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Jean François Dupuis’s visions come to him in dreams. He is passionate about producing art, and his images sing of mystery and colour, and celebrate creation and the human form. Dupuis takes us into another realm and leads us to question reality, as we know it. His images are “no longer a crisp representation.” They hint at the familiar but introduce a world beyond what we can normally see. The Sherbrooke, Quebec–based photographer embraces experimentation. He is also an abstract painter and melds photographs and paintings to create intangible and alluring dreamscapes. “An intimate three-dimensional world of detail on the surface of the image belies what we are taught to experience within the two-dimensional language of the camera. A visual tension is born, as glimpses of a ‘photographic reality’ slip in and out of view, toying with what is known, perhaps reminiscent of a dream, a place of timelessness,” he says. The viewer is transported into a world of memory and colour. Particularly alluring are Dupuis’s multiple exposures and combined images. Symphonie Urbane explores the rush, noise, and movement of the city by looking at New York’s architecture, street scenes, neon signs, lights, and road and pedestrian traffic. Multiple exposures and slight movements of the camera repeat elements in the scenes to create movement in each frame. Dupuis works digitally, but he shot the frames that make up Symphonie Urbane in-camera, on film. There is an echo of Harry Callahan’s “Detroit (1943)” in these images, but the exploration in-camera has extended to a significant body of multiple exposure work, rather than just one fantastic iconic frame. Part of Dupuis’s vision is to push the boundaries of what we recognize as photography. He wants to transport his audience out of its everyday reality. The tools at his disposal, whether they be in-camera experiments or the use of digital postprocessing, allow him to share what he sees in his mind. For this self-professed “colourholic,” the creative life is endless. His imagination has no boundaries thanks to his photographic knowledge and the new tools available to him. Dupuis studied photography at Matane for three years. He graduated in 1993 and then moved to Montreal, where he worked as an assistant to Louis Cantin and Patrick Lessard. Dupuis now teaches photography in Sherbrooke, Quebec, where he does commercial work, while also maintaining his art practice, his first passion. Dupuis admits that he is more in love with photography now than he was when he started. He remembers being fascinated with his father’s camera, a magic image box he was not allowed to touch. As well as being a photographer, Dupuis spends a great deal of time on abstract paintings, which he sometimes fuses with his photography, creating digital art. Médium Mixtes is a collection of work that includes painting, fractal art, and digital art. The striking image of a woman is a prime example of everything Dupuis embraces and reiterates in this series. This work fuses pure white, red lips, red paint, and just a streak of rich yellow. In this and many of his images is the hint of the sensuality that Ralph Gibson also imbues in his work. The audience of this image observes the artist’s reverence, appreciation, and respect for the female form. Dupuis clothes the woman with colour. Dupuis also produces posters, reproductions of mixed-media pieces incorporating photographs and painting, that are much more commercial in nature than his fine-art work in Symphonie Urbane and Médium Mixtes. “Imagine a world with no visual information. A world void of pictures, a world where communication is restricted to speech and the written word. Imagine this and the power — indeed miracle — of photography becomes apparent, a tiny fraction of a second captured, frozen and preserved for the enjoyment of many,” wrote Dupuis in his artist statement. “As a photographer I am privileged to have the opportunity to harness and share this power.” www.arts.jfdupuis.com We published Jean François Dupuis’ work in our 2010 PHOTO ART issue. If you're up for checking out more creative Canadian content - Get the RISK TAKERS edition in PRINT! #photoart #JeanFrancoisDupuis #canadianphotography #experimentation #fineartphotography

