Shane Lunny - Cyrano de Bergerac On Fast Forward
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Through the years in the small town that our Vancouver really is I have run into Shane Lunny many times. Twice, in August 1990 and in January 2001 I took his photograph. The former date was for the Georgia Straight and the second for Vancouver Magazine. I have no idea who the woman in the Zodiac is, nor who the man with the sun glasses is. The other man with Lunny is Terry David Mulligan.
I know that Lunny was involved in making high tech interactive museum exhibits. He did this for Expo 68 as well as for the Space Centre of our Vancouver Planetarium. I ran into Lunny before 1990 at Nite Dreems.
And yet I have asked several people in the last few days, “Can you tell me what Shane Lunny did and does in one sentence?” None were able to explain to me in detail exactly what the man does. I know he is a hyperactive man (in the good way), has a smile on his face most of the time and one way or another is a Vancouver institution.
Of Shane Lunny writer John Lekich wrote in that August 1990 Straight profile:
…to appreciate the Lunny edge – you have to keep a sharp eye on the Lunny blur. If there’s anything he likes more than talking, it’s talking with action. Combined with his chivalric goatee and an artfully prominent nose, he looks like Cyrano de Bergerac on fast forward.
I am pretty proud of the Straight illustration credited to me and to William J. Morrison. I think I remember how this pre Photoshop picture was made. I took Lunn's photograph with my Mamiya RB-67 Pro-S. I returned a few days later with an 8x10. A cameraman (Morrison?) copied into video and blended it (in camera). He put the image on a screen and I copied it with my Mamiya.