Search Results

What is a photograph? This is a question we don’t often consider, but perhaps we should. After all, in an age where everyone carries a smartphone and every smartphone has a camera, couldn’t we say that basically everything’s been photographed? Do we really need more? These are the questions that Laura Letinsky, a photographer and academic, considers in both her work and her personal life. Do we need more? Do we need that next new thing on the market? Why? Laura Letinsky was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba. She originally entered the program wanting to be a painter. “I always considered myself an artist, and I loved to paint. I really enjoyed the actual paint, the texture of it as material. You could say I was enamoured by it.” Photography wasn’t on Letinsky’s radar until she was faced with the undergraduate condition that painting class required prerequisites but the photography course did not. “I took photography, but I was really bad at it,” Letinsky admitted, laughing. “I actually went to speak with the professor. She was the one who first challenged me to think about what a photograph really was: a means for investigating perception. From there I saw its ability to speak, to have eloquence.” After completing her undergraduate degree, Letinsky moved to the United States to pursue a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University. When she graduated two years later, she found more opportunities south of the border and decided to stay. Shortly thereafter she took a position as a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts. Letinsky started out photographing people. “I was intrigued by the way people appear, or how they make themselves appear.… However, at a certain point I realized that my photographs were rote in that people presented themselves as they expected to appear, that particular art-photograph expressionless lost look. I moved to still life photography so as to shift away from what felt like such a limitation.” Letinsky’s seductively coloured tabletop still life pieces depict a variety of objects. Printed on a one-to-one scale, they are meant to put the viewer slightly off balance, simultaneously providing both a sense of wonder and an evocative and convincing proposition. “It’s about engaging the viewer in the photograph not as image but as a material. To make people aware that the photograph is not natural, but rather a set of constructions and conventions.” Her photographs speak to the culture of today in ways that are both very similar and very different from the still life paintings made in the 17th and 18th century. In the early age of mercantile globalism, still life paintings were used as a kind of advertisement to illustrate value. In many ways, Letinsky’s photography too is the realization of a set of ideas about seeing. Her use of photography seeks to engage the methodology of description as a form of valuation. “At first, I was obsessed with the idea of authenticity, so I photographed actual meals after they’d been consumed,” Letinsky recalls. However, over time she realized that this moment was no more true than if she were to completely stage such a moment. “There are many decisions that go into setting a scene, such as the selection of specific food stuffs, lighting, etc. The idea of the natural or original is held as different from the contrived or set up, but really there is not a firm line of differentiation. For example, in the restoration of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, to when and what does one restore the building? When and what is the original? Is it in its Christian roots, the Greek or even pre-Greek ruins, or when Islam dominated this space? Ideas, like buildings, are complicated and overlapping structures.” Letinsky’s method is a balance between deliberation and experimentation. She studies how objects look, that is, how they appear, and why the viewer may be drawn to them. In her additive and subtractive process, she evaluates how the objects appear not simply as objects but, rather, as they look when in photographs. Questions of authenticity, labour, and ethics influence not just Letinsky’s photography but also how she lives her life. In an effort to slow down the impact capitalism has on the world, when possible she makes her own clothes. She made a set of dishes that, in partnership with the Guadalajaran porcelain producer Ceramica Suro, is now produced commercially as “Molosco,” a collection of white hand-painted porcelain tableware. “This process of making is an effort to make objects, a world really, that I care about, versus just wanting the next new, shiny thing. It’s a way by which I think about the world and my place in it.” Regarding her question, “What is a photograph?” there is no single right answer. Like Letinsky says, “Perhaps for each of us it’s a process of deliberation inevitably mired in desire.” Check out more work by Laura Letinsky at: lauraletinsky.com #LauraLetinsky #womeninphotography #stilllifephotography #studiophotography #fineartphotography

