VanDusen Gardens

Two years ago I was commissioned by a friend to document a year in VanDusen Gardens. It was for the friend's mother who had once lived in Vancouver and missed VanDusen terribly. The cost of the commission was the price of an annual family pass to the gardens. It would take much longer for me to do it justice.

During that time I picked up Barry Thornton's "Edge Of Darkness".  His attention to detail has inspired me to think much harder about image quality. 

Trip To Nanaimo

We went to the Island last weekend to see a good friend, Andrew Brown, in an amateur production of Arthur Miller's 'All My Sons'. It was an adventurous weekend. I got very sick and missed the play. Before the worst of it hit, I managed to get out on deck for some air and took this shot. I seem to be drawn to take pictures of photographers. 

Couple In Fog

He was speaking to me with his hands and his expression. I didn't realize it until I got home and looked at the photo.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is one of Canada's foremost photographers. His most famous works are shot with large format cameras and printed on a very large scale. He established a photo lab and digital imaging centre, Toronto Image Works, in 1985. His theme for a number of years has been our effect, especially through industry, on the world's landscape. I first became aware of him when he began chronicling the Three Gorges Dam Project in China. 'Manufactured Landscapes' is a film that shows him at work and some of the resulting prints. It is a fascinating documentary film both for its depiction of Mr. Burtynsky as an artist and, through his photographs, an instigator of social dialogue, and for the stunning photography itself. Mr. Burtynsky is donating a number of his recent prints to the Surrey Art Gallery and will be speaking  at the presentation to the gallery on February 12th, 2009. I phoned for my tickets to the event a few hours after it sold out, but I will go see the prints at least once, and hopefully a number of times. The image above is the spring 2003 cover of 'Canadian ART' magazine. 

Camosun Bog Woods

Late January and the snow is off the streets. But the woods retain a thin layer of winter.