SPRING/SUMMER 2024
THE LIGHT ISSUE
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ROB GRAHAM Toronto, ON Vinyl Diffraction “Vinyl records are surprising objects on which to see beautiful diffraction patterns. These patterns are caused by light bending ever so slightly while bouncing off the tiny grooves in the record. Long exposures of turning vinyl capture how the object comes alive when light strikes at just the right angle.” robgrahamphotography.com IG:@robg_analog
IN THIS ISSUE... 8
RESOURCES WE LOVE By Alan Bulley
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SCARBOROUGH MADE: COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHTS By Sid Naidu
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CHASING LIGHT IS CHASING LIFE by Rocio Graham
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ADAM SWICA: RENDERING LIGHT By Corinna vanGerwen
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RITA LEISTNER & DON MCKELLAR: SEARCHING FOR LIGHT IN DARK TIMES By Craig D’Arville
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THIERRY DU BOIS: LIT FROM WITHIN By Alan Bulley
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PORTFOLIO Featuring: Henry VanderSpek, Monica Rooney, Amy Friend, Grant Withers, Nikki Baxendale, Jennifer Gilbert, Felicity Somerset, Alan McCord, and Pablo Villegas
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ILLUSION OF FORM AND SPACE: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF ANN PICHÉ By Darren Pottie
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VICKI DASILVA: RUNNING WITH LIGHT By Rita Godlevskis
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SOFT-FOCUS AND SERENDIPITY: PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY By Peppa Martin
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THE GALLERY Submissions by our readers
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LIGHT AND SHADE: MINNA KEENE & VIOLET KEENE PERINCHIEF By Mina Markovic
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Photo by Margaret Mulligan
LIGHT IS THE BASIS FOR PHOTOGRAPHY. OUR CRAFT IS ABOUT DOCUMENTING IT OR MANIPULATING IT TO SHAPE A NARRATIVE.
“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.” — Aaron Rose
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OUR 70TH PRINT EDITION shares contemporary visual depictions of electromagnetic radiation and its unique qualities, opening our eyes to the power of light through a new lens.
A photographer once approached me with an interesting idea for an article that has stayed with me for years. We talked about the quality of light in different parts of the world and how light varies in different geographies. I had witnessed this myself in my own travels but lacked a way to explain this with words. I have always hoped that this person would follow through with the proposed article, but perhaps, describing qualities of light in words is a futile exercise anyway. The artists in this issue work with light as the basis of their photography, taking their explorations to new levels. Ann Piché crafts her images featuring light as her central subject; while Thierry du Bois creates abstract visions from the glow of urban architecture at night; and Vicki DaSilva uses light as a tool to create graffiti only visible with a camera. Meanwhile,
WWW.PHOTOED.CA @photoedmagazine PhotoED Magazine is published 3×/year, SPRING, FALL, & WINTER. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40634032
Adam Swica, Rita Leistner and Don McKellar play with light to create visual narratives for viewers to question. Looking ahead, our Fall 2024 edition will explore what photographs do best: stop time. Capturing a moment, whether a split-second action or an encapsulation of the slow passage of time, is one of the most beautiful and impactful things a single image can convey. This upcoming edition will present photography that reveals TIME. If your work embraces time from a fresh perspective, find out more about making a submission on our website. Follow us on Instagram, Patreon, and Facebook, and sign up for our e-newsletter to keep up with all our adventures!
Your editor, Rita Godlevskis
SPRING/SUMMER 2024 ISSUE #70 ISSN 1708-282X
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This issue was made possible with the assistance of the Government of Canada, and the Ontario Arts Council.
Rita Godlevskis /rita@photoed.ca Ruth Alves Alan Bulley Craig D’Arville Rocio Graham Mina Markovic Peppa Martin Sid Naidu Darren Pottie Corinna vanGerwen Deborah Cooper Marie Louise Moutafchieva By Thierry du Bois
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TIME Our next edition will celebrate photography focused on time. Whether a split second action shot or the demonstration of the slow passage of hours, time is one of the most beautiful and impactful things a single image can convey.