With more than 20 years of photography experience, Vancouver based photographer Dina Goldstein devotes herself to creating meaningful images with a distinctive, individual, and artistic point of view. From her twenties to her early thirties, Goldstein photographed non-stop in differing capacities. She travelled to war-torn areas. She worked as a staff photographer on a Vancouver weekly newspaper and began concentrating on editorial portraiture. She shot images for many Canadian, American, and European newspapers and magazines. She photographed commercial projects with advertising agencies in Vancouver and collaborated with art directors internationally. Storytelling has always been central to Goldstein’s work. As a documentary photographer, Goldstein created and shared a variety of stories such as Palestinians in Gaza, gamblers at the racetrack in Vancouver, East Indian blueberry farmers in British Columbia, show dogs, bodybuilders at state championships, and teenagers dirty dancing at a bar mitzvah. Influenced by the 1998 exhibit Pop Surrealism at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, Goldstein expanded her visual language to include narratives, symbolism, dark humour, and subversive messaging. With this new vocabulary, her work deepened. She analyzed the human condition and interpreted new and cliched notions of beauty, gender, sex, and religion through the lens of pop culture, which concerns itself with the ordinary and superficial, and surrealism, which mines dreams and the unconscious. Goldstein’s success in the commercial realm afforded her the time to experiment with her own ideas. With the birth of her first child at 35, Goldstein began to explore subjects and concepts that were more personal to her. The shift from commercial to fine art photography came about in 2007. Goldstein’s daughter, three years old at the time, had discovered Disney princesses at the same time that Goldstein’s mother was dealing with breast cancer. Influenced by these two events, she began to compose the concepts for a project called Fallen Princesses: failed dreams, obesity, addiction, cancer, the extinction of indigenous cultures, pollution, war, and the fallacy of chasing eternal youth. Each image was created with particular attention to makeup, costume, and location. The project took two years to complete, culminating in her first solo exhibition in 2009. Her second project was more ambitious and was shot on a constructed set. In the Dollhouse is a 10-piece, sequential narrative that takes place in a life-sized dollhouse. A video that documents the making of the project accompanies the images. In The Dollhouse, Goldstein tackles one of the most powerful symbols of Western culture: Barbie, the idealized woman. According to Goldstein, more than any other object, Barbie represents the concept that beauty is power and necessary to attain happiness. In Goldstein’s images, Ken, Barbie’s handsome but emasculated partner, expresses his individuality and the photographer shows that beauty can be as cheap and plastic as the dolls themselves. Both projects, Fallen Princesses and In the Dollhouse found an international audience, inspiring debate concerning standards of beauty, the complexity of marriage and the importance of authenticity. Goldstein began to receive awards, including a residency in India. In 2013, the year she celebrated 20 years as a photographer, Goldstein opened her studio XX in Vancouver. She decided to focus completely on producing her independent large-scale projects and specifically her next series, Gods of Suburbia. She received her first Canada Council grant to help support this massive initiative. This series, more complex and contemplative than her previous work, is a critical exploration of established and fringe religions. “Gods of Suburbia offers an iconoclastic interpretation of how ancient belief systems fit with technology, science, and secularism, the three main pillars of modernity,” says Goldstein. Because her process is multi-faceted and represents a deeply personal and professional commitment, Goldstein takes steps to ensure that her ideas, initially instinctual and inspired from a subconscious place, can be developed into a narrative that relays as much information as a book or movie. She shares her ideas with her husband, a filmmaker, or a trusted friend, and receives constructive criticism with openness. She does extensive research. Then she develops rough concepts for each piece and the overall framework of the project. Since she usually works with a small budget, she does a lot of street casting or works with local actors and performers. Sometimes she loosely draws out her concepts with a storyboard artist, as she did for In the Dollhouse. She assembles her team: makeup and hair artists, costumers, and prop builders. Many of the costumes and props are fabricated by local craftspeople. She methodically scouts locations, and has studio interns to handle the red tape that usually ensues. She works with photography and art students, as well as volunteers from all walks