The soot-covered brick building on the corner of Bay and Bridge St. in Victoria did not appear to be much from the outside. Climbing up a chain-link fence at the rear of the building and pulling myself through a second floor window, I first entered what I later discovered to be the Rock Bay Hotel.

The boarded-up building had obviously been vacant for many years. Apart from the cooing doves, which flew in and out of the central skylight, the building was quiet and still. A chair and perhaps a table were now the only residents of the old hotel. 

The setting would have been completely disheartening if not for the wondrous display of colour. From room to room, the walls of the old building had been painted a multitude of colours, which had now faded and peeled to reveal beautiful compositions. The pastel colours presented a sense of beauty in death; a poetic grace in the disintegration of these rooms and hallways.

The Rock Bay Hotel series was photographed in 1989/1990. The images were  shot on 35mm Ektachrome Professional Plus slide film. The slides were later drum scanned and  printed as 16 x 24 inch Giclée prints.  The “Rock Bay Hotel” series was exhibited at Gallery 401 in Toronto as part of the 2003 Contact Photography Festival. It was later show at Balzac's Coffee Roasters in the Distillery District.