There was no flash of lightning or roll of thunder to announce my decision to take pictures of disappearing things. It was, instead, a process of assimilation and conversion of experiences into a collection of images.

That began over 30 years ago when I photographed anything and everything that caught my fancy. However, without any conscious awareness my work developed into recording bygone things, of the neglected, the deteriorating, the aging and fast disappearing; natural or human made.

The emphasis evolved into the archaeological and historical – especially places of worship.

Perhaps it was so ordained, for my regular work took me to places I had not been to before. And that’s where I found them, falling apart, abandoned, and perhaps forgotten. But often the next time I happened to be there, they would be gone without a trace.

In rare instances some telltale remnant reconfirmed what I already knew. Here there once had been something that many had visited, many had loved.

When I was born in the then Third World country of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) the restoration of archaeological sites was neither affordable nor justified. Since then new historic places have been found and many are being restored for their intrinsic worth.

Canada’s recorded history is nowhere as long as Ceylon’s, but many of its structures still need to be preserved. It is incumbent on us to nurture the memories when the reality is gone.