About GBIA
Grey-Bruce Images Archive (GBIA), a collection of historical photographs, is owned by Peter Ciokan and two others. In 2000 Peter owned two significant collections of historical Owen Sound photographs. One, the work of John James, an Owen Sound photographer who set up shop in 1905, and the other, the work of Gerry McDonald, an Owen Sound photographer who originally opened Foto Art Came
ra Shop in the late 1950s. We have also obtained and are processing several other collections of historical significance to Grey/Bruce counties. It is a private archive of historical photographs of Owen Sound, Ontario and the surrounding counties. Photographic prints are available for sale in a variety of sizes and the images can be purchased for one-time-use in print and electronic publications. Grey -Bruce Image Archive collection started by cataloguing and digitizing the John James collection which covers the years 1905-1955. There are thousands of glass plates and film negatives in this collection, most of them being family and individual portraits. We have digitized around 800 of John James’ pictorial scenes of Owen Sound area. Gerry McDonald photographed scenes, people and events of Owen Sound from 1955-1974 These negatives, again, many of them portrait and wedding photographs have been scanned as well. Mr Fraser was a police photographer in Owen Sound. Not only did he photograph Owen Sound he also had his own collection of historical photographs and information. Scarrow was an avid amateur photographer from Owen Sound who took a large number of slides. Each scanned negative and/or print in GBIA’s pictorial collection has been numbered and stored in an archival envelope. These images have been digitized and stored on DVD and hard drives. In this way the original negatives, which are very fragile, will not be used on a continual basis to produce photographic prints. All prints can now be produced and restored where necessary, from the digital image. Research into the subject of each image is being carried out and entered into the database.
