{"id":5846,"date":"2016-05-30T20:53:53","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T00:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=5846"},"modified":"2016-05-30T23:06:32","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T03:06:32","slug":"remember-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/remember-to-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember to Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom<\/a>

Tom Bochsler by Robert Lansdale<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom Bochsler was our\u00a0speaker at the April 20, 2016 meeting. Tom took us on a journey back in time to honour fallen Canadian soldiers of the two world wars in France and Belgium. Mr Bochsler is a noted photographer and journalist who has spoken at the society before. His studio is celebrating 60 years of work. His son now runs the studio with his grandson and some dedicated photographers and \u00a0staff. Tom’s\u00a0book,\u00a0<\/em>The Art of Industry, covers 50 years of his photographic work in journalism and industry. This review was written by our past president Mark Singer.<\/i><\/p>\n

Tom toured and photographed the European cemeteries, monuments and some of the battlefields a couple of years ago. Tom recalls leaving his wife on her own at one site so he could get the right shots, almost missing the bus as it was leaving for the next location (even though he was at each location for almost 2 hours). As a tribute to old age, Tom commented on\u00a0 needing his wife to sometimes help him up after he got the right shot from low to the ground. The tour benefited from nice weather. Skies where a mixture of sun and clouds – just right for good photographs.<\/p>\n

\"World<\/a>

World War 2 B&W photos interspersed with Tom’s original colour photos<\/p><\/div>\n

During his\u00a0Remember to Remember<\/i>\u00a0talk, Tom interspersed archival pictures with those he took during the tour to give a before and after view of the area. He photographed many famous locations including\u00a0 Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Nouvelle St. Fast (German Cemetery with 40,000 casualties), Cabaret Rouge, Passchendaele, Dieppe, Juno Beach, Abby Ardennes and Beny-sur-Mer.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Vimy Ridge memorial – outer photos by Tom Bochsler<\/p><\/div>\n

At Vimy Ridge, tunnels were made in the land two years before the Great War battles. The tunnels were vermin infested, very wet, and very mucky. A war technique initiated by the Canadian forces\u00a0 was sporadic charges out of the trenches, catching the enemy off guard. Around the Vimy memorial over 7,000 Canadians are buried in the 30 cemeteries. We saw a memorial to John McCrea and our membership secretary, Wayne Gilbert, also a professional photographer came up and read a heart warming rendition of McCrea\u2019s famous poem,\u00a0In Flanders Fields<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Tom photographed close-ups of some of the individual headstones depicting symbols and the soldier\u2019s name (if known). Many of the stones are\u00a0 simply marked\u00a0Soldier of The Great War<\/i>. Tom acknowledged that his photographs do not show the suffering of the soldiers but attempt to pay tribute to the many Canadians who were involved. For example, every night at 8pm in the town of Ypres, a group on buglers play the\u00a0Last Post.<\/i>\u00a0Tom had us stand in silence as we listened to the haunting sound. All traffic stops while this ceremony takes place. The daily rendering has taken place since the 1920s. During part of WW2, the ceremony moved to London, England.<\/p>\n

At each site, it is always very serene and calm. The area is immaculately kept and there is always a monument with descriptions of the battle that took place. One of the most interesting pictures were the life size outlines of some 9,000 people scratched out on the sand of the beaches of Normandy, representing the people killed in the D-Day invasion. The outlines Tom photographed were made on September 2013 and washed away during the next high tide.<\/p>\n

\"Outlines<\/a>

Outlines drawn on the Normandy Beach to show the deaths on D-Day<\/p><\/div>\n

Back home, Tom has been taking photographs of the Remembrance Day services in his native Burlington and Hamilton. A local motorcycle club, whose members placed candles on the headstones of deceased veterans, performed a touching part of one service.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At a local cemetery for Korean Veterans Motorcyclists placed a candle on each grave marker<\/p><\/div>\n

The increasing number of younger people attending their local Remembrance services has heartened him. He reminded all that our soldiers are well known for peacekeeping over the years. Tom ended the evening with the famous 2014 cartoon showing soldiers at the war memorial in Ottawa aiding Corporal Nathan Cirillo. And slides of some of the tributes to Cirillo\u00a0 in his native Hamilton.\u00a0Remember to Remember<\/i>\u00a0offered a moving and touching look at the cost of war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Bochsler was our\u00a0speaker at the April 20, 2016 meeting. Tom took us on a journey back in time to honour fallen Canadian soldiers of the two world wars in France and Belgium. Mr Bochsler is a noted photographer and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,3],"tags":[58,5,4],"class_list":["post-5846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-program","tag-history","tag-photographer","tag-speaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5846"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5866,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846\/revisions\/5866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}