DEADLINE: JUNE 24, 2024
FURTHER ENLIGHTENMENT A FEW NEW WAYS TO LIGHTEN UP! BY ALAN BULLEY
BROUGHT TO LIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE INVISIBLE, 1840—1900 By Corey Keller, editor We all walk around with a camera in our pocket, so it’s easy to take photography for granted and forget that capturing light is still relatively new. In more than 200 beautiful images, Brought to Light takes us to the days when science began to show wonders no one had seen before: distant galaxies, X-rays of the body, traces of lightning, and motion too fast or too slow for the eye to register. In just a few decades, photography extended the reach of humanity’s vision through time and space, changed how artists represent the visual world, and raised doubts about the reliability of our own eyes. A revolution in a box. Hardcover, 2008, 216 pages $81 + shipping
Yale University Press Available from online retailers
LIGHTING FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: FROM SNAPSHOTS TO GREAT SHOTS PILGRIMAGE By Annie Leibovitz Quick: Annie Leibovitz — an entire football team of assistants setting lights, changing digital backs, and blowing hair with fans, right? But this book is Annie shooting for herself. Pilgrimage is a quiet book, a very personal record of Annie’s travels to places associated with people she admires, from Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron to neurologist Sigmund Freud and beyond, without leaving out Elvis, of course. It’s not a new book, and the text is not always great reading, but it is instructive to see how a craftsperson can document a story — interiors, exteriors, closeups, and landscapes — with a simple camera and an eye for beautiful light. Hardcover, 2011, 246 pages $43 + shipping
Random House Available from online retailers
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By Syl Arena Pssst … A lot of photographers have a dark secret: they are helpless if the sun isn’t cooperating. If you don’t own a reflector or are frightened by flash, expand your toolkit by learning how to recognize, make, and shape good light. Your photography (and enjoyment) will improve almost immediately. There are tons of books and videos on the topic, but this one is a bit different: instead of showing off dozens of intimidating pictures made by a professional, Syl Arena makes it easy to learn through easy-to-follow examples. Don’t be at the mercy of the sun — put an end to your flash-phobia today! Paperback, 2012, 288 pages $37 or Kindle $20
Peachpit Press Available from online retailers
REVENI LABS LIGHT METER Along with the explosion in interest in analog photography comes a renewed market for old film cameras. Unlike their digital siblings, however, many older cameras do not have a built-in light meter. Light meter apps are available in both the iOS and Android worlds and, while some are just okay, others are surprisingly accurate. If you really want accuracy and convenience, though, nothing beats a dedicated solution such as the Reveni Labs Light Meter. Weighing in at just 9 grams and sitting comfortably on a flash shoe, this Canadian product and its digital readout of exposure settings might be just the thing you need to give that vintage camera new life. $125 + shipping Requires one LR44 battery
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SCARBOROUGH MADE: COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHTS BY SID NAIDU
SCARBOROUGH MADE (SM) IS A SOCIAL IMPACT ORGANIZATION that champions documentary storytelling through photography and video in Toronto’s East. Cofounded by Alex Narvaez and Sid Naidu in 2019, the group aims to shift how underserved communities are portrayed in the media and support emerging BIPoC youth in pursuing creative projects that intersect with community building. The project provides mentorship and employment opportunities for documentary storytelling, public art, and creative placemaking. We started SM to shed new light on the people and communities we grew up around. While we accomplished this through documentary storytelling and public art, our youth mentorships showed us the need to build a multifaceted intervention that could have a lasting positive impact on our neighbourhoods. ABOVE: Community worker Mike Israel stands at a skate park in Neilson Park, Scarborough, which he advocated for through the 42 Rides initiative while working at the Malvern Family Resource Centre. Photo by Daren Valdez. BELOW: Youth artist Daren Valdez documents a story on 42 Rides at Neilson Park in Scarborough. Photo by Ziyaad Haniff. INSET: SM founders Sid Naidu + Alex Narvaez.
This year, SM celebrates five years of community arts programming. We continue to be guided by our purpose of shedding light on positive community stories overshadowed by mainstream media. SM youth artists Daren Valdez and Millicent Amurao are great examples of youth who have contributed to our community through their unique visions and projects. Daren is part of a cohort of youth artists who documented the story behind 42 Rides, an initiative by the Malvern Family Resource Centre. The organization works to make skateboarding more accessible for local residents. Daren’s start in visual photo ED 11
storytelling came from his love of photographing skateboarding. Working with the SM team, he produced a story about Mike Israel, a community worker who advocated for building a permanent outdoor skate park in Malvern.
“The power of coming together is so important, and you can accomplish more than you think.” — Daren Valdez
“My hope is that other parts of the city see this story and become motivated to advocate for skate parks in their neighbourhoods,” says Daren. “The power of coming together is so important, and you can accomplish more than you think.” Through SM, Daren learned how to become more precise in his storytelling and editing to engage audiences new to his story. Millicent joined SM in our inaugural program in 2021. Over the last three years, she has helped SM grow and support the creation of stories by other youth artists. She works as a coordinator for our production unit. Recently Millicent documented the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care, a volunteer-run clinic in Scarborough that has supported Canada’s most vulnerable populations for over 25 years. The Centre has been pivotal in addressing the urgent need for health equity by acting as doctors within borders to provide care for refugees and migrants who cannot access Canada’s healthcare system. Millicent shares her experience from the assignment: “It was insightful learning how to refine my photojournalism skills and getting pointers on what to look for and how to frame my images for editorial work.” Through SM, she also learned aspects of journalism ethics, understanding how to be mindful of privacy in a health setting and composing images to protect patients’ identities.
ABOVE: Daniel Zhen Tao, Dr. Paul Caulford, and Liberty Andaya, the team from the Canadian Centre for Refugee & Immigrant Healthcare. Photo by Millicent Amurao.
BELOW: Youth artist Millicent Amurao poses for the camera as part of the inaugural Scarborough Made mentorship program . Photo by Sid Naidu.
Millicent shares her hopes for our storytelling work: “I love the work that we do, creating and sharing narratives from our community, and I am excited to show people not only the resilience of Scarborough but also how much culture lives here.” Millicent started with our mentorship program to shed light on her community and now contributes to the SM team to help others do the same. Her involvement with SM demonstrates the full-circle experience for change that we always strive to achieve. As SM celebrates a five-year milestone programming community arts, we continue to learn from organizations like these working in our community. We are grateful for the youth artists who have carried the torch to continue the vital storytelling work needed, and we look forward to being a part of a brighter collective future. 12 photo ED
For more information about this project, please visit scarboroughmade.com IG: @scarboroughmade
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CHASING LIGHT IS CHASING LIFE BY ROCIO GRAHAM
AS A PHOTOGRAPHER, I consider myself a light-worker. I work to find the balance between light and the absence of it. My camera is a tool to capture, control, and manipulate the quality of light I need to craft my images. Shutter speed, ISO, and aperture have the sole purpose of controlling light.
