All posts filed under Don Denton

Back alley in the snow, Kamloops, British Columbia 2015

A view of pedestrians making their way down a snowy back alley in north Kamloops, British Columbia. Downtown is visible in the background. A recent post by Austin, Texas photographer Kirk Tuck about the photographer as a visual anthropologist resonated with me. Here’s an excerpt below, with the link to the full article here. ‘Photographers rarely look to their own cultural or social peers as …

Shipwreck of the Pacific Sun King, Saanich, BC 2015

The wreckage of the ship Pacific Sun King lies on the beach in Gyro Park at Cadboro Bay. The 55 foot, 44-tonne live aboard ship washed ashore during a heavy windstorm on December 5. The wreckage has gotten more and more worn out as the owner saved what he could from the ship and subsequent storms have worn away the ship. A more complete story …

Old Water Tower and Boats, Sooke, BC 2013

The light was just right, highlighting the old water tower and the two beached boats that bookend the image during a brief road trip out to Sooke. This area has lots of overlooked and hidden corners  for visual imagery that highlights local history and the British Columbia coastal and Vancouver Island lifestyle.

Dowler Grocery, Victoria, BC 2012

Dowler Grocery is yet another of those unique neighbourhood corner stores that has closed. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence that a 7-11 opened up across the street. I’m not sure when Dowler Grocery actually closed, I don’t actually remember it being open. The unusual thing is that even though this photo was taken in 2012 the storefront still looks the same. It hasn’t …

Salmon Spawning, Vancouver Island British Columbia 2015

Every fall since I returned to British Columbia twelve years ago I’ve photographed the spectacle and aftermath of  the salmon returning to spawn in Vancouver Island rivers. When I started photographing the autumn event I was using black and white film. I shoot mainly digital now, although still shooting some B/W film when out on the rivers, but feel this particular project looks better in …

Architecture and Landscape Changes Vancouver Island 2015

  Two photographs taken a week apart. In the first a heritage house, sporting some unique architectural detail, sits on supports and a trailer, in the second, the vacant lot after the house was removed and view of the previously hidden seascape. The third, yet to be taken, will show the new structure built on the lot. Change is inevitable and at least in this …

British Columbia Photography – Art and Archive 2015

I get asked the question, what do you?,  regarding my photography a lot. It’s easy to answer when I talk about the photography that pays my rent. I am an editorial photographer who supplies images to accompany articles, illustrate stories and/or provide news, sports, entertainment coverage for newspapers and magazines. People get that. It is much harder to explain the project work. I often use …

Music Archivist Jason Flower and Supreme Echo, Victoria British Columbia

Jason Flower is a music archivist who issues collections of forgotten, lost and hard to find music as well as being a collector and seller of new and old music LPs, 45s, tapes and CD’s.  His Victoria store and archival reissue record label bear the same name, Supreme Echo. He’s passionate about his music and that has led to collections of early punk music from …

Summer Fog, Oak Bay, British Columbia 2015

I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I was freezing in the fog that had rolled in off the Pacific and over Willows Beach. Bus loads of tourists were sitting on blankets on the sand, unable to see beyond the first waves and pretending to enjoy their picnic lunch while shivering. At the end of the beach a man was wading through the shallow …

Parksville Beach Resort, Parksville, British Columbia 2015

The beaches were crowded during a recent visit to Parksville on Vancouver Island. Crowds were watching and participating in a big interprovincial beach volleyball tournament and lots of people were taking in the sandcastle sculpture competition. Then there was the Parksville Beach Resort, all boarded up, just above the beach and crowds and next to new towers of other hotels. I don’t know the history …

BC Transit Bus And Metal Scrap Yard, Victoria British Columbia 2015

A BC Transit bus lies at the bottom of a heap of scrap metal waiting to be torn apart and added to the pile in Victoria, British Columbia. The business sits on Victoria’s waterfront just on the edge of the city core. The city has voiced support for keeping industry on the waterfront but one wonders how long a recycling plant will stay (be allowed …

Remembering Artist Rachel Berman

Artist Rachel Berman died in Victoria on May 28. I can’t claim to have known her very well but I had really liked her work and two years ago she agreed to let me photograph her. After that, we’d  often  run into each other on the street and have a chat. She  would encourage me to photograph other artists, making suggestions about possibilities, and chiding …

Wing Sang Building, Vancouver British Columbia

Wing Sang Building, Vancouver BC 2012 Don Denton photograph The Wing Sang building is the oldest in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The Pender Street heritage building was restored and now houses the Rennie Collection, the private art collection of Vancouver real estate mogul Bob Rennie.    

Fishing Boat and Fire Hydrant, Maple Ridge, British Columbia

  One of the things I like to do is find other photographers who use the Pacific Northwest as a subject. Lately I’ve been looking at the images of Missy Prince, a Portland based photographer who seems to divide her time between Portland and the southern USA. She’s interesting as well in that she doesn’t have regular website but appears to simply use Flickr as …

Photo Group Talks

BC Ferries, Swartz Bay, BC 2012 I’ve spoken to a number of photo groups lately, showing some of my images and talking about the projects. The audiences have been great, very appreciative and always lots of questions and discussion afterwards. It’s a two way street though. I get lots of feedback on my images which is so helpful and it’s often a surprise which photographs …

Olympic Peninsula Weekend Road Trip

Hit the road for a weekend with a trip around the Olympic Peninsula. I’d been down the east side before travelling to and from Portland but hadn’t done the whole loop around the peninsula. Great trip although the weather was constantly changing, providing a number of challenges for driving and making it difficult to get all the photos I wanted. That said it was a …

Saturday Night – Chinatown

Downtown at dusk hoping for the late evening sunlight slanting through but clouds drifting in ended that. Settled for the bright colours of the umbrellas and the neon signs coming on in Victoria’s Chinatown district.

Omen of Bones, British Columbia

I’ve been working on a project the past few years, shooting every fall when the salmon return to spawn. These aren’t the images you always see of scarlet bodied fish fighting their way upstream but instead are images of the dead and decaying bodies of the spawned out fish. I’ve been calling this project Omen of Bones and when people ask me what it’s about …

Seattle Art Museum and Diane Arbus

It’s always great to see an actual print, even if it is behind glass, that you’ve only seen as a reproduction before. This Garry Winogrand image of Diane Arbus is currently hanging at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM).  Also on exhibition were a couple of Arbus prints, a collection of Imogen Cunningham prints and an exhibition of Andy Warhol photographs. Thanks to the SAM employee …

Drinking With Photographers

One of the downsides of living in a smaller place is that you have a tendency to feel isolated from the rest of the world. This week Don Weber was in town for a couple of workshops and it was a nice reminder of the wider world out there. Thursday night I met up with him and a couple of other local photographers at a …

Vancouver Pre – Olympics, Vancouver British Columbia 2010

Main press centre in Vancouver. I picked up the last of my Olympic credentials on Saturday and so am officially official. Lots of Olympic workers and media, with special clothes and accreditation tags around their necks,  and police in the downtown core but hard to see ‘Olympic fever’ among regular folks. Most of the Olympic signage you’re seeing is commercial but there are a few …