of life. To prepare for the shoots, she focuses on details such as the furniture and knick-knacks that play an important role in the telling of the story. Prior to the shoot, Goldstein meets with the actors to discuss characters and to give them some clear direction. She usually shoots two images over a weekend. She reviews the shoot and the image files and makes decisions for later adjustments. She may have to re-shoot or add an element that will help to shape and complete the final image. She has a dynamic and talented team that, despite her limited budgets and huge ambitions, enables her to fulfill her goals. To be successful, Goldstein advises others to learn to work with limited resources, to have a clear vision of what they want, to educate themselves about their subjects, and to make sure that everything is in place before embarking on a project. Pleased with the recognition that she receives, Goldstein comments, “I attempt to bring attention and to inspire insight to the human condition. I am thrilled that my visual storytelling has been recognized for its ‘metaphorical and ironical messages’ and in turn has sparked much conversation and written commentary from academics, editors, and bloggers around the world. The work welcomes interpretation and discussion.” Goldstein creates images that challenge people to look closely and consider what they know, to question and perhaps reconsider what seems familiar in many aspects of their culture and daily lives. To see more work by Dina Goldstein, check out her website that includes behind the scenes video & more projects: dinagoldstein.com #visualstorytelling #womeninphotography #BritishColumbia #portrait #peoplephotography #fiction #DinaGoldstein

Montreal-born, Nicolas Ruel was driven to photography by a deep-seated passion. “I was undeniably inhabited by it, and it compelled me to move forward, to discover.” Over seven + years he has worked on a major project called 8 secondes. The work began in 2007 and saw its completion in 2015. In 2009 Ruel exhibited Project 8 secondes at the Galerie Zone Orange in Montreal, the Thompson Landry Gallery in Toronto, and the Galerie Seine 51 in Paris. Ruel is fascinated with the fact that photography is both artistic and very technical. The project 8 secondes presented challenges in both areas. He wanted to “revisit the image of the world’s greatest cities.” His first city was Paris, followed by London. At first he planned on documenting 16 cities, but then as the project became bigger and bigger, it grew to 50 cities. Now, nearing the end of the project, he has decided to add 12 more. Ruel had been experimenting with long exposures prior to 8 secondes. He asserts in his artist statement, “This long exposure makes it possible to assemble key moments in a single take, analogous to the process of condensation in dreams. Thus, in this dolly shot, I translate the actions and spectacle of the city and its residents as I follow their unceasing movement.” As for the locations he seeks out, he says, “I am fascinated by transitory and transitional sites — places that in their nature and function incarnate motion and metamorphosis, such as ports, terminals, docks, highways, construction sites, churches, and stadiums.” Although everything in the eight-second exposure is in the scene, the resulting image is not a visual document but rather an artistic interpretation. It is a unique point of view and Ruel tries to imbue it with meaning and vision. The images have a sensuous quality and seem like dreams, moving pictures crystallized and condensed into one scene. Ruel calls these micro-métrages or micro movies. The ebb and flow of time is felt in each image. Ruel states, “Motion is at the heart of most of the images I create. The subject is constantly in motion. I’m in motion. The camera and the subject are in motion. The locations are iconic and revive images and feelings from the past. We have experience with what the world would look like if we could freeze 1/125 of a second. Ruel presents his vision of what the world would look like if we could freeze eight seconds. Although frozen in one frame, the motion and passing of time is clearly felt. On the technical side Ruel has a strong interest in modern industrial material. He has experimented with the metal printing process and took the bold move to print the 8 secondes project on large-format stainless steel plates. He refers to this as a flashback to the daguerreotype process where the image was printed on a polished copper plate. The stainless steel gives the image a reflective quality and brings to mind the initial name given to daguerreotypes: “the mirror with a memory.” Ruel considers himself very fortunate to be able to travel around the world and use the medium of photography to be creative. He states, “Every day I am amazed behind the magic that is photography. We live in a special time — one of the best times I could be born is right now.