Light is electromagnetic radiation from the sun. Only a small portion of light can be seen with the naked eye. As a child, I loved staring up at the sun because I was mesmerized by having something so potent above our heads each day (now I have cornea scarring from that practice). As a little girl I often talked to the sun. I knew this source of light and warmth was something beyond my comprehension. My connection to the sun has not faded. I often imagine what it would be like to float up to the sky to get closer to this ultimate source of light. Photographers are light chasers. We are attracted to it like moths. We often discuss the “chasing of light.” We wake up at 3 a.m. just to photograph the first glimpses of light caressing a mountain. We sacrifice sleep, chasing night sky and aurora borealis images. We endure body pain for the opportunity to create images that show light in unique ways. The most impressive photographic works are crafted with specific attention to the balance of light and darkness. It is the tension created with light that invites us to get closer to the subject and enter a space created by the photographer, an alchemy of light and matter. Through photography we conjure life that manifests through light. We cannot talk about life without talking about light. They are interconnected. Light interacting with matter gave shape to the universe as we know it. Light and warmth from the Sun allowed life on Earth to emerge. Life-sustaining processes such as photosynthesis centre on the transmutation and impact of light. As a photographer and practitioner of Buddhism and Curanderismo (a Mesoamerican spiritual practice), I additionally occupy myself with philosophical questions
about the meaning of life. The theme of light is prominent in these teachings and philosophies. We often hear idioms such as “seeking the light,” “enlightened,” and “made of light” juxtaposed with “a shot in the dark,” “dark ages,” “living in darkness,” and “dark clouds.” Often these sayings are a codification of ancestral human knowledge and wisdom transmitted in mundane expressions. When we say things like “we are in a dark place” and “shot in the dark,” we are expressing a lack of clarity or vision, the unknown we face. “Seeing the light” or “being enlightened” refers to a state of consciousness, a state of knowing that allows us to see what there is, to understand truth; it is clarity embodied. Perhaps for us as photographers, the attraction to working with light stems from a desire to chase life and meaning. I wonder if within the secret parts of photographers live philosophers that seek deeper explanations. Does what we photograph matter? Do we matter? What should matter? I imagine many can relate to the experience of being stopped in your tracks while meandering in a forest and being overwhelmed by the beauty of sun beams peeking through tree branches. The ecstasy we feel when we observe light reflected on a river shimmering like dancing diamonds. Those are moments that incite us to capture them with our cameras. We distill those fleeting profound experiences and make them into documents. Perhaps we create images because we want to create meaning and share our human experiences in the most intimate way. Perhaps it is all in the pursuit of connection and assurance that we are not alone; that life matters, that we matter. Light is a conduit. As photographers, when we chase light we chase life. Light is life.
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See the light, even if it’s kinda dark. Don’t know about us yet? Then let us welcome you to our multi-dimensional itinerary for 2024. Our Camera Auction (free admission) hits Sunday, May 5, while our annual Spring Camera Fair (free admission for students with ID) wows the crowds on May 26. And if that isn’t enough for you diehard pre-owned equipment fans, the Outdoor Camera Trunk Sale (free admission) caps off an incredible summer of bargains on July 14. So if you need cameras, lenses or accessories, we’ll be ready and waiting when the lights go up. Check the PHSC website for details.
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ADAM SWICA RENDERING LIGHT BY CORINNA VANGERWEN THERE’S A MOMENT at the beginning of the day, as the sun comes up, when the light is unlike any other time. And it’s different every day. Sometimes a monotone grey sky cycles through ever-lightening shades, or a streak of gold forces itself upwards, or flaming pink clouds march across a swath of blue. “You can feel the changes as you’re watching,” says photographer Adam Swica, who observes this natural display from bed, half-awake, morning after morning. “It changes so quickly that the light shifts all the time.”
With large windows facing both east and west, briefly, each dawn, light projects through the room’s east window to its west window, into a still darkened sky. This fleeting experience is what Adam has re-created in his Daybreak series. Each photo in the series shows the same scene: a view of the city skyline outside a window, framed by the foliage of a tree, with the reflection of more windows in the glass.
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The colours and light are different in every image, because no two days are alike. “I’ve been looking at this forever, and it has never once been the same thing,” says Adam. But what you see in these photos is not the actual view from Adam’s bedroom. He created these images in his studio, where he constructed a set to replicate the scene. “It’s a rendering of a real event,” he says. The leaves are made of cinefoil, the matte black aluminum material that photographers use to soak up light. The sky is a white wall. The city lights are small LEDs, roughly taped in place. The reflection of the second window is made using a black frame of four trapezoids aligned in descending order. Adam arranged these elements into layered planes, and then shot them through glass using a 48-millimetre lens and a 6×9 medium-format Alpa 12 SWA analog film camera to replicate the remembered view. 18 photo ED
To mimic the glow of the morning sun and bring colour to the foliage and the sky, Adam relied on projected light. Layering several long exposures, he would light a different area of the set independently for each exposure. “It’s about isolating the light, so it doesn’t bleed over absolutely everything else,” he says. Despite his precision accounting for reciprocity failure and multiple exposures, he never knew what the end result would be. “There’s a delay,” explains Adam. “You shoot this thing and then battle traffic to get to the lab. It takes a day or two to do it and then come back, and then you look at it.” While he’s gotten pretty good at getting the results he wants through repetition, there’s still an element of chance. “If there’s a disaster, you’d have to go back and try again.” This is the way Adam operates. Working exclusively in his studio, he constructs sets to create the world he wants to capture on film.
