burnt embers

Victoria’s Inner Harbour has many historic buildings such as the Customs House, all dressed up in pink. In this light she was begging to be photographed.

A project I am part of has offices behind that window on the lowest left, so I expect to be in there for the first time sometime in the next few months.

This is another shot where the black and white conversion does not work as well as the colour, though again the black and white is just fine (see below).

I shot this with the Mamiya M645 on a roll of thrift-store Kodak 160VC-2 that expired in 2009.

Canada’s register of historic places has the following to say about Customs House:

“Customs House (1874) is valued as the first federal building constructed in Victoria after British Columbia entered Confederation; it is the original embodiment of the federal government’s presence in the city. The associative value of this place resides in its distinct nineteenth century governmental style – adopted from French and American examples – and its prominent location within Victoria’s historic townscape.

“This building is significant as one of few remaining works constructed under the tenure of T.S. Scott, Canada’s first Chief Architect of Public Works. Customs House is the earliest example in British Columbia of Canada’s first distinctive national architectural style – the Second Empire Style elements, such as the mansard roofline of this building are reflective of standard architectural vocabulary of late nineteenth century public works across Canada. Its traditional form is indicative of its regulatory functions within Victoria’s harbour; the lower receiving floor and upper offices surmounted by a roof-top viewing deck allowed for convenient physical and visual access to the water.

“The prominent position of Customs House on Wharf Street is integral to its historic value. This free-standing building is a surviving testament to the federal desire to control western Canada, and its unmistakable dominance over what was once an active international seaport is representative of its function as a centre for the extension of Dominion law and order over British Columbia’s lucrative commercial activities in the late nineteenth century.”

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Mamiya M645 Super, 80mm/f2.8 lens, ISO160, Kodak 160VC-2 expired June 2009.

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