Photographer
We’re lucky to have images held in a variety of archives (the BC Archives in Victoria, the Vancouver Public Library’s holdings etc.) although they are general archives holding documents, objects as well as photographs. It is too bad there is no one British Columbia Photographic Archive or BC Photography Archive, whatever you’d call it, where one could view all the images held in collections.
A surfer walks past a van and board at Jordan River, British Columbia on Vancouver Island.
Even the Canadian flag hanging from the building seemed dejected by its current status
The North Park Bicycle Shop is a community fixture along Quadra Street in Victoria, in the North Park neighbourhood. The building always looks, to me, wonderfully scruffy and invitingly homely.
Canucks jerseys, protected from the rain in plastic, hang outside a shop in Coombs on Vancouver Island. An image from the ongoing Salt Water & Rain series and the British Columbia photographic archive.
An image from one of my ongoing projects, Salt Water & Rain, which looks at west coast life, in particular the small town urban landscape. This photograph was taken on the main street in Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The photograph is also part of the British Columbia photographic archive.
Photographer Wendell Phillips introduced me to this cafe when he met me here for breakfast one morning. The cafe’s street sign now reads Smile Diner rather than restaurant.
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.
I was at Coopers Cove last week. The derelict boat in long gone although, for now at least, the former naval ship seen in the background is still anchored in the cove. It’s a reminder how photographs, while they must stand on their own as visual images, also serve as historical records, a document of time passing. This was one of the first group of …
DOA front man Joe Keithley was in town playing a gig during the band’s farewell tour. Joe has decided to seek the NDP nomination in Coquitlam – Burke Mountain in order to run in the upcoming May provincial election. We decided to take a few portraits in front of the BC Legislature building in the afternoon. Here’s a few images from that shoot and one …
An image from a project looking at the forest of the Pacific Northwest.
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 …
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 …
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.
Another damp west coast day, crossing the Alex Fraser bridge .
Every year I like to start at least one new project. I like to have a number of projects going at the once as I find that due to my full time shooting job my time for personal shooting is limited in both hours and time of day. Having a number of projects means I can usually shoot something in the windows that I have. …
About a month ago I wrote about crowd sourcing to fund photo projects and Victoria photographer Mike Andrew McLean and his use of Kickstarter to fund his project The Range. Since then I’ve come across another good example, Australian photographer, and Oculi member, Claire Martin is currently photographing in Haiti and she’s using IndieGoGo to create a funding program for that work. You can follow …
The 41-year-old photographer has been traveling across the country in his van photographing Canadians, 5000 so far
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 …
I had a great opening at the JEM Gallery Friday night. We were scheduled to be open from 6PM until 9PM but it was after 11PM before people stopped dropping by. Saturday was excellent as well and we didn’t close up shop until 5:30. Many thanks to gallery owner Carola Goetze for all her heard work.
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 …
For more than a decade now I’ve been trying to get out on Good Friday and photograph the annual walks with a wooden cross that some churches do. It’s a project I call Weight of Faith. It’s an event that’s great for a photo project, visually the cross is an amazing symbol. It’s also a rare example of mainstream Christians showing off their faith in …
I’ve been enjoying the proliferation of independent photos books being produced by a variety of photographers and promoted by sites like The Independent Photo Book and Little Brown Mushroom. One series of books that I’ve been ordering and enjoying are those produced by Adam Murray and Robert Parkinson, the two English photographers behind Preston Is My Paris. I really like their idea that you need …
Spring is here with cherry trees in full bloom and boats still parked in yards and not out on the water.
The old and the new. I really need to get back to Vancouver and just spend a few days wandering around capturing images not just snapping pix on a quick stroll back to other work, although that was fun too.
Just another Vancouver Island winter day with the surf kicking up along the coast. Lots of surfers and kayakers out on the water. Weather ranged from pouring rain to a light mist although the sun came out on the drive home (typical). Word was spreading about the waves as more and more surfers were turning up throughout the morning. Surfers head out Beautiful BC wheel …
Who knows what surprises the new year will bring?
It’s always interesting when working on a project how certain themes or subjects start to repeat themselves, often threaten to become a project in themselves. Boats have begun to show up in many of my island photos, it makes sense as we have such easy access to water but until you start looking you don’t realize how many people do have boats and how they …
It was more than a pleasant surprise today during my daily check of photo sites to click on Joerg Colberg’s Conscientious site and see one of my photos from the Salt Water &Rain project. It was especially heartening as this is one of the first projects where I’ve moved away (or at least I feel like I have) from my newspaper photojournalism background. The project …