W. Andrew Powell

Saint John, 1936 | Alexander Wetherell Thorne

Union St looking east from Charlotte Street, 1936.

My great grandfather was Alexander Wetherell Thorne, and I have to admit that I don’t know a lot about him. I do have a lot of incredible things from his life though, including some stunning old photos of Saint John, New Brunswick.

My mother told me snippets about his life over the years, there were photos of him around the house, and I have his cane, but some of my favourite things are his newspapers and his photographs. Most of what I have of his are in storage, which I can’t get to right now, but I started scanning some photos of his this week and I had to share them.

In 1914 he went to war, at the age of 32, and his papers say he was already a newspaper reporter at the time. He served as a lieutenant, and when he got back, he went back to work reporting.

At some point in the 30s, he went on to work at the Maritime Broadcaster, and later, The Daily Citizen. I’m fuzzy on the details, but as far as I know, he was the publisher of the Maritime Broadcaster, and I have two giant bound books of most of his newspapers from that time.

In storage, I have a lot more of his photos, but I finally got around to scanning a few of what I did have right now, and I just can’t get over what Saint John looked like back then.

I grew up near Saint John, and we would visit every so often for shopping and things, but it was a much different place in the 1980s. Today, the city has grown and changed, but it’s astounding to see how busy it was in 1936.

I’ll share more scans when I can, but for now, I hope you enjoy the peek back at the streets of Saint John.

Union St looking east from Charlotte Street, 1936.

Looking along Charlotte Street from Sydney, 1936.

DJI Mavic 2 Pro review & video

DJI Mavic 2 Pro

Last month I had the DJI Mavic 2 Pro to review, and ended up going to Gravenhurst, Ontario for the weekend, and the flying was pretty much perfect when it wasn’t snowing.

After flying the Mavic Pro last year, and the Mavic Air, I have to admit that I like the Mavic 2 Pro the most out of all DJI’s drones to date. The Mavic Air is more portable, and easier to take anywhere, but the new Mavic 2 Pro has an incredible 4k Hasselblad camera, and can fly up to 31 minutes in good conditions.

The Mavic 2 Pro also folds down fairly small, so it will fit in just about any camera bag, and it has the new ActiveTrack 2.0 system for tracking subjects, which is a big improvement over the original Mavic.

Read the review below and then scroll down to watch the video I made with the DJI Mavic 2 Pro.

Review: DJI Mavic 2 Pro with Hasselblad camera

Johnny Cash on vinyl

Johnny Cash - All Aboard The Blue Train

It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to vinyl. I’m old enough that I actually grew up with the occasional record, especially at Christmas, but those days ended some time around 1989. By the time I was a teenager, I only had eyes for CDs, although some of my choices were pretty embarrassing back then.

While I’ve been visiting my family’s home in New Brunswick for the past few days though, I’ve had a chance to dig up a few gems from the record vaults, and so far the best has been Johnny Cash’s All Aboard the Blue Train from 1962.

Up until I put on that record, it’s probably been over a decade or more since I’ve listened to vinyl, and that made the experience that much more profoundly moving.

I’ve been listening to people talk about their love of vinyl for a while, but I haven’t really had a chance to experience it much. Listening to Cash sing though, even on our old record player, really surprised me. “Blue Train”, his cover of “I Heard That Lonesome Whistle”, and “Give My Love to Rose” just leap out of the speakers, but the entire album is just mesmerizing.

Through the old record player Cash’s voice reaches out to you like he’s wired in from the recording studio right next door. It was perfect and almost eerie, but of course, most of all mournful. Accompanied by the thrumming guitar, it felt a little like having a private concert with Cash himself.

Sadly, I haven’t been able to find any other records by Johnny Cash in the house, but I’m hoping that in the not-too-distant future I can get myself a record player and pick up a few old albums of my own.

The best way I could imagine finishing this off was with a little sample of Cash from the album. It’s not the same experience, but here’s his unforgettable cover of “Rock Island Line”. This isn’t his best song on the album, but I wanted to share it for the sheer pace of the track. Cash goes from slow to fevered in just under a minute, and it’s one of those moments I wish I could have seen in person.

Photo credits: Jennette McCurdy and Christopher Heard

Jennette McCurdy

This year I’m feeling like a professional photographer, and I know how that sounds, but it’s pretty amazing to me.