Sometimes, it’s a still life of a realistic scene, like with Daybreak or his 2020 series Somewhere, in which he used everyday materials such as plastic, foil, polystyrene foam, and cardboard to simulate sprawling landscapes. In other series, like 2018’s Ellipsis and 2023’s Rotunda, the final images are abstract, created by capturing light and moving pieces through multiple exposures. With some elements of the image creation left to chance, Adam maintains strict control over other factors by working exclusively in a studio setting. Adam also works as a cinematographer in the film industry — “Almost everything that I’ve learned, technically, comes from working in film,” he points out — and he is naturally drawn to building sets because it allows him to retain control. A controlled environment allows Adam plenty of room to experiment; he tries out iterations within each series and really explores what he can do with light. In Daybreak, he replicated
realistic lighting and re-created the feeling of a fleeting moment through inexact memory. “It’s a little bit liberating, because it’s memory,” he says of creating an image that is a construct versus the actual sunrise. In his abstract series Ellipsis, he built a sculptural light form using upwards of 100 exposures of a moving piece of paper. Each time he exposed the film, he relied on his short-term memory to recall the movement of the paper and when in its arc he had released the shutter to get a previous shot. In these projects and in all of Adam’s work, he is truly capturing light as memory. ADAMSWICA.COM CHRISTIECONTEMPORARY.COM
All images courtesy of the artist and Christie Contemporary. Archival pigment prints on Hahnemuhle paper, editions of 3, 40 × 20 inches.
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SEARCHING FOR LIGHT IN DARK TIMES RITA LEISTNER IN CONVERSATION WITH CRAIG D’ARVILLE
CAST YOUR MIND BACK TO 2020 and, if you dare, recollect how you spent your time during the lockdown days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some artists chose to focus on studio-based practices, while more rebellious types, such as Rita Leistner, went out into the world, masked and under the cover of darkness, with camera in hand.
Renowned for her work in photojournalism and projects such as Forest for the Trees, Toronto-based photographer Rita Leistner, succumbed to the restlessness of lockdown along with her friend and collaborator, filmmaker Don McKellar. Together they created an astonishing series of photographs that are in turns playful, poignant, nearly feral, and experimental. The result is Infinite Distance - Nocturnal Pandemic Urban Dreams. Curious to know more, I invited Rita to talk about these collaborative compositions.
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“After Sebastianus Patron Saint Of Plagues" © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com
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ABOVE: “He And She Run Up The Hill “ © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com 22 photo ED
BOTTOM: “They Reach Across An Infinite Distance" © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com
“She Is Tangled In The Light" © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com
CRAIG: What was the genesis of Infinite Distance - Nocturnal Pandemic Urban Dreams that brought you and Don McKellar, a film director, screenwriter, and actor, together? RITA: We’d been friends for decades and we were neighbours at the time. It began with me bemoaning my purposelessness as a portrait artist in a world under lockdown where I wasn’t allowed to go near anyone with my camera. I was paying close attention to the photography being made in the early days of the pandemic. There were a lot of haunting photographs of abandoned public spaces around the world. But Don knew I wasn’t interested in wandering the city alone and (wanting to get in on the adventure) he volunteered to be my photographic subject. I thought over his proposition and called him the next day: “Sure, let’s do it, but guess what Don? I’m going to give you a camera too!” CRAIG: There are expressionistic, cinematic elements and a ritualistic playfulness happening in these compositions, all complemented by long exposures and an experimental use of light. How did the conceptual approach you and Don came up with come about? RITA: At first, we went out at night to encounter fewer people, because we were afraid of contracting COVID-19. Later, it was for artistic reasons too. We could create a surreal, edgier, more
apocalyptic world where we were the only two people left. Darkness was a condition for our lighting with flash and long exposures and the mysterious dream-like effects we sought to create for our fantastical worlds — magical spaces, underworlds, and mythological allusions (Orpheus and Eurydice), etc. — and painterly qualities — especially those associated with German Romanticism (“After Friedrich”) and depictions of saints and martyrs (“After Sebastianus Patron Saint Of Plagues”). It was also more fun and rebellious to be out at night: our private defiance against the virus. We shot in black and white because I couldn’t bring myself to think in colour, which I associated with my photography in the “before times.” Incidentally, I have not shot in colour since, despite being a “colour photographer” for most of my career. Lately, I’ve been sketching portraits in charcoal. CRAIG: How did you settle on the sites where you chose to make these photos? RITA: We made a list of locations that were iconic Toronto, but also where green intersected with concrete, the way nature was encroaching on built-up urban spaces. Among them were the Bloor Street Viaduct, St. James’ Cemetery and Crematorium, the Don River (not by accident, the principal settings of Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion), the railway tracks on Dupont, Ontario Place, and Toronto Island, which we especially loved
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“They Are Divided By A Glow On The Water” © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com
because we were able to incorporate fires and canoeing in the canals into our narratives. CRAIG: In these photos, the two of you sometimes seem like a couple of naughty kids. Was it intentional to convey a sense of urgency and adventure through these compositions? RITA: This project would never have happened if Don and I didn’t really like hanging out and having fun together. We were trapped in the city, but at night we experienced this extraordinary freedom and feeling of lawlessness in the empty spaces we explored. We were seizing the day! We did feel a real sense of urgency as artmakers too, because it was important to us to make something of this historic time. As time went on, we got naughtier and darker. We took to calling our alter egos “He” and “She,” and “They.” Theirs is a complicated relationship and, yeah, They were definitely up to no good. CRAIG: Is this the first time you’ve collaborated with another artist? Moving forward, how do you think collaborative work will influence your practice? RITA: This was a unique situation created by the circumstances of the pandemic. Co-directing often doesn’t work, but with Don and me, we both enjoyed directing and being directed by each other. I
think the success of Infinite Distance would be hard to repeat. Don was a fantastically cooperative muse and artistic partner in a sparse, depressing time. But in general, I’m not really drawn to collaboration. The lines of creation become too blurred. CRAIG: What’s next for you? RITA: Recently, my dad fell and hit his head on the sidewalk. He spent a month in the hospital, and I was there almost every night as part of his care team. He’s doing better today, but has a long, uncertain road of recovery ahead. My father’s accident changed my priorities, and it’s hard to think beyond the moment. But trauma is a catalyst for art. We never could have imagined Infinite Distance outside the pandemic. Likely, what’s next for me will be related to what I’m experiencing now.