“ His advice is to find a way to express your dreams in a very unique way and go for it. He says, “Shoot and shoot. You never know how far you can go. Be open to different things — even things that are not connected to your kind of photography. Look for collaborations with artists in other fields, such as painters, sculptors, architects.” Ruel has been applying his own advice in the past few years, the most notable example being his collaboration with the French fashion house Maison Jean-Paul Gaultier. For Ruel, the most important part of this collaboration was “sharing a dream or a vision.” This is something we can apply to any kind of photography and, by doing so, we will elevate our art to another level. We featured Nicolas Ruel in our Winter 2013: Travel Photography - Issue #39 - Get it in PRINT HERE. See more of Nicolas' work : www.nicolasruel.com #NicolasRuel #travelphotography #Montreal #photoart #longexposure #fineartphotography #experimentation #canadianphotography #motionphotography

Travel photography and photography in general has opened the world to me. It has become a reason to wake up at dawn and set off to see a misty sunrise behind a Buddhist temple, or to stay out late in the Scottish Highlands to capture a rescue mission in the mountains with a long exposure. The potential to take my favourite photograph tomorrow has, for the last four years, been my driving motivation to experience and document the world around me. All the gear involved with the act of photographing makes being a backpacker at the same time almost an oxymoron. Known notoriously by throngs of other tourists as the ones with the most luggage, photographers are undoubtedly weighed down by gear when out taking photos. In 2011 when I began a five-month journey across China and Southeast Asia, I packed more than most. In an 80-litre backpack I had four lenses, three cameras, and a flash, a laptop, a mini tripod, backup equipment, batteries, chargers, and more memory cards than I could count. My gear took up more space than my clothing and, though I knew the weight was cumbersome, it wasn’t until I received an invitation to explore Northern Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province on a motorbike that I made the conscious effort to lighten my load. I also had the opportunity to hike the Great Glen Way, a five-day, 114-kilometre footpath from Inverness to Fort William, Scotland. Carrying everything I needed for a single week in October, I traveled using nothing more than a 35-litre backpack with a tripod and tent strapped to its top. The Great Glen Way took me to places that were accessible only by foot or bike, officially off the beaten path. Packing more than I needed wasn’t an option. The benefits of packing light are four-fold: the first advantage being carry-on luggage. If at all possible, I carry my most valuable belongings on my person on long-haul bus rides, air flights, and even car trips. Keeping an eye on your gear during transit is safer than using luggage locks. Placing your camera in a small protective bag before you place it in a day bag or a backpack hides it. Petty theft happens abroad and at home and keeping a low profile by not carrying a great deal of gear around is another way of keeping your equipment safe. Especially when arriving at a new destination, it is great to be carrying only a backpack. You can then explore without first having to stop at a hotel to unload your luggage. Carrying only one or two lens options and a single camera, I can act quickly when I see a scene or moment I’d like to photograph. If I had all of my equipment with me, I would ask myself which camera I should use, which lens would be best, and whether I should use a flash. All of these questions could slow down my response to a potential photograph and might mean that I don’t capture the scene at all. Traveling light is going to mean different things to different photographers. Your lens choices, camera choice, and any other gear you use are going to change the aesthetic of your images. No lens is going to be great for everything and travel photography is as diverse as the world itself. Think ahead: Where are you going? What do you plan on shooting? Landscapes? Portraits? Architecture? Answering questions like these honestly will help narrow down your kit significantly and give you the flexibility and benefits of traveling light. Here is a Packing Sample list, as an example of all I took with me on my two-week hiking trip to Scotland: 1 T-shirt 1 Long-sleeved tight shirt 2 Pairs of hiking socks 1 Pair of sleeping socks 1 Light sweater 1 Heavy sweater 1 Raincoat 1 Pair of rain pants 1 Pair of hiking pants/tights 1 Hat Underwear Running shoes/Hiking shoes Wallet/Passport/Etc. Toiletries 1 Sleeping bag 1 Sleeping pad 1 Flashlight 1 Tent 35L Backpack Cotton sling day bag Soft camera-shaped case that fits into a day bag or backpack 1 DSLR 24mm Lens 85mm Lens 1 Tripod 2 Batteries 1 Charger 1 Power adaptor 5 8GB CF cards 1 Small waterproof case for CF cards This article originally appeared in our Winter Issue in 2013. Get it in print - HERE #TaylorRoades #travelphotography #travel #HowTo #backpacking #womeninphotography #Traveltips #phototips #canadianphotographer

Scott Conarroe believes that the environment “offers insights into the true values and psychology of a culture.” He acknowledges that each one of us has an impact and inherent responsibility for both our own personal surroundings as well as the environment at large. However, his photographic mission in his By Sea project is not about judgment or making a political statement regarding our infringement on the environment. “I didn’t want By Sea to be an inventory of climate change vignettes or [a] map of the coastline,” Conarroe states in an email interview from Limburg, Belgium, where he worked on a project about how comparable regions deal with their industrial heritages. Instead, his approach to the project is analogous to an observational essay. “The coastline was a really useful device for discussing the way we inhabit North America,” he states. “Along a single elevation, it spans the breadth of this civilization from circumpolar to subtropical regions. Through cities and sprawl and unadulterated landscape, sea level marks a visible edge where the land we can live on abuts a vast plane where we can’t. In a sense, the coastline illustrates that our dominion has limits.” With his By Sea project, Conarroe wanted to achieve a parallel imagery of timelessness and in-the-moment engagement. To evoke this ambiance, he shot his images by using long exposures, just before dawn and just after dusk. “In long exposures, when the light changes colour by the second, the light blends and softens and a degree of uncertainty is introduced into the process. I close the shutter when things move around in my frame, and when they become still or absent I open it again. In the end, my pictures are shadowless, slightly off-colour views that I think of as midway between an impressionist painting and a schematic diagram,”. By Sea is a rejoinder to By Rail (2008), Conarroe’s series about railways in Canada and the United States. He says, “On one hand, the rail system describes the vastness of this (Anglo- America) geo-cultural bloc simply; on the other, it illustrates both our ambitious course of development and the fear that our best days might be past. By Sea looks at the coastline perimeter of the same civilization.” Conarroe moves from recording the history of the postindustrial environment in By Rail, to a prescient geographical documentation of periphery waterscapes randomly selected throughout North America. “I like the idea that the North America we know today grew from the moment of first contact when Europeans first stepped onto the shore, and that this new era By Sea alludes to is also slipping up past the tide line. I like thinking this culture’s past and future are bookended by episodes at the water’s edge, just like the physical territory is bound by distinct coastlines,” Conarroe says. Conarroe keeps his choice of equipment simple, using a Wista RF 4 x 5 field camera, a 135mm Nikkor lens, a 127mm Schneider lens, and Kodak 160 NC film. (NC film features finer grain properties for image enlargement.) While Conarroe’s creative path did not begin with a camera, having tried his hand at creative writing and printmaking, his formal photographic studies, which include a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD) and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), have stood him in good stead. In 2010, Conarroe’s work was featured in Canada’s pavilion at Shanghai’s World Expo; as well, he was named one of the year’s top emerging 30 photographers by Photo District News. His mentors include Jim Bruekelman, teacher at ECIAD; Alvin Committer and Bob Bean, teachers at NSCAD; Geoffrey James, who, according to Conarroe, “treated me like a colleague when I was just some guy with a camera”; John Mannion at Light Work/Community Darkrooms (Syracuse); and Stephen Bulger, who “seems to have limitless reserves of encouragement, integrity, and sound advice.” Conarroe’s advice to aspiring photographers is simple, succinct, and practical: “Do something to propel your practice every day.” See more of Scott Conarroe's work at: www.scottconarroe.com #travelphotography #ScottConarroe #longexposure #photographycanada #climatechangephotography #landscape #landscapephotography #canadianphotographer #analogfilm

The Timescape series comprises film strip-like narratives made between 2001 and 2003, marking a particular measure of time and space. Shot on the fly, during a walk, on a train ride, or from a car window, each strip maps a small journey: some a daily routine, others more unusual and of greater significance. Each Timescape, in its own way, seeks to fix a passage of time and place, while at the same time expressing a sense of dislocation and transition. The photographs in this series were created using a Holga toy camera. I came upon this camera over ten years ago and was fascinated by its modest construction. The camera seemed to harken back to pinhole or other forms of early photography when our tools were simpler. It amazed me that this primitive device made out of plastic, with a plastic lens, could produce images of such beauty. I soon discovered that the Holga had its limitations: lens distortion and light flare among them. However, these qualities seemed to coincide well with something I was seeking to express in my work at the time, something ephemeral and dreamlike. For many years before making the Timescapes I was working with regular and super 8 film, scrolling the film through a hand-cranked editor and examining the still frames within the story, while embracing them as part of a greater narrative. One day while viewing my Holga negatives, which I had left uncut, I discovered that one of my 120 negative strips seemed to unfold like a film. In re-examining the negatives I had shot over previous years, I realized that a number of them emerged in this cinematic way. With this idea in mind, I began to consciously shoot a roll of film with the awareness of forming a narrative, sensitive to how one frame might speak to the next to create a story. Working with multiple images expressed a sense of groundlessness that I wanted to communicate. By holding the camera away from my body and shooting as I moved through the landscape, I strove to evoke the feeling of searching for place and identity. As curator Karen Henry wrote about the Timescapes in the exhibition Landscape and Light, “the accumulation of multiple frames reveals an effort to grasp something impossible to hold onto.” My work is informed by a fascination with the relationship between the still and the moving image: examining how the photographic still is a moment lifted from the flowing stream of time. In exploring this relationship over the years, I have worked simultaneously in photography and video. My work in each has informed the other. My video When the Cricket Sings (2007), shot in Shanghai, depicts a night walk through a shop-crowded street with brightly illuminated interiors. Like the Timescapes, the Cricket video is shot with the camera moving. On this Shanghai street, the video passes steadily along the sidewalk exposing a series of brief vignettes as shoppers buy food, examine electronics, or eat bowls of noodle soup. As the promenade continues, the lit shops are separated by darkness, and the night becomes the black rebate that divides one frame from another in a film or negative strip. In unraveling the Timescapes, it became clear to me that they marked an important passage in my work, linking my love and fascination with the still and the moving image, and foretelling of an ongoing exploration of duration, memory, and narrative. See more of Sara' work at: www.sara-angelucci.ca This article originally appeared in PhotoEd Magazine's Winter Issue 2008. #canadianphotography #SaraAngelucci #Holga #womeninphotography #alternativeprocess #analogfilm #filmexploration #experimentation

Naomi Harris set off on the Trans Canada Highway in the summer of 2011 in a car she bought on eBay. She had a Canada Council for the Arts grant for her project Oh Canada! Her plan was to drive from coast to coast, photographing Canadians — the ordinary and the extraordinary. We asked her how she decided who to approach and how she made her approaches. “Frankly, if you live in Canada, you are a Canadian, right?” she replied. “I simply said I was doing a road trip from coast to coast to make portraits of Canadians and could I kindly photograph them and include them in the project.” Harris explains, “I wanted to try to be as inclusive as possible of people from all walks of life and make sure the project wasn’t just a bunch of white, apple-cheeked people.” She had an ambitious idea: start in Victoria and keep heading east; get to events such as the Spock Days festival in Vulcan, Alberta; photograph the oldest living Canadian (Pearl Lutzko of Ituna, Saskatchewan); and end the trip in St John’s, Newfoundland by Labour Day. “Most of my subjects I just stumbled upon along the way, which to me is the nicest way to meet people,” she says. Harris’s portraits have a gravitas and dignity, presented with respect and a calm clarity. They suggest stories we would like to hear and people we would like to talk to, about the very different ways we are or have become Canadians. Through her images and between her words, you get a sense that Harris cherishes the stories she’s been told. She met Ruth Kells, now 92, at a veterans’ event in Halifax, and now counts her as a dear friend. When Ruth was 18 in the early 1940s, she signed up to the RCAF as a wireless operator. For a woman to go to the war in Europe, she’d have to be 21, so she worked from Canada and travelled after the war, a bold ambition for a woman at that time. “She even had a motorbike!” says Harris. “Part of my experience as a photographer is that you get to spend a brief moment in time with people and capture it in a photograph, but then move on to the next adventure,” Harris shares. Another road-side acquaintance that has stuck with her – and still travels with her now – was the result of choosing a back road in Saskatchewan. “I looked on a map and saw that a hamlet called Kandahar wasn’t too far away. Since I would never go to Kandahar, Afghanistan, why not go to Kandahar, Canada? There were two different routes I could take, one on a highway that took me a little bit out of the way or one that was more direct, but on a dirt road that went through the Poor Man First Nation Reserve. If you know Saskatchewan roads at all, you know that they are the worst in the nation; paved or unpaved, your shocks are going to take a beating. I decided to take the unpaved but more direct route.” Halfway along that road, driving alone in the baking sun, Harris saw a hitchhiker. She’d never picked up a hitchhiker before. She says, “Maybe it was the heat and the fact that the reservation was 15 kilometres away, but something urged me to give this man a lift. I think he was surprised too when the car backed up, the window rolled down, and this lone woman offered him a lift. He quietly got into the car. We made small talk and, when we got to the turn off, I asked if I could come and photograph his family, to which he replied, ‘Sure.’ I had never been on a reservation before; I don’t know too many people from Toronto who have been. But it was honestly sadder than anything I expected: bleak pre-fab homes with no landscaping, dirt roads, broken down cars in yards among other garbage, stray dogs roaming the streets and, to top it off, a tornado had torn through the community the summer before. While I waited for his parents to return home so I could photograph the family, I began talking with the hitchhiker’s younger sisters. Out of nowhere this horrible, tick-ridden, dreadlocked, muddy, wretched creature waddled up to us. Instinctively they kicked it away, to which I was like ‘Whoa! What are you doing?’ They simply replied it was a ‘Rez’ dog, so it didn’t matter. I wanted to prove to them that under that horrible coat was a sweet creature so I went to my car to get some scissors and began giving the dog a haircut. She immediately rolled over in submission and let me cut off all of the matted hair. I asked the girls to get a bucket of warm, soapy water so we could give her a bath. By the time we were done, they were all excited by how sweet this dog was. Underneath that mess was a purebred Shih Tzu. She had a cherry eye that required surgery and scabs from the ticks but seemed okay otherwise.” Harris asked if she could take the dog with her, as no one owned it. “As I drove away, I felt guilty that I was taking a dog away with me instead of being able to do something for the family I just left.” Her new four-legged friend Maggie turned out to be anaemic and heavily pregnant. Harris consulted a vet and, through a friend she met on Tumblr, found “an incredible woman who said she’d keep Maggie, help deliver the puppies, find homes for all of them, and then deliver Maggie to me when I was done the trip. Just before I pulled out of Winnipeg, Maggie gave birth to six puppies … and true to the woman’s word, all the puppies found good homes.” Two months later after the end of the roadtrip, Maggie was flown to Toronto. Harris picked her up from the airport. “I set the carrier down in the airport parking lot, opened the hatch, and Maggie flew out! Confused from the ordeal of the trip, she looked around and suddenly there was a distinct look of recognition in her eyes, like ‘It’s you, the one who rescued me!’ She jumped up and down and licked me excitedly.” A chance meeting in a remote town and a connection online: these networks of people and fate reveal the ways we intersect, support, connect, and contact strangers, friends, and family. This is a part of what Oh Canada! shares. Has she finished? Did Harris find Canada in her coast-to-coast adventures? “I would say it isn’t a complete project. I’d like to return to the road again sometime in the future and fill the gaps in and go to places I didn’t get a chance to visit the first time round.” We asked what advice she would give to new and emerging photographers. What has she learned, and what would she pass on? “How we choose to photograph people [has] repercussions. We also have a responsibility to our subjects to share their stories and likeness in a way they would want to be portrayed. I tend to like to photograph ‘real’ people and, in a way, that isn’t always the most flattering. But I think pictures can have elements of peculiarity, awkwardness, and absurdity to them… it’s your intentions that are important. Are you capturing a bizarre moment in time or are you intentionally trying to mock or ridicule your subject? I think photographers have to ask themselves what their intent is, and what the consequences of their photos will be. I feel like I’m still learning about myself all the time. Like right now I’m trying to figure out how much longer I can sustain this lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I love photography and the experiences I’ve had through it, but financially this isn’t sustainable anymore. Now whether that means I’ll get a day job but continue doing photography in the form of personal projects remains to be seen. But this is the best piece of advice I can give to young photographers. That you don’t have to make a living out of being a photographer, because surviving off of photography alone is really, really hard. There is no shame in having a ‘real’ job to make ends meet. In fact, it can be a plus, because it’s easier to be creative when you aren’t in debt or stressed out about how to pay your rent.” naomiharris.com This story and other great Canadian photo stories can be found in our Spring/ Summer 2017 issue, CELEBRATING CANADA. Get it in beautiful print, HERE. *** Maggie is very popular on instagram : @maggiewhereyouat #NaomiHarris #portraiture #portraitphotography #womeninphotography #photographycanada #canadianphotography #canadianphotographer #peoplephotography

PhotoED Magazine receives a LOT of submissions of amazing photography from across Canada. We recently received a group submission that we just couldn't wait to share with our national audience. Brought to us by an amazing pro-active photo educator, Anna Wilson of Richmond Hill High School in Ontario, we felt that this outstanding set of images deserved some special recognition. VICTORIA I am someone who wants to speak out against something that isn’t accepted in everyday society. If you look closely at my image, the lock screen of the phone displays an audio book playing, which is titled “Ethics”. This can be interpreted in many ways, depending on the viewer’s point of view. I want this artwork to inspire others to have their own voice and to not be afraid of sticking up for what they think is right. MARYIAM My image, “Fear of the World”, describes the fear a shy individual has to the outside world. A door pushed to shut out the dangers of the outside world, while balloons represent the spirit of childhood, imagination and creativity, reflecting how much really goes on in a quiet person’s active mind. ERICA I am made up of many different pieces of a complex puzzle. I am removing one piece of this puzzle, as there are some memories that I want to erase. Despite wanting to avoid these negative memories, if I remove the piece, I lose a part of myself. Similar to a puzzle, where when it is missing a piece it is not complete. DARIO The first figure (left standing) represents my desire to pursue a career in photography since it’s something I really enjoy doing and I consider myself decent at. I'm facing backwards because I don’t know what path to take to pursue my dream. The second figure (bottom right), represents my constant will to fly back to Italy because I miss my friends and family there. The third and fourth figures represent how I still feel out of place even though I’ve lived in Canada for more than a year. There’s something that doesn’t feel right even though everybody makes me feel welcome here and befriended me. SOPHIA The main theme of this work is self destruction. There are shadows inside us. Someone may have a nice surface but his or her inside is dark. No one can tell other people may be suffering. JANICE I am constantly overwhelmed by stress due to piles of homework and assignments thrown at me at school. Stress builds to the point where I feel like I am drowning with no escape. There is a crack in the glass which symbolizes my breaking point and my determination to overcome my stress. When I am able to break the glass, I can release all the water that is drowning me. As the water is released, my stress levels will decrease. AMANDA I have two sides, the bright side and dark side. One side stands straight with energy, with colors and brightness around me. The other side is when I am alone with gloomy darkness of negative moods, depression and anxiety. The hand, symbolizes the pressure and annoyances which I am suffering. These pressures are so big that the I am not able to escape when it is trying to catch me. The dark hand does not go to the positive side since no one can see I am suffering. #photomanipulation #emergingartists #studentphotographer

In case you missed our EDMONTON 2019 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event AT THE GARNEAU THEATRE - or you wanna see it again - check out Adam Borman's presentation on why he loves working in the studio, and how your only limitation in the studio is your imagination. In case you're 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 fun... #emergingartists #fineartphotography #studentphotographer #studiophotography #AlbertaPhotographer

In case ya missed our TORONTO 2018 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event - or wanna see it again - photographer + artist Justin Atkins shares his work, and tells us about his creative experiments, creating alter egos, and entertaining yourself through photography. In case you're 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 fun... PhotoED Magazine awarded Justin our first ever InFocus Photo Emerging Artist Award in Edmonton in 2018! We also featured his work in our Spring/ Summer 2018 issue: Manipulated Images. Get inspired. Get your copy before they are sold out HERE. #emergingartists #fineartphotography