‘A real heartbreaker’: Five-year photography project stolen from car in downtown Montreal

A Toronto man spent five years capturing photos in remote locations across Canada.

But during a recent stay in Montreal, his car was broken into, and the hard drive containing all his images was stolen. Now, he’s asking the public to help track it down.

It happened on Sept. 7 around 6 p.m. Wayne Adam parked his car near the Hudson’s Bay store in downtown Montreal and went to take pictures of the Christ Church Cathedral – a national historic site.

When he came back to his car, he knew something was wrong.

“I still can’t comprehend the loss right now. But I’ve been doing anything I can in the last two weeks to retrieve them,” Adam told CityNews.

“I saw all my stuff from the passenger seat, which I use as kind of my office, had fallen over onto the driver’s seat. I said, what happened? Did I stack it too high? No, I looked closer. There were shards of glass all over the place. Rain was coming in, and I stood there in shock, because my bag was gone, laptops, all the hard drives where I had backed up all of my photos of the past many years.”

Thousands of images – gone. And while Adam’s two MacBook Airs and other belongings were stolen as well, it’s the hard drive containing the pictures that he desperately wants back.

Adam was nearing the end of the East Coast portion of his project, where he captured some 2,500 federal heritage designation sites across the entire country. Those include historic sites, memorials, parks, landscapes, lighthouses, covered bridges or railroad stations.

Only a handful of images remain in Adam’s possession — the few he shared with friends on Facebook Messenger.

Open Gallery 7 items

Adam filed a police report and contacted Apple. He has also been taking matters into his own hands.

“I’ve been hitting the streets, talking to, in many cases, homeless people, drug dealers, people who might know a thing or two about where to find these items. I’ve been to a number of pawn shops, electronics stores. I’ve posted notices online. I’ve asked for the help of an investigator.

“The person who took this had no idea what they were taking. They were playing the lottery. They saw some easy prey on the front seat of a car. Lesson learned, by the way.”

Adam says Montreal police obtained security footage from the Bay that shows a man with a hoodie breaking into the car.

“So they see this guy taking my stuff and walking north on Aylmer Street. From there, the police say they’ve contacted neighbouring buildings to secure other video images, but so far they have not found anything helpful.”

That’s why Adam is reaching out to Montrealers for help. Anyone with information can reach out to Montreal police and Adam directly via email at news6840@gmail.com.

“I don’t know if I have the heart to go back and repeat everything I’ve seen the last five years. Of course, I’ve got the memory, but the point was to make these images and get them out there. So I don’t know. I’m going to continue shooting photos as I can, visiting places I haven’t been to. But yeah, it’s a real heartbreaker.”