Craig D’Arville is co-owner, along with Stephen Bulger, of FFOTO.com, an online platform that offers photo-based works by established artists, and is an incubator for emerging talent. Rita Leistner is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery, with select works available via FFOTO.com. Don McKellar is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. FFOTO.COM
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ABOVE: “She Floats In The Leaves” © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com
BOTTOM: “He Floats As An Apparition Above The Fire" © Rita Leistner and Don McKellar, courtesy of Stephen Bulger Gallery and FFOTO.com photo ED 25
“03_AM- Brossard 2023” From the Une Aura de modernité, series. A project created with the support of Devimco and Osa Images.
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Thierry du Bois
LIT FROM WITHIN BY ALAN BULLEY
A MONOLITH of artificial light floats overhead in the darkness like the landing craft of an alien invasion. Or is it the glow from a massive lighthouse peering through the fog? A sign of welcome or of warning? In Thierry du Bois’ photographic series Une aura de modernité (An aura of modernity), both could be true.
After a career in Europe as an independent press photographer, Thierry moved to Canada and evolved his work towards commercial photography, which allowed him more time to devote to personal creative projects influenced by conceptual art, surrealism, and dadaism. Upon immigrating to Montreal in 2015, he was confronted by an architecture different from what he had been used to in his native Belgium. He says, “When I arrived in North America, I was amazed by the skyscrapers. I found in them a new language.” As he became more familiar with that new language, Thierry began to see and explore its inner tensions, noting that “there is still an inherent beauty in the level of light which attracted me enormously but there is also a mass of pollution. So, I found it quite interesting to be able to develop this subject and it took some time.”
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LEFT: “01_AM- Brossard 2023” RIGHT: “014_AM- Brossard 2023” RIGHT PAGE: “016_AM- Brossard 2023” From the Une Aura de modernité series. A project created with the support of Devimco and Osa Images.
Rather than being traditional architectural shots with controlled vertical lines and exacting attention to detail, the photographs incorporate multiple exposures, intentional camera and lens movement, significant post-production, and an awful lot of patience during after-dark photography sessions. At the same time, working at night has its upsides, too. There is no need to wait for perfect lighting conditions. Thierry shares, “The advantage with this project is that I can work in the dark with very, very long exposure times and just take what I need.” Each session produces an abstract reimagining of a building with no sense of scale or context, its life shimmering out from a featureless background. There are no people anywhere to be seen. Instead, the structure has its own soul as a living, breathing thing. Une aura de modernité was displayed in the autumn of 2023 as ten panels (nine photographs and one containing explanatory text) mounted on metal supports in the courtyard of a new
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development in Brossard, a commuter town located just across the Champlain Bridge from Montreal. The pictures were unframed and printed on material resistant to the elements. It was a fitting place to exhibit the images, as they seem aspirational while construction continues, residents are still moving in, and new stores and services are opening. After all, this is what Brossard’s Solar Uniquartier complex wants to be when it grows up: urbane, sophisticated, and gleaming. It’s a beacon that welcomes buyers to a modern and fulfilling urban life. And the newly commissioned Réseau express métropolitain (REM) sits nearby, ready to whisk travellers over the St. Lawrence River to and from the big city via an automated light rail system. Thierry is showing this work at a time when many Canadian municipalities are facing thorny problems, such as access to housing, climate change, and damage to the environment. He sees that a development “can have this very negative side if we contrast nature and humanity. That’s kind of the question I’m trying to
“When I arrived in Montreal in 2015, the skyscrapers caught my attention, and I was absorbed by the lights emanating from these buildings. I wanted to find an original way to transcribe the language of light.”
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LEFT: “027_ED_Desjardins - Montréal 2021” RIGHT: “026_ED_Place Bonnaventure - Montréal 2021” RIGHT PAGE: “09_ED_La Tour McGill - Montréal 2021” From the L’édification de la lumière series. A project created with the support of Conseil des Arts du Canada.
raise without really giving an answer either; for some it’s great, while for others it’s just awful.” His photographs hint at those tensions: for all their solidity and brilliance, the buildings look as though they could shake themselves apart at any moment. Extraneous details — trees, signs, and even people — are blurred, cropped, or fall into inky shadows. All that remains is a manipulated structure. While Montreal may have set limits on the height of its skyscrapers — the city’s urban plan does not allow any building to be taller than the summit of Mount Royal — there are no such limits in the artist’s world. Buildings are free to stretch to the limits of the imagination. None of this is by accident. Says Thierry, “I’m asking a very serious question about growth. The power of photography is that you can take a trivial object and sublimate it, put it on a pedestal. 30 photo ED
For example, I did a whole project with objects called Made_In. It consisted of items worth just a dollar that are really ugly, but I made them look like jewellery by staging and lighting them well. So that was the goal: to question the value of objects which are really worth nothing at all.” In the meantime, we continue to design homes, offices, and commercial spaces to demonstrate high value and then find — positively or negatively, and sometimes both at once — that what we value has implications and consequences. The photographs of Thierry du Bois give us a clue about what lies at the heart of the structures we build. Our buildings are glowing icons to show we are here, that we have arrived. Or at least that we are here for a while, illuminated by an aura of modernity. THIERRYDUBOIS.CA
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PORTFOLIO
HENRY VANDERSPEK PEMAQUID LIGHTHOUSE Toronto, ON A historic lighthouse at Pemaquid Point in Maine guides seafarers and space travellers. culturesnap.ca IG:@culturesnap
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MONICA ROONEY ASPECTS OF LIGHT Toronto, ON
