly obsession and looking inwards, even we think so at times. Truth be told most photos we capture on the subject are not interesting enough to post, but what ever reason they...

Bustling Downtown Argenta British Columbia: well…maybe the word bustling…and downtown for that matter…don’t really apply here, but we’re definitely in Argenta BC, so the title’s at least partly right. Welcome to this little East Kootenay Community, quite remote and off the beaten path and we’re here just because. Look, it’s...

Here’s a home with a view or rather it was previously a home with a view and now just an empty shell. Everyone up and left, so it’s been abandoned for some time now, this once grand farm house on the very edge of a scenic coulee. That it’s devoid...

Forced perspective (noun): the use of any of various techniques (as in photography…) to create the optical illusion that objects or people are smaller, larger, closer, or farther away than they really are. Credit: Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It’s often done for humorous effect – maybe you’ve seen those pictures where some...

Dateline Torrington Alberta and it’s early in 2022. Someone, and we can’t shake the feeling that it’s a person with far too much time on their hands (wink, wink) has built a mini-Stonehenge out of random blocks of concrete. Why? Wait, the big question is why not? It’s one of...

As long time city residents, we’ve noticed there seems be a proliferation of back alley rhubarb growing in certain 1950s-1960s era neighbourhoods throughout the city. Our community fits that time frame, and yes, we need only go a block or two to find some. They usually appear deliberately and strategically...

These concrete piers, seen off in the distance, are all that remains of the Canadian Pacific’s Lorraine railway bridge. The line it supported dates back to the mid-1910s, but didn’t last long and everything removed roughly four decades later. In the railway business that’s the blink of an eye and...

The Bear Stare: here’s a random pick photo from the collection showing a brief but memorable face to face encounter that happened out near Trout Lake British Columbia. That place is simply crawling with those furry beasts and encounters quite common. There we were burning down some logging road, at...

Here’s the most northerly extant section of an unfinished railway line that was to run south from Calgary. Part of Canadian Northern Railway’s Alberta Midland,. it dates from the 1910s and a planned foray into southwestern Alberta. This was in competition with the dominate player in the region, Canadian Pacific...

Industrial Park Life: here’s an odd little home in a Calgary neighbourhood full of warehouses and factories. A train track runs right out front of the property and the road past is gravel (or muck when wet). This dwelling seems so out of place, but in the past, there was...

Here’s an interesting discovery preserved in concrete for all time and it’s paw prints from 1913 found on a Calgary sidewalk. The date stamp confirms it. The pooch walked over the cement soon after the pour, before it set and left their mark. The flaw was not worth repairing I...

Bamboo Gardens Mayland Heights Calgary is a literal hole in the wall restaurant down some back street and secreted away on the upper floor of a nondescript building. Reviews suggest the food is pretty good over all (mmmm, ginger beef) but looking at the exterior may belie the fact. Its...

“Harvest” is a curious roadside attraction in the remote West Kootenay community of Meadow Creek British Columbia and placed there a couple years ago. It’s just one of many “Koots” sculptures in the region and they’re hidden away in forests or like here, more out in the open. No matter,...

TV Wasteland: this old CRT television was found well away from any roads, farms or towns in the Alberta Badlands and one has to wonder how it ever got here. We were in search of a little mining history (with permission of the landowner) and hoofing-it cross country through a...

We know of them, but never thought we’d spot one of these rare beasts out in the wild. This brand of motorhome was made so long ago and never sold in huge numbers (and further we suspect most or all were to US customers), so the odds were against it....

Massage – Lics – Lubetown: a photo pulled completely at random from the archives, be it good or bad, and presented here in all its glory. No, our subject is not something dirty this time, even though it sounds like we’re headed that way, but the names of three businesses...

Remember Car2Go Calgary, the vehicle sharing service that was set to revolutionize urban transportation here in the city in 2012? No? Even though they haven’t been gone for long (since 2019), it appears they’ve become a footnote in the collective minds of people in and around Cowtown. Does anyone remember?...

Good morning Equity Alberta! We’re on the ground at sunrise (and a gorgeous one it is), just south of this little dot on the map and looking at this relatively modern Cargill grain terminal. It’s not really historic in any sense, but it’s so pretty as a picture, we just...

Here’s a spring discovery and had things greened up more, we’d have never spotted this derelict 1958 Buick hidden in the trees. Out here on the backwater prairies, it’s rare to find such an upscale car from that era and most rural folks back then drove pickups, or something else...

Okay, this is strange…you might even say it’s plane weird. Plane weird? Get it! Haha! Here’s the fuselage of a former business jet, spotted on a property in the Kootenays of British Columbia. We were speeding down the highway, spotted it in the corner of our eyes and with some...

We’re looking at a section of old Number Three, the Crowsnest Highway, in its namesake locale, the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta. Along here we’re a stone’s throw from the British Columbia border and it’s just behind our shooting position. This stretch is still paved and can be driven after being...

Pioneer Acres Museum in Irricana Alberta had a large collection of vintage cameras donated a couple years back and asked the Team to help build a display around them. No problem! Doing this kept us busy during Covid and now that things have opened up again our little project can...

It’s time for another random pick and the devil’s been cheated yet again. We simply close our eyes and choose an image from our huge collection, any image, that’s never been published before and post it here. Be it good or bad or even embarrassing, we’ll show you. So far,...

There were once hundreds of underground coal mines scattered across Alberta, but most were gone by the 1960s. Some we’re in service of industry and the material used for power generation, by steam locomotives, for steel making and a million other uses. Others supplied domestic coal, used for heating homes...

A request comes out of the blue. Could you drive our old motorhome from one spot in Calgary to another close by? We’re into vintage campers – that’s well known – so I guess they though us perhaps the best people to call. Bad idea folks! Anyway, the conversation plays...

The Legacy, in Lion’s Centennial Park Ponoka Alberta, is claimed as the world’s largest saddle bronc statue. Photographed while out for an evening stroll, this roadside attraction is a subject we never planned to share. We shoot a lot of images just for us, as was the case here, even...

There we were, hiking in Southern Alberta, in search of history and on rounding a corner eye up something curious. Here’s a most beautiful setting overlooking a forested valley and on this spot two simple crosses mark this mine road memorial. We came to look at some coal mining remains...

Massive wood beams and what must be a million bolts make up this imposing structure, an abandoned train trestle found along a branchline closed decades ago. This is a former Canadian Pacific property in Northern Alberta, put in during the 1920s and witness to its last train in the early...

What a sad ending for the Alberta 2005 Centennial Railway Museum, out in Beiseker Alberta. The group behind it all has long since disbanded, the old station, a planned showpiece, burned down years ago and their railcar collection dispersed to wind. It started off with grand plans, and no doubt...

With a tight schedule and and only minutes to spare, all there’s time for in Derwent Alberta is a quick pit stop to snap a couple photos of Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox style (meaning domes are a prominent feature) the building dates from the late...