The Vancouver Branch of the World Ship Society started a "new" photograph collection of images taken by WSS members and others. Within the past five years, the collection has grown from 50 images to well over 50,000 images. Most are in the form of 4" x 6" colour re-prints or 35mm slides, but a growing number are digital images sent to us through the Internet. This Vancouver Branch Photo Collection is not to be confused with the World Ship Society Photo Library (WSPL) which is owned by the parent World Ship Society and housed in the UK. The Vancouver Branch Photo Collection contains a sizeable collection of ships taken in the Welland Canal by former member Jack Heintz who died in 1997. His large collection of slides now forms a major part of our branch collection, as well as hundreds of images donated to us by local members, and some not-so-local members. There are many fine images contained within the collection from the Great Lakes region, the Atlantic Coast, the New Orleans area, the San Francisco area and all parts of British Columbia, with a smattering of images from Australia and the UK.
Cataloguing of the collection is well underway. Once this has been completed, copies of our images will be made available to Branch Members for reasonable cost. In the meantime, our efforts are concentrated on collecting as varied an array of maritime images as we can. If you have a box full of negatives that you would like to donate to the Vancouver Branch Photo Collection, please send them to Glenn Smith, 701-1011 Beach Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6E 1T8 Canada. If you have scanning equipment, or have digital photos, you can e-mail them to: photos. A selection of images is avialable at most monthly meetings for the perusal of members. But due to the sheer volume of items it is not possible to bring all of them to each meeting. Once cataloguing is complete, a listing will be made available for a nominal fee.
Some old-timers may recall that the original Vancouver Branch owned a sizeable collection of negatives at one time. Since the Society did not have the storage space or facilities to maintain ageing nitrate film, the collection was given over to the Vancouver Maritime Museum and was added to their holdings. These images are available to Branch members by special arrangement with Glenn Smith who is a Curatorial Volunteer with the Museum working on the cataloguing of their enormous collection of photographs.
We are always on the lookout for additional images to add to our growing collection. We accept virtually any maritime-oriented scene, ship or harbour view. We will accept a collection of negatives (any size) or prints or digital images. Consider donating your negatives while keeping a set of the prints for your own collection. Or as some members have done, send a duplicate set of your latest prints to us. Although the focus of our collection is the Canadian West Coast, we will not turn down any donations of shipping activity anywhere in the world!
