Meet the photographer documenting the vanishing vintage buildings of Burnaby

Nakita Cheung has a knack for capturing nostalgia in her photos of Burnaby.

Cheung, a hobby photographer, runs Disappearing Burnaby, an online photo journal that showcases images and the history of the city’s “vanishing low-rise apartments, bungalows, and buildings.”

Despite the city’s landscape seeing rapid development with the addition of more skyscrapers, Cheung’s blog highlights the charm of older structures, some of which have been demolished over the past months and some that still remain.

Cheung told the Beacon that she grew up in the Metrotown area and she started to think about what it used to look like, and realized it was really hard to find photos of the neighbourhood online.

“About last year, that’s when a lot of the newer shops were moving into Station Square. And I was trying to remember what it used to look like when it was still Save-On-Foods. And I tried to look for photos of it and none existed except for one from the ‘80s … when the whole thing collapsed. I was like, ‘Well that kind of sucks,’” she explained.

Cheung said she was looking for Station Square pictures from the ‘90s when the Red Robin and movie theatre were located there.

“It just doesn’t exist on the internet. And I thought, ‘Well, it’s the internet, you would think that there’s something out there right?’ There must be.’ And I just kept searching and there was nothing,” said Cheung.

So, she decided to start documenting the area herself, focusing on older homes, buildings, and businesses.

“I thought the area is just changing so rapidly and the whole city is changing so rapidly. There’s a bunch of really cool houses and architecture there [and] I just wanted to take photos of them,” said Cheung.

“It was purely just an appreciation of these older buildings that are disappearing.”

Photography is a hobby for Cheung, and she said she finds what she wants to shoot by simply walking around the city and observing her surroundings.

“I literally walk around with a camera and then if it looks cool, or if there’s a nice decal or sign…I just take a picture of it.”

But it doesn’t just end with taking a photo and posting it online.

Cheung also does extensive research about what building or home she’s photographed. The City of Burnaby Burnaby archives, she noted, has been an excellent historical resource.

Many entries on Disappearing Burnaby include what’s left of the older walk-up apartments in the Metrotown area, with special attention to the signs and decals on the buildings’ front doors.

Cheung explained that one of her favourite buildings to photograph was the El Ray apartment complex, which had a front door that really stood out.

“It’s just the fact that somebody has kept up the hand-painted cursive name of that building on the glass door, and it’s in this blood-red paint. I’m going, ‘Who is keeping this up, and where are they finding this red [paint]? It’s like The Shining red paint,” she laughed.

“And when the light shines through it, it just looks so interesting.”

There’s something about the way Cheung takes her photos that also adds a sense of nostalgia to the image itself.

Her shots often include moody lighting and shadows that make you feel like you’re looking at a photo that was taken years ago.

“The vintage feel is just to fit with the topic itself, which is older buildings. So kind of taking you back in time in a way or just give that feeling of maybe what it looked like back in the day or get someone to imagine how it would have looked like when it was brand new,” she said.

Throughout her photography project, Cheung said she has observed and learned a lot about how Burnaby has and continues to develop, especially Metrotown.

“It seems like just throughout history, Metrotown, in particular, has been focused in on this area that’s central and used to boom and you’ll see it in just where the houses are and how things are developing today, too,” she said.

“And then you look at Brentwood, which wasn’t really used for farming as much and didn’t have that industrial backbone to it, it’s got a lot of single-family homes, it’s a lot newer as an area. It was more connected to Vancouver through the Hastings side. It’s very different and it’s so interesting to see how each of those areas developed.”

Cheung has recently expanded her photographic coverage to include Metro Vancouver as well. She started a new Instagram page called Vanishing YVR, where she documents older buildings and sites around the region.

“I actually moved over to Vancouver recently… literally across the [Burnaby-Vancouver] border. So I started seeing these other buildings that were super cool. … It’s just really anything. There’s no real theme per se. It’s really just things that are funky or interesting about [Metro] Vancouver,” said Cheung.

You can check out Cheung’s Vanishing YVR page here and check out Disappearing Burnaby here.