Lethbridge living started the “Then and Now” series of articles, highlighting places in Lethbridge that have made a historical impact on our community, in the Jan./Feb. issue of 2010. So far we have featured Galt Gardens, the Brewery Garden, Barrack Square, Lethbridge Hotel, and in this issue, the Galt Hospital, now the Galt Museum & Archives. The 1910 wing of the Galt Hospital just happened to be celebrating its 100^th anniversary this fall, so it seemed like a great opportunity to learn a little more about this establishment, and also feature the hospital in our history section.

I publicly confessed that I love theatre; at least, that’s what the cover of the January/February Lethbridge living implied, and the text, by Katherine Wasiak, conveyed that message clearly. I suppose it’s true.

Theatre is an art, one of three in the traditional classification system. The other two are visual art and music. In many cases, visual artists work on their own and produce an object: a painting, sculpture, photograph, film, or in the digital age, a code that can represent and manipulate that product. The product can be consumed and possessed for a period of time. It can be produced for any number of purposes, to delight, to imitate, to provoke, to astonish and to mystify. The artist isn’t usually there when a viewer/participant experiences the piece, so the artist often works without benefit of feedback from the viewer/consumer.

I always enjoy shooting theatre, or any live performance for that matter. It presents challenges photographers aren’t normally faced with in our day to day portrait work. We fight low light, movement, and have to keep from distracting the audience and actors. After finding a few good angles to shoot from I was able to capture some really nice frames of these two productions going on at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod this summer. Here are some of my favourites: