A photo exhibit was held Friday evening, showcasing Kingston through aerial photos — many of them taken by WWI flying ace Billy Bishop.
The exhibit is called “We Remember: 100 Years of Kingston.”
“It’s a Remembrance Day kick-off ceremony, essentially,” says show creator Colin Morris, co-owner of Kingston Frameworks.
The exhibit features 100-year-old black-and-white aerial photographs of Kingston, taken after the First World War, by veteran fighter pilots Billy Bishop and William Barker in 1919.
“They took what they did in the war — surveillance and battling in planes — and turned it into art,” says Morris. “They turned it into something now, a hundred years later, we still have, that captures what Kingston was like at that time.”
What Morris has done now, using modern technology, is match the black-and-white aerial photographs to what Kingston looks like today in high-definition colour photographs.
A set of three pictures are at the centre of the exhibit — the first Royal Military College, then and now.
The second features St. Mary’s Cathedral. Fast forward 100 years, the cathedral is still very dominant.
And the last is of Kingston’s waterfront — Shoal Tower sitting on its own in Lake Ontario, in front of city hall. Today, it’s flanked by boat slips.
The event was conceived to raise money for the Military Veterans Program.
Morris and his business partner have already raised close to $2,000.
“Frankly, Bishop and Barker captured our story at that time.”
The exhibit can now be viewed at Kingston Frameworks at 198 Princess St., where you can also purchase copies of the ‘then and now’ photographs until Nov. 15.
All funds go to the Military Veterans Program.