Shadows and shapes created with light as it interacts with water and solid objects. monicarooney.com IG:@monicarooney
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AMY FRIEND DARE ALLA LUCE St. Catharines, ON
I am not concerned with capturing reality but use photography to explore ideas relating to memory, impermanence, and the fluctuations of life. I aim to comment on the fragile quality of the photographic object but also on the fragility of our lives, our histories. All are lost so easily. By playing with the tools of photography, I “re-use” light allowing it to shine through holes poked in vintage photographs I find. The images I work with become permanently altered. They are lost and reborn. My project title, Dare alla Luce, is an Italian term meaning “to bring to the light,” in reference to birth. amyfriend.ca @amyquerin
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GRANT WITHERS LIGHT BENDING Burnaby, BC
Still photographs capture the familiar, but intentional camera movement (ICM) records the unseeable, showing us what the human brain is unable to perceive in real time. With time and fearless experimentation, one might eventually glimpse something truly new. My ICM work has morphed over many years into a quest to better understand light and to sculpt it as if it were a physical medium. grantwithers.com IG:@grantwithers_art 36 photo ED
NIKKI BAXENDALE INTO THE ICE, A PORTRAIT OF ARCTIC BEAUTY Vancouver, BC
The photographs I create invite viewers to challenge their perceptions of reality. My studies are explorations of the intersections among light, perspective, and the human experience. nikkibaxendale.com IG:@nikkibaxendaleart
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JENNIFER GILBERT LIGHT FROM THE GREAT BEYOND Tottenham, ON
For most of my adult life, I have dreamed about seeing the aurora borealis. On a trip to Canmore, Alberta, I was finally able to see them with my own eyes. I will never forget how it felt to look up and see so many beautiful colours in the night sky. It’s truly a breathtaking experience. jennifergilbert.ca IG:@jengphotog
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FELICITY SOMERSET LIGHT ON WATER Scarborough, ON
Light on water is endlessly fascinating. With my camera, I explore the play of light on water to create graphic abstractions. In our troubled world, beautiful and meditative imagery is important in consoling us. felicitysomersetphotography.com IG:@felicitysomerset
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ALAN MCCORD NIGHT LIGHTS Georgetown, ON
Conjuring emotional responses with light from buildings around my hometown. IG:@abraidmirabiliapanaesthesia
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PABLO VILLEGAS LUMINESCENT ECHOES Victoria, BC
An odyssey through shadows. A lone wanderer navigates quiet places with emotional echoes within the interplay of light and darkness. pablo-villegas.com IG: @pablovillegaas
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ILLUSION OF FORM AND SPACE:
THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF ANN PICHÉ BY DARREN POTTIE
DRAWING FROM her background working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields since the early 1990s, Ann Piché looks to bridge the gap between science and the arts. For this Ottawabased artist, photographs act as visual links for entry points into larger conversations: conversations on topics such as mathematics in nature, the multiverse, string theory, and artificial intelligence. Her images present viewers with more questions than answers. For photographers it’s often: how did you do that? And for critical eyes it’s often: where are you taking me?
Ann jumps to these questions and is happy to provide answers. Her images are created in-camera using digital and analog techniques depending on the circumstance. She searches for just the right moments of form and colour that might inspire something promising. Sometimes she finds them naturally occurring; a window sill, unfinished architecture, a landscape. Other times she stages scenes in the studio with hand-made props and controlled lighting in order to experiment and explore.
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“Fracture” from the series beyond visible.
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Next she plays with the camera itself using long exposures, varying degrees of focus, strange combinations of shutter and aperture, different ISO settings, and handheld movement. Just like a painter experimenting with different tools, for Ann the camera itself becomes the tool for mark making, as she explores the limits of what the sensor, or the film, will capture. And what it won’t. Her process can lead to countless failures, which result in blank shots, images that are too representational, or discoveries that she just doesn’t know what to do with, filing them away for later. After basic edits in post-production, she scrutinizes her work and begins to pick out the images that speak to her the most. This reliance on intuition, chance, and emotion might seem in opposition to the sciences, but perhaps it’s exactly these human elements that are needed to help to welcome us into these discussions. We’re not expected to understand: we’re expected to feel and to imagine possibilities. Science and photography have a long history together, with images often helping to disseminate complex ideas or even to prove their existence. So when standing in front of her images, people often ask Ann what they’re looking at. They’re searching for references to the real world, clues to what has been photographed. Instead she asks us to forget about that and let ourselves fall into the work and experience them with other senses: spatial, visual, imaginative. Following lines of thinking from the abstract expressionists, she instead turns our questions back on us: What do you see? Other worlds perhaps? In her series beyond visible, Ann imagines a surreal world where the concept of the multiverse becomes a reality. While many know this theory through superhero movies, it can also be found in the physics of string theory. It proposes that there is more than one universe. This series connects with humanity’s desire to continually push boundaries, explore, and find our place. beyond visible employs photographic abstraction as a visual reference to the confusion we can feel when encountering the unfamiliar. With deep black backgrounds and translucent colours layered on top of each other, Ann creates mystery objects within the illusion of space. The images harken back to the notion of the sublime; they attempt to free the viewer from the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, and storytelling. Rather than directly visualizing 44 photo ED
LEFT: “fissure” from the series beyond visible.
RIGHT: “brane” from the series beyond visible.
