Rod Logan: 10,000 Ships

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Rod Logan, "untitled photographs," c. 1994-2015

Courtesy the artist and Chris Wright

Featuring a truly unique photographic archive created over the past three decades by local “ship-spotter” and photographer Rod Logan (b. 1942, Vancouver, Canada), this exhibition showcases some 10,000 ships which have entered the Burrard Inlet since the early 1980s.

During the postwar period in Europe and North America, a tradition of amateur hobbyists fascinated with “spotting” trains took hold, spurred by the publication of compendium guides showing locomotive varieties. Train spotters set out to “collect” as many sightings as possible, keeping an eye out for different categories, makes and/or model of trains, with the goal of completing a set. Other modes of transportation—including automobiles and airplanes—subsequently grew to have their own unique enthusiasts, and now “spotters” are as diverse as is modern technology.

For local Vancouverite Rod Logan, shipping became a keen and pervasive passion in the early 1980s. From then on, Logan began documenting the comings and goings of every manner of ship, tug, barge and boat entering and leaving Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. He continues to shoot today, printing each roll of film at one-hour photo shops and carefully annotating the date, time and name of the depicted ship and vessel on the back of each print. To date, Logan has produced well over 10,000 individual pictures of maritime vessels.

Logan’s photographs are taken from a variety of locations. Many are shot from the Lion’s Gate or Second Narrows (Ironworkers Memorial) Bridges, while others are from the inlet’s shoreline. Day after day, year after year, the workings of the Vancouver inner harbour have been laid bare through Logan’s eyewitness account of its unremitting comings and goings. Taken together, the sheer quantity of images paints an indelible picture of the nautical life of Vancouver’s harbour.