Advertising > Expo86

My photographs appeared in numerous Expo86 print media…

This big project and celebration – was managed by >Jim Pattison<.


Was given a list of city and town names in British Columbia. I made an image of this text and then projected the graphic onto the robot.

Photographed the Expo Ernie robot at my small room, on Davie Street.

After moving to Vancouver in 1980, the first couple years were spent in the Gastown area. Then moved to an old house on Davie Street (1982-1987).

Rent was $100 per month, for about 3 years – then it was raised to $150/mo.

I had the ‘living-room‘ part of the house. It came with a non-working fireplace, spring bed, table and 2 chairs, an old fridge, a dresser and a hot-plate. The toilet and washroom were upstairs, the shower was in the basement. Every room had a tenant.

Old house at 1315 Davie Street, Vancouver, BC.

I was in Suite #1.

Doorbell panel on Davie Street house, Vancouver BC.



Part 1 of 3

I don’t have any images on this brochure cover.



Part 2 of 3

The brochure then folds open into 3 faces.

My Anik D Satellite and Earth image was placed in the corner. I also created the IMAX theater image – with one plane of the Snowbirds streaking off the screen.



Part 3 of 3

The brochure is then opened up again…

I created the entire background image of the Canada Pavilion photographed at sunset, along with the streaking clouds and the color transition ramp – at the bottom.

Finally got all the elements exposed correctly – on the 37th attempt.

I used my small single-room suite as a photographic studio and had to create a darkroom. Used a large 4×5 Super Chromega D dichroic color enlarger. I also built a pin-registered film carrier for it.

I was doing multiple exposures – onto Kodak 8×10 duplicating film.

Had done a few tests, using a local color lab to process the film, but it was taking too long to see the results. Since I was under time pressures to produce various images, it was necessary to process and develop my own film.

Back in 1979, when I was still living in Calgary, I had built a custom Dip&Dunk E6 film processor. It had 6 stainless steel tanks – that sat in a temperature-controlled water bath. This foot square box was made from 3/4 inch plywood.

Years earlier – I had built 44 of these boxes. One could stack them in many ways, adding shelves – all hold books and ‘stuff’. One was taken out of service – to now work in the darkroom. I still have this unit sitting in storage – after 40 years. The other 43 boxes were given away… 🙂

So I would work thru-out the night – exposing film and processing one 8×10 sheet at a time. Remember carrying down 5 gallon pails of water – from the upstairs bathroom. Various processing steps require lots of water rinses…

So the final 37th sheet of film was delivered to the client and the image went out for reproduction…



It took a bit of work to finally create this Canada Pavilion image.

To get a great sunrise on the sails, I was on weather watch for 6 weeks. Would get up every morning, drive out to the Vancouver Harbor – and look at the sky.

The day finally came when a unique dawn light – was about to happen. I rented a helicopter – for the early morning shoot.

When we arrived at the construction site to capture some aerials, a dredging barge had been moved into position overnight – right along side the building. I had no choice but to abort the shoot.

My next option was to photograph the building – from a platform, next to the Seabus Terminal. I managed to get a sunrise shot of the sails. When I went there later – to shoot the sunset behind the sails and the registration was off.

The concrete platform I had first shot from – floated on the water and went up and down, depending on the tide.

I then had to switch to Plan C… 🙂

I was doing multiple exposures of a large four foot wide cut-out image of the building and sails. All the rigging cables used to stretch the sail fabric to the building structure – was actually white thread. I probably added a dozen lengths by hand. Had to make it look reasonably real… 🙂

Also needed to add some color abstractions to the bottom area – since the building was still under construction and it somehow had to look finished.

All this photography was done several months before the grand opening…



My Anik D Satellite and Earth image was also used on the cover of this brochure.



A large 22×34 inch poster was made of my image.



This image took a bit of work to create. The downtown core of Vancouver was photographed at dusk, from the roof of the Biltmore Hotel – which is at Kingway at 12 Ave E.

A wind storm came up – while I was on the roof, trying to shoot. Had to quickly rope everything down, since I was working at the edge.

Additional exposures were also made, as I zoomed the city lights.

Back in my studio apartment, I recreated the mountain range in the background – adding the blue glow to the original exposure of the city.

Using my pin-registered Nikon F3 camera, I then added more multiple exposures of the fireworks in my custom-made optical printer, the stars and then the streaks of the city lights. This is what the final 35mm film looked like.



This image also took a bit of work to create.

I was given the task of combining the 3 main elements – that were supplied to me. I had to make masks which were then pin-registered in my optical printer and multiple exposures made. When I finally got the main design done, I then added my custom star field to the background (which required another mask).

The creation of the stars came from a setup I designed. A 20×30 inch piece of black plastic, was placed over a 20×30 inch custom-built lightbox – and powered by two Vivitar electronic flash units. It took about 6 months of work (done years earlier) to finally have a star field – that looked natural.

This Star Field was made by poking tiny holes into a sheet of black plastic, by hand with a needle. There were approximately 100 holes per square inch – which works out to a total count of 60,000.

All this photo manipulation was done – way before photoshop even existed…



Part 1 of 9

This was another major brochure package, which consisted of a heavier bond jacket, into which the main booklet was inserted into. The 3 images showing above, were ones that I made.

The Art Director I worked for – was Peter Matthews. I still have some of the rough paper sketches, that we worked on – for the various poster and brochure layouts. These were usually a few black wiggly-lines drawn quickly onto plain white paper…



Part 2 of 9

The Rocket Combo image was used on the front cover of the jacket.



Part 3 of 9

My Earth and Flags image was used on the jacket’s back cover.



Part 4 of 9

I created another image using a model of the downtown Vancouver core and the Expo grounds.

Using multiple exposures in the pin-registered Nikon F3, I added the fireworks, the mountain glow and the stars – all onto a single piece of 35mm film.



Part 5 of 9

I created this photo-montage of the plane, a computer and the streaks.



Part 6 of 9

My Fireworks Zoom image was reproduced on the insert cover.



Part 7 of 9

My Earth and Flags image was reproduced again on the insert back cover.



Part 8 of 9

I created this image for one of the pages inside the Insert Brochure.



Part 9 of 9

Created this image for one of the pages inside the Insert Brochure.



I happened to receive this magazine in the mail – a supplement from the Government of Canada. My Canada Pavilion image was reproduced on both covers.

Don’t recall ever receiving any additional income – from this usage. I had many technical and production design challenges to solve. Next time I’ll spend more time working on the business end of Reproduction Rights, Press Runs and Reprints… 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

seventeen + 15 =