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scientific empirical data, Ann uses the data as a jumping-off point. The forms she creates situate themselves between what we can understand and what we can’t. Inferences of surrealism can be found in Ann’s work. The Surrealist art movement used dreams and other forms of mental exercises in order to tap into their subconscious and bring together surprising images in a mix of real and fantasy. Surrealist photographers such as Man Ray, Lee Miller, Maurice Tabard, or Claude Cahun did not rely on analysis or calculation. Instead they saw these elements of logic as blocks to accessing routes to the imagination. While the gap between dreaming and science seems so far, Ann’s work sits comfortably there and creates bridges between what we can imagine and what we can know. Many of her titles reference scientific ideas. For example, the image titled “brane” appears to be made of ice or a gelatinous material formed into a cube structure that seems to take mass in the centre but disappear around the edges. After quickly searching the Internet and reading the definition of a “brane,” I still can’t tell you what it is. But what I read propelled me down a rabbit hole of discovery and fascination. Notably, I learned that the more we research the incredibly microscopic features of ourselves, the more we might be able to understand our greater universe. Ann’s series, indistinct boundaries, explores the visual aesthetics of artificial intelligence (AI) bringing her work closer to ideas about the theory of knowledge. How do we “know” something? How does a machine “know” something? Through looking at the old masters and collaging them into something new with current AI imaging platforms? Or through emotion and belief ? These are philosophical questions, and the images encourage continuous question-asking. It is this desire for humanity within the scientific realms that seems to propel Ann’s practice and curiosity. Her images depict the creative power of light and the subjectivity of our individual experiences. On the one hand, she draws from modernist movements in form, design, experiment, and abstraction. On the other, she suggests a return to humanity, to nature, right down to the elementary building blocks of math and science. Ultimately, what is reflected is less of a depiction of our scientific world, and more of a presentation about the mystery of human nature. 46 photo ED
LEFT: “mother,” from the series indistinct boundaries
APICHEPHOTO.COM
RIGHT: “aperture “ from the series beyond visible
We’re not expected to understand: we’re expected to feel and to imagine possibilities.
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VICKI DASILVA:
RUNNING WITH LIGHT AN INTERVIEW WITH RITA GODLEVSKIS
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LEFT: “East River Esplanade #1,” 2014 RIGHT: From the Light Tartans series, “Burberry House Check,” 2009
VICKI DASILVA CREATES TIME EXPOSURE PHOTOGRAPHS using light as her drawing tool. Based in Inverness, Nova Scotia, her practice includes text-based light graffiti works, urban and rural light painting landscapes, and “light tartans” created with tube lamps patterned with colour filters.
Vicki’s work has been featured in exhibitions internationally and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, The Guardian, among many others. Vicki is represented by Katzman Art Projects in Halifax. We asked her some questions about what she does and why she does it.
What is it about creating stories through photography and light that you love? I am most interested in creating images that speak to the times we are living in and that deal with topics that matter most to me personally. I try to combine those two objectives simultaneously while making art. I love the act of drawing cursive handwriting text with light that mimics spray paint across facades. I use a round fluorescent lamp to mimic bubble letters similar to spray-painted graffiti “throwies.” I love that in certain locations it feels like I’m doing something illegal, but in fact my action is always legal and harmless, as its result exists only as a photograph. I love that light painting photography is created in the dark and the particulars and challenges that come with working at night or in the dark.
When making images with a 2.4-metre fluorescent lamp, I enjoy working in highly trafficked public spaces where I can include the public in the images. In my mind, those spaces become a type of dance floor for me as I weave between the figures with the lamp in photo ED 49
LEFT: “Great Bear: Phecda,” 2014 RIGHT: “FOY Tags (Fountain ofYouth),” 2010—2015
a spontaneous choreography while concentrating on anticipating my movements so as not to bump into anyone or trip and fall. I love getting into a creative zone and the people around me seem to enjoy being included in the experience as well. How did you get the idea to create light tartans? Visiting Cape Breton was probably an influence that was subconsciously flickering the tartan pattern idea in my mind, as it is such a common design here. I have used combinations of polycarbonate colour filters taped onto fluorescent tube lamps since 1986 in my light painting. I hold a 1.2-metre fluorescent lamp patterned with colour filters and draw vertically and then horizontally to create the tartan pattern.
In 2007, while scouting sites in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where we lived from 1993 to 2018, we (my husband Antonio and I) passed a soccer field that had a 3-metre wall on two sides, intersecting in the corner. That’s when the light tartan idea materialized. I knew we could use two intersecting walls to prop up one end of our 30.5-metre electrical metal tubing track system and overlap the colour filter patterned 8-foot fluorescent lamps we were manually moving along the track to create a tartan pattern; we could overlap the two sides to make the checkered design. After moving to Inverness in 2018, I had a new studio space built, because I wanted to return to the light tartans idea.
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Your Exteriors and Interiors works offer a joyful creative expression; but, tell us about your Light Graffiti work. How and why do you create these messages? Making light graffiti text-based work on location is a way for me to make political social commentary at locations that hammer home my messages. In 2017, I made light graffiti in front of the White House, and later I used a barn for my “Four Isms.”
