Gore Park Fountain at Night

Every piece of art has an interesting history or sentiment behind it. Another art truism, specifically about photography, is that everything of this world that could be shot has been shot. Photography now is not about discovery. It’s about rediscovery.

The Gore Park Fountain is not famous. It’s not even a major attraction for the City of Hamilton but it is still beautiful, and definitely one of the most recognizable symbols of Hamilton and its Beasley neighbourhood.

The original was erected in 1859, and then became a centre of Hamilton’s urban life. It was demolished in 1959, however, due to its deteriorating condition and the city’s plan to modernize the downtown core. In 1993, renewed interest by the city’s Head-of-the-Lake Historical society and its offshoot Fountain Foundation consisting of society members, local businesses, corporations and private citizens lead to the raising of $500,000 to build a new fountain. Installed in 1996, the new fountain is made with some pieces of the original fountain to enhance its heritage value, a near replica of the original and a true link between Hamilton’s past and future.

I first photographed this fountain on a summer day in 2005 but while it was technically and aesthetically nice to look at, I was never content with the results. In my mind, the image barely captured the spirit of the distant past and 21st century present of the fountain, park, neighbourhood and city. Even more of a problem for me was that many photographers had made countless beautiful images of this fountain that weren’t too dissimilar from mine. For a while, I thought that my only option was to abandon the idea of presenting an urban landscape-architectural-sculptural photograph of this fountain. That decision proved impossible for me to live with. I couldn’t shoot this city, and not include this icon in my project. My final decision–which should have occurred to me much sooner, was to make an image of the fountain in a way that I had not seen done by any other photographer. It was just a simple concept of shooting the active fountain at night with a long exposure so that the ambient light would illuminate and transform the water streams into veils.

This is one of several low-light compositions I made of the Gore Park Fountain in July of 2009. Instead of shooting the old-style sculpture from the west as I did years before, I shot it from its eastern side and from very low to the ground. I ensured that I got some of the lit offices of the modern Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce headquarters and 100 King Street West building (formerly Stelco Tower) in the background to meld old-style elements with the new. In 2005, I composed the image in portrait. This time, I composed the image in field as I wanted to convey not just the tallness of the fountain but its breadth, include the scenery of the surrounding park, and convey dimensional depth of the scene from such a low to the ground angle. This time around, movement is conveyed by the jets and overflows of water, instead of giving just a static freeze frame impression. The tall buildings fade into a richly darkened sky which helps to make the street and shop lights dazzle without becoming overbearing. All of these elements have come together to make a much better and unique urban photograph of this Steeltown icon.

Back in 2011 I briefly met Paul Elia, artist and member of the Beasley Neighbourhood Association, at the clothesline art sale that was headed up by the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology. He was interested in this piece and told me about a quite similar image made by photographer Jeff Tessier. Producing original work has always been extremely important to me, and I must admit that my paranoia had me fearing that perhaps Paul thought that I was pedaling Jeff’s shot as my own.

Honestly, I had never heard of Jeff or seen his image before. So I looked up his shot, panicked over the similarities and e-mailed him hoping to smooth things over. Great guy; he put my mind at ease. Although he was only acquainted with Paul, he assured me that he didn’t believe that Paul suspected me of copying anything. It was just an observation of an uncanny coincidence. He said:

“Well, photography is a funny thing. There’s only so much to photograph and it’s no surprise that if one photog with a good eye sees something in a certain way, then the next photog will likely come along and see it in a similar light. It looks like that’s what happened with you and me. But in the spirit of full disclosure, I need to say that my image of Gore Park at night was inspired by some work I’ve seen from another Hamilton photographer, Peter Michael Wilson, who has some stunning night time photos of the city, including Gore Park. I used to use Peter’s images when I was the Photo Editor at H Magazine and for one of my recent projects I decided to go out for a few nights in the middle of the night, inspired by the images and emotions I saw in his work. That’s where the ‘Gore Park Fountain at Night’ image came from. So if anyone’s copying, it’s me!”

Thanks, Jeff!

So, despite the hundreds of photos already taken of this fountain over decades, I hoped that I had succeeded in creating a picture that is unique. Although I see that I have failed in that endeavor, I am quite satisfied with my results. There are enough differences for that. I am also intrigued to know that there has been other Hamiltonians who shoots with the same enthusiasm and approach as me.
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