As dedicated black and white darkroom-based artists since the 1970s, we’ve witnessed the zenith, subsequent near-digital death, and unbelievable renaissance of our medium. Back in 2004, as Ilford Photo sank into receivership, we panicked, emptied out our local photo stores, and hoarded supplies in our giant freezer. Today, Ilford is thriving and introducing new products. Offbeat materials manufactured in Eastern Europe and Asia help us live without faded giants Agfa, Kodak, and Fujifilm. Boutique shops provide raw ingredients for inventive homebrew chemistries. The film/darkroom department at our favourite store in Vancouver (Beau Photo) is growing. Gently used equipment is cheap and plentiful. Incredibly, we have never seen a better range of available cameras, films, papers, and chemistry. In 2013, almost by chance, Langara College recruited us to reboot their languishing black and white darkroom program. We were surprised to learn that most institutions in Vancouver were tearing out their darkrooms. Langara was threatening to follow suit if their darkrooms couldn’t be better utilized. Thankfully, we were given that chance. Our vision is to take the darkroom arts to places far beyond traditional imaging, to find the nooks and crannies where digital can’t go. Today, our black and white program is expanding: our entry-level course was waitlisted this past spring for the first time in over a decade, and our students are continuing on to advanced courses for the first time in years. Most of our students are young people, rebelling against the perceived automated, touchless, bland flavour of digital photography. We have found them to be highly creative, experienced digital photographers turning to the darkroom because they want to be more directly involved in the process of image-making. Our mature students include art teachers upgrading their skills in response to demands at work, art school grads seeking more proficiency in this medium, professionals from outside photography desiring a hands-on creative outlet, and even self-taught darkroom workers wanting to up their game. The steampunk nature of film and the darkroom is fun and tactile, but extremely demanding. Mistakes have real consequences. There is no “undo,” no “chimping,” and every exposure costs money. We emphasize the need to create taut, repeatable, personal processes within a huge scope of possible chemistries and materials. The prize is worth it: prints with a unique and hard to copy identity. Of course, getting to unique takes time, energy, and the expenditure of much film and paper. It is no surprise the best results come from students who spend the most time shooting and working in the darkroom. Fortunately, Langara is generous with darkroom access, and our best students use the darkrooms every chance they get. We tell all of them, “1000 prints is what it takes to get really good at this.” The subtle characteristics of films and silver-gelatin prints remain impossible to digitally imitate, in part because no digital printer can reproduce the tiny features of film grain. Film grain can be hard-edged or fuzzy, oblong or round, big or small, regular or irregular, and no two film and developer combinations exhibit the same pattern. Film also has an extraordinary dynamic range: 14 or 15 stops is easily attainable. Further techniques enhance edges, exaggerate contrast, and make grain even more grainy. Our students celebrate these features and incorporate the unmistakable look of film into their personal visual languages. Silver-gelatin printing is ancient and beautiful, and remains the dominant darkroom-based black and white medium. Silver gelatin prints need not be black and white; in fact, it takes careful processing to get a truly neutral-tone print. Our students explore many different chemical toners to produce a huge range of colours from sepia to purple to red to blue … even shiny metallic silver. Toners can be applied serially or selectively to create multiple colours in a single print. The variations are endless. This is unexplored country, so diligent workers have a fighting chance at inventing something completely new. Out of the gate, we stress the importance of community, cleanliness, and precision in the darkroom. The Langara darkroom experience involves communal chemistry in communal trays. The fastest way to failure is sloppiness. So, we base 50 percent of final grades on work habits. We like to joke that it is possible to pass our class without shooting a single frame or making a single print — just so long as students are tidy. We pair students and assign each pair a chemical to prepare for the entire class. We’re always there to catch errors, but it’s amazing how precise and careful everyone is, knowing that a mistake will be a disaster for the whole class. We’ve experienced zero actual disasters and just about every student develops printable negatives on their first try. Of course, their steampunk equipment might misbehave, and we’ve seen quite a few problems with old cameras: chiefly, light leaks, inaccurate light meters, slow shutters, and non-functional aperture blades. We’ve had to advise a few students that their cameras will cost more to repair than they are worth. But, even as replacement is often inexpensive, valuable cameras can still be repaired in Canada by one of the world’s top mechanical camera techs, a Vancouver resident. Our students frequently remark how much their darkroom experience has helped their digital photography, as they learn to trust themselves and their decisions. They see firsthand how many of the tools in Photoshop come straight out of the darkroom and how the darkroom procedure is often faster and more forgiving than Photoshop’s equivalent; our classic example is dodging and burning. We show simple ways to do most dodges and burns with just a few basic tools and bare hands. With practice, the whole operation is accomplished in seconds. The last stage of our darkroom journey goes into the wideopen, unexplored spaces of experimental photography and homebrews. Our students examine offbeat ideas and chemistries, and some come up with entirely new imaging techniques. Russ is no stranger to homebrew, having invented a process that records a 25+ stop dynamic range on film for a project capturing the sun crossing the sky. Of course, we emphasize chemical safety above all else. It is amazing what homebrews can be made with supplies acquired from our local grocery and drug stores. Last semester, students made film and paper developers out of vitamin C and coffee, created a reversal-print process with limes and hair bleach, and amplified film grain with hot washing soda. Next year, we’ll explore a developer made with Tylenol; we like every class to be different. After completing our courses, a significant percentage of our students install personal darkrooms or join community darkrooms. We’ve helped them with darkroom designs and often place free equipment needing a good home. We see our community growing stronger every day. Digital photography has freed film photography from the chains of commercial production. The darkroom arts have finally taken flight as a pure art medium, with still-unimagined new horizons. The sky’s the limit. See more work by Rusell and Wendy Kwan at: www.NewMythographs.com Russel and Wendy are internationally awarded and published photographers and educators. Their prints have been exhibited in commercial, museum, and academic venues in Canada and the United States. They lead the black and white darkroom program at Langara College in Vancouver. If you're up for more amazing ANALOG... check out our RESILIENCE OF ANALOG edition - IN PRINT! #alternativeprocess #blackandwhite #filmexploration #experimentation #analogfilm #RusselandWendyKwan #darkroom #BritishColumbia #photoart #fineartphotography

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video featuring Ali Ledgerwood from NPAC. The News Photographers Association of Canada celebrates and champions quality and ethical photography in journalism, continually raising the bar of industry standards. Ali Ledgerwood shares her passion for Canadian photojournalism + some behind the scenes stories in a live presentation to an audience of over 350+ Calgary photography lovers in Pecha Kucha format. If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. #canadianphotojournalism #documentaryphotography #womeninphotojournalism #Canadianphotographers WANT MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE. + LEAH HENNEL's presentation HERE. IF you love Canadian documentary photography in PRINT, you'll love our DOCUMENTARY edition - IN PRINT NOW! Our DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY issue features: Resources WE LOVE Christine Love Hewitt’s Wanderlust Representing with Dignity. A panel discussion moderated by Laurence Butet-Roch Morgan Sears-Williams' Queer Love and Care Ears, Eyes, Voice: Black Canadian Photo journalists 1970s–1990s by Dr. Julie Crooks Chris Donovan: Complicated Maritime Clouds Paul Seesequasis’ Indigenous Archival Photo Project Patti Gower: From the front lines to leading the next generation JAYU- Photography + community good, by Joshua Cameron Cover by Chris Donovan

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video featuring award-winning photojournalist - LEAH HENNEL. @leahhennelphoto has traveled the globe to create stunning visuals, but it’s been in her own home province that she has captured her most striking stories. We're hyped to have featured her live presentation to an audience of over 350+ Calgary photography lovers in Pecha Kucha format. If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. #womeninphotojournalism #Canadianphotographers #womeninphotography #portraiture #femalephotographer #makeportraits #portrait_vision #yycphotographer #yycarts #womenphotograph WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT Pecha Kucha event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video featuring commercial photographer, designer and art director - Heather Saitz. @heathersaitz is a triple threat! Photographer, designer and art director. She rocks it all + we're hyped to have featured her live presentation to an audience of over 350+ Calgary photography lovers in Pecha Kucha format. If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. #Canadianphotographers #womeninphotography #portraiture #femalephotographer #makeportraits #portrait_vision #bandphoto #bandphotographer #musicphotographer #musicphotography #yycphotographer #yycarts #vintagevibes #womenphotograph WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT Pecha Kucha event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video featuring commercial photographer - Julie Vincent. From real estate to real people, Julie Vincent is a real pro all-round shooter who creates images with impact. Julie shares her 'How I got here' story at a live presentation to an audience of over 350+ Calgary photography lovers in Pecha Kucha format. #Canadianphotographers #womeninphotography If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT Pecha Kucha Event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video of Marlene Hielema/ ImageMaven.com. Marlene shares her passion for LUMIX, skateboarding, and teaching photography, at a live presentation to an audience of over 350+ Calgary photography lovers. If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. Thank you LUMIX for supporting Marlene & this event! WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT Pecha Kucha Event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video quick flick of the Vivian Maier exhibition @ Glenbow by Jennah Turpin. The accidental discovery of Vivian Maier’s collection of photographs has become a tale of international intrigue. Find out how this curious nanny’s work has rocked the art world. If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. #womeninphotography Thank you GLENBOW for supporting Jennah & this event! WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

In case you missed our CALGARY 2020 PHOTO INSPIRATION NIGHT Pecha Kucha Event at the CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY - check out our video of Katherine Calnan in action! Katherine Calnan has mad skills. From her black belt in Shotokan karate, to Business & Economics degrees from @ucalgary to shooting celebrities and high fashion around the world... is there anything she can't do?! #canadianfashionphotographer #womeninphotography #fashionphotographer #broncolor If you are not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really worth it. Thank you BRONCOLOR for supporting Katherine & this event! WANT TO SEE MORE?! Check out the more videos from our PHOTO INSPIRATION nights HERE.

When the weather outside is frightful… fire up the movie watching technology. In searching for movie picks to recommend to you dear readers, we came across the work of director Charles Wilkinson. We found a source that streams his amazing films online, for FREE, across Canada. So you can enjoy fine Canadian film making, without leaving your front door. Oil Sands Karaoke www.knowledge.ca/program/oil-sands-karaoke Fort McMurray is at the centre of a new gold rush. Thousands of men and women have been drawn to the northern boomtown with the promise of high-paying jobs in one of the most controversial industries in the world - the oil sands. They work hard for the money: under arduous physical conditions, for long hours and extended periods, knowing that a lot of people object strenuously to what they do for a living. But when they need to let loose, there’s always karaoke. Vancouver: No Fixed Address https://www.knowledge.ca/program/vancouver-no-fixed-address From Toronto to Sydney and from San Francisco to London, the cost of housing in cities around the world is skyrocketing. Vancouver: No Fixed Address takes an uncompromising look at the drama unfolding in one such city, where multi-ethnic citizens fight to preserve homes as living spaces instead of global financial commodities. It is a story about the very idea of home, what promotes or destroys one’s sense of belonging, and struggling to cope with the strange and often threatening economic and social forces at the start of the 21st century. Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World https://www.knowledge.ca/program/haida-gwaii-edge-world The story of Haida Gwaii is one of a place and a people who have experienced the ravages of unsustainable exploitation. They’ve fought back, reclaimed control of their lands, and have begun the process of rebuilding both their natural world and a sustainable modern community; a community free from corporate control, one where whole food is accessible to everyone, a community with no shopping malls. But wouldn’t you know it - all of that is now under the threat of daily fossil-fuel laden super-tanker traffic wanting to pass through their treacherous waters. The film features insights from former Haida Nation president Guujaaw, activist Severn Suzuki, Haida carver Jaalen Edenshaw, International Rediscovery founder Thom ‘Huck’ Henley, Haida Chief Allan Wilson, ex-loggers, business and cultural leaders, troublemakers, biologists, curmudgeons, scientists, and alternative energy experts. #Canadianfilm #MoviestoWatch #Documentary #Vancouver