Tag Archives: Pacific National Exhibition

First in an occasional series on the W.J. Moore panoramic photographs.

Thanks to funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Program, we’ve just completed a project to digitize 399 panoramic photographs by W.J. Moore.

Panoramic photographs are defined as being at least twice as wide as they are high. The format was popular for group photographs of teams and at conferences or other gatherings, and because it captured the breadth of landscape views in one unbroken image.

Stock parade at the Vancouver Exhibition at Hastings Park, 1915. Item # PAN N80.

The Vancouver Exhibition was later renamed the Pacific National Exhibition. Click through the image above to see what it looked like before mini-donuts, the roller coaster, and the Prize Home.

The original negatives are huge. They were taken in the first half of the 1900s with a No. 8 Cirkut Outfit camera, which produced negatives 8 inches high and up to 8 feet long. It’s a demanding format, but Moore had the skill and experience necessary to produce excellent photographs.  Continue reading →