I’ve been shooting since I was a kid–I still have my Spider-Man camera that I used when I was five–and I got my first paid gigs when I was in university, shooting social events for the alumni group. Even with that work, and the occasional projects now and then, my photography runs more often than not on my own website, The GATE, and while that’s professional, it’s hard to think of myself as a “professional photographer” when I’m actually employing myself.

Every now and then, something comes along to remind me that I do work as a photographer though. Last week it happened when a publicist forwarded me a story about actress and singer Jennette McCurdy for Just Jared Jr.. The publicist had asked me to take some photos of Jennette after I interviewed her for her new series, Between, and they ended up being used for the teen site, which is a great feeling when you see your work out there.

As it happens, I saved the best photo of Jennette for The GATE, which you can see here cropped up above, but there’s nothing quite like being featured on a website as big as Just Jared Jr.

Still, my friend Christopher Heard, who also writes for The GATE, pointed out to me that I do have these opportunities now and then. Christopher actually still uses the portrait I shot of him a few years ago when he was writing a book about living in the Royal York Hotel in Toronto–The Suite Life: The Magic and Mystery of Hotel Living. You can see two of the photos I shot below from a magazine feature on Christopher.

There is a lot of photography on The GATE that I’m really proud of though, and I’m lucky to get a lot of opportunities to shoot people and events that I love. Here’s one sample–check out the photo of the one and only Guillermo del Toro from last year’s Rogers Media Upfront in Toronto.

High-flying drone adventures

Drone video

I have always been a camera fanatic, probably because my father was too, but once I started shooting video, that started to become my default. There is nothing quite like a capturing that perfect moment on video, and for one of my next reviews on The GATE, I’m test flying one of Parrot’s Bebop drones, which takes video into the air.

Frankly, I’m still amazed that I’m flying a drone and that I can watch what the camera sees through my phone. It’s an incredible experience, and that’s obvious by the fact that wherever I take the Bebop, there are people who want to come up and find out all about it.

Drones are getting a lot more prevalent now, but they’re still rare enough to be exciting, but what I find truly enthralling is being able to get that eagle-eye view of the world–something I always dreamed about as a kid.

For now, I don’t want to spoil the review, but check out this quick video I shot (which is totally raw) with the drone while I was in New Brunswick recently. The video quality could be a little higher, to be honest, but the images are still impressive for a consumer-level drone.

Great Scott! Christopher Lloyd & Joel McHale are in Lego ads!

Christopher Lloyd

Okay, yes. Christopher Lloyd did an ad for the new Lego game, Lego Dimensions, and it’s fun for a little bit, but never mind that. Ultimately it’s a few moments of Lloyd doing his “Great Scott!” shtick (which, yes, I do love), but it doesn’t feel all that interesting.

Who wouldn’t want to see Lloyd do another Back to the Future film? I’ve been down for that even when the third film was kind of mediocre. Dr. Emmett Brown is one of the great characters of film, and even in an ad it’s kind of fantastic seeing him in that role again.

On the other hand, Joel McHale apparently also did an ad for Lego Dimensions, and it’s both fun and funny. Plus, who doesn’t like Lego Batman, after all?

Watch McHale’s ad here, and scroll down for Lloyd’s.

You may be asking yourself why I’m posting ads on my blog, but the real question is, why wouldn’t I? I’m a big fan of great advertising, and there’s frankly not a lot of them on the air these days. Since ads are so prevalent now, and we’re inundated with them, I’ve always felt like it was worth “reviewing” them now and then.

Happy 15 years to me

W. Andrew Powell

At this point, I may actually have too many websites, but I’m also really excited about this one, and here’s why.

In the past, I used The GATE’s Blog, The GATEKeeper’s Blog, as my personal blogging space, but as the site has grown and become its own entity, that seemed less and less like a good idea.

Were visitors coming in to The GATE really interested in reading about what I did last weekend? Maybe, but it made the site look more and more like a personal space when I want it to be its own thing. I may represent the site, but I will also always strive to make it stand on its own.

That’s where this site came in. Over the years I’ve had lots of accounts, but I like that this site is personal, not just another social media account. I may be on LinkedIn, About.me, and all of the rest, but I never felt like there was a space that made sense for me to relax and write whatever I felt like. This site may be a kind of resume, but I also feel that, because it’s not part of my other sites, I can talk about anything I’m doing.

For those of you who have followed along with my various adventures, thanks for reading this as well, and for anyone knew coming in, thanks for stopping in.

Photo at the 2014 MuchMusic Video Awards by Matthew Romaschin, lightanddarkmattr.ca