Craig Hodge looks back on 50 years photographing the PNE

Craig Hodge says the 2026 PNE will be his last year doing freelance photography at the fair, closing a 50-year connection that began in 1976.

Hodge started as a teenage part-time newspaper photographer at The Columbian, which later evolved into Surrey Now and other papers. He soon took a PNE staff photography job and estimates he has taken millions of photos at the East Vancouver grounds. Some of his favourites appear in the 2010 book 100 Years of Fun, marking the Pacific National Exhibition’s centennial.

He recalls the PNE as a rich subject for photographers, from concerts at Pacific Coliseum to SuperDogs, the Miss PNE pageant and demolition derbies. Hodge photographed performers including Alice Cooper, ABBA, Queen, the Bee Gees and Frank Sinatra, and watched the work shift from black-and-white film and on-site darkrooms to digital photography.

Hodge, elected to Coquitlam council in 2011 and now running for mayor, says the fair is closely tied to his family life. He met his wife, Darla Furlani, through the PNE and wanted to continue until the new Freedom Mobile Arch concert venue opened. He photographed The Guess Who there on Aug. 23.

Among his more unusual PNE memories is a 1980s promotional shoot involving an elephant being led through the fairgrounds with cotton candy. Hodge recalled the animal helping itself to food from visitors’ plates before the photo session ended and it was taken back to the Coliseum.