Photographer
Yasuko Thanh is both an award-winning writer with a short story collection and a novel published (and a new publication on the way) and a musician who performs in a number of bands. I’ve photographed her singing and at a book reading/signing before but this was our first shot at a portrait. Her site is here. A review of her novel in the Globe and …
Much of my photography centres around landscapes, natural and manmade and how that shapes us and our culture and/or how we and our cultures shapes our constructed and social landscapes. I like how the local makes us all unique to our own parts of the world. I haven’t concentrated so much on people who shape our culture especially artists, be they writers, musicians, painters etc. …
The first time I photographed the Travellers Hotel in Ladysmith on the town’s main street my attention was held by the dilapidated hotel sign over the main doors. I really didn’t look up at the higher stories and facade which at a quick glance seemed to be just fairly plain brick. A closer look on a more recent visit revealed a line of swastikas girdling …
As an exercise I sometimes try and photograph with an eye to preserving a view that will not exist in the future. The above is one such view. Shot from Cambie Street and looking across Georgia Street to the north. The parking lot seen at the lower right of the image is the future site of the Vancouver Art Gallery. That new building will most …
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 …
I finally found a copy of the 1970 publication BC Almanac, a library copy. Quite unique for the time, it consists of 15 booklets printed on newsprint and inserted into a cardboard folder. On the negative side, this copy only has nine of the booklets. On the positive side the booklets by Roy Kiyooka and N. E. Thing Co. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter) are in …
Took in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s July FUSE event on July 19, this one produced in conjunction with the Arrival Agency. Lots going all evening on the various floors.
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 …
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. …
I really enjoying taking portraits, especially of creative people. It’s always interesting to try and incorporate their environment into the image.With tighter papers, every section is squeezed for space so we’re not running as many entertainment stories and consequently not as many portraits of artists etc. Here are a few, fairly recent, images. I really liked this image of Keith Hiscock at the Morris Gallery. …
It always amazes me how often that you’ll get a run of assigments that are connected. This past weekend the photographer working ended up at two events where there were dogs wearing sunglasses. Last Thursday and Friday I had an assignment each day that was centred around First Nations art. Thursday was the official unveiling of the Darlene Gait/Butch Dick designed murals on the Ogden …
I came across a few prints and contact sheets I has tucked away in an envelope from the very early days of the Vancouver punk rock scene. Please send a note to correct me if I’m off on names etc. These were taken quite a while ago (1977ish? ) and I didn’t keep the notes I should have. The Furies at the Japanese hall. I …
Ken Steacy, illustrator and artist and frequent collaborator with Douglas Coupland