Light graffiti text-based work allows me to access almost any location, as it is an ephemeral act that exists and materializes only for the camera. It lends itself as site-specific work, art intervention, and protest art. The drawing element is critical for me. It involves a performative aspect as a direct action. I especially like the way this work acts as a catalyst to interact with the public and to have discussions in the moment with curious onlookers or heated debates with those who may disagree with what I am writing. It becomes a valuable lesson in free speech and communication for me and hopefully others. Video documentation of making these works onsite is also very important for me to convey the story so the viewer understands this is about drawing with light in real time for the camera. I share these videos online as well as part of my practice. Whose work has influenced yours? I believe influence is most effective when we are pervious to new ideas or thinking, typically in the beginning, before we are confident that we have found our art practice. As a student studying the history of photography in 1980, the work of Étienne-
From the Light Tartans series, “Fountain Park #6,” 2008
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“Four Isms,” 2020
Jules Marey and Georges Demeny and their research program the Station Physiologique, which opened in 1882 in Paris, was my first understanding of time-exposure photography. I instantly understood the unlimited possibilities and applications of drawing with light. In 1889, Georges attached incandescent bulbs to the joints of an assistant and created the first known light painting photograph, “Pathological Walk from in Front.” Hip hop and my exposure to street art in the early 1980s in New York City was a huge influence. I went to Kutztown University of Pennsylvania where Keith Haring regularly visited. Keith’s incredibly prolific art explosion was all around us. My direct experience with contemporary artists while a student during a semester internship with Joan Jonas in 1981 in NYC was by far the most influential to my understanding of contemporary art as it applied to art history, culture and politics. Video and performance art was still very avant garde. I learned what life as a female artist is like while working for Joan. She introduced me to many of her peers including Richard Serra, whose work with weight and volume inspired my work with light as weightlessness and ephemeral site-specific art through photography. What equipment do you use to produce your works? I shoot with a Nikon D800. All of my portable light equipment is custom made by my husband, Antonio, who is an electrician. 52 photo ED
He uses off-the-shelf hardware store materials. I use fluorescent lamps in various shapes and sizes. I use LED Lenser flashlights, Paul C. Buff Inc. Vagabond Mini portable batteries to power the lamps, and Rosco colour filters to pattern the lamps. What photography projects can we look forward to seeing from you in the future? I am currently working on a light graffiti text-based project at an exterior barn location near where we live in Inverness. The project is my interpretation of Richard Serra’s “Verb List” from 1967 and consists of 108 separate light graffiti text photographs. I am working from the last verb to the first. It is meant to be seen through a vegan lens, as each action and each verb is meant to be applied to what happens to sentient beings for human consumption. Richard famously said, “Drawing is a verb.” As per the MoMA description of the piece, “In ‘Verb List,’ he compiled a series of what he called ‘actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process.’” In my rendition, it is about animals, sea life, and all sentient life on earth. It is also about my remorse of being unaware and non-vegan until 2020.
After that, I plan on focusing my attention on the photography industry’s unnecessary use and glorification of gelatin. VICKIDASILVA.COM
“I Am Malala,” 2013
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SOFT-FOCUS AND SERENDIPITY:
PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY BY PEPPA MARTIN
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A PINHOLE CAMERA IS A BASIC, RUDIMENTARY, LIGHT-PROOF BOX of any size with a small aperture (pinhole) on one side. Ambient light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, known as the camera obscura dark room effect. The camera obscura has a rich history dating back to the Ancient Greeks, as observed by Aristotle. Experimentation with pinhole imagery during the Middle Ages so spooked the ruling class, it resulted in accusations of sorcery and witchcraft. Centuries later, in 1824, French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce coated a pewter plate with a special light-sensitive varnish and placed it into a camera obscura box. He set the box in a window, opened the aperture, and left it in the sun for eight hours. While indistinct, the image revealed was unmistakably the view out of his window in Saint-Loupde-Varennes. He could see the outlines of buildings, roofs, and chimneys. It was the world’s first photograph. Pinhole cameras are arguably some of the more curious tools in photography now, owing to their crude, elementary constructions — and yet they continue to fascinate imagemakers who enjoy the creative challenge they offer. It was the love of this unpredictable, whimsical, analog image-making process that inspired the team at Beau Photo Supplies in Vancouver to host an exhibition featuring local photographers’ work: Sneaky Light is “an exhibition of pinhole photographs taken with ordinary household objects and containers.” Kathy at Beau describes this idea: “A pinhole camera can take images of any size or shape, and may not look as though it is recording an image. The ‘camera’ becomes part of the image and opens a new world of possibility.” Tatiana Porter’s affinity for pinhole photography began with curiosity. She built her first camera from a hot chocolate tin. That camera produced “wonderful and intriguing results,” she recalls. Tatiana humorously sums up her fascination with the pinhole process as “a form of
Images by TATIANA PORTER LEFT PAGE: “Self—portrait with tulips” TOP: “Cherry blossom” Photograph on expired darkroom paper.
BOTTOM: “Baby’s breath” Pinhole photograph on direct positive paper. INSET: Tatiana’s pinhole camera , a hot chocolate tin.
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ABOVE: Images by SAMANTHA WYATT RIGHT: Samantha’s pinhole camera , a jewellery box.
wizardry,” calling it both primitive and tricky at the same time. The whole process taught her to read light by looking up to the sky. In a notebook, she charted descriptions of the clouds, the time of day, and corresponding exposure times. “A lot of effort goes into creating a single picture. The process demands that I think carefully about what I am doing,” she adds. “Pinhole photography has a dream-like quality that I cannot achieve using other cameras. There is sharpness and softness, all at the right measure. More and more, I am drawn to a less perfect image, to a soft-focused memory.”
THEY CONTINUE TO FASCINATE IMAGE-MAKERS WHO ENJOY THE CREATIVE CHALLENGE THEY OFFER. Samantha Wyatt constructed a camera from a jewellery box to create her pinhole image as “a fun test of balance (literally), light, timing, and giggle control.” With an interest in people and portraiture, she planned a kiss as her shot. “I thought the pose could be cute as well as interesting. It was a fun idea but turned out to be much more challenging than I had anticipated!” she confessed. She recounts that the process “was probably 45 minutes of set up, pose, a 10-second exposure, run inside to develop, re-adjust the position of the camera, repeat. Challenging? Yes, but also rewarding!” Daniel Bouman has made pinhole cameras out of several different containers: an oval mixed nuts can, a coffee tin, a 35mm film canister, and cardboard and wooden boxes. He has used 35mm and 120mm roll film, as well as 4×5 and 8×10 sheet film. Having spent years as a commercial photographer, he claims to “love pinholes the best!” He describes, “Pinholes have certain powerful technical capacities, like the ability to create extreme wide-angle views and to exploit near and far relationships. I love the soft aesthetic of the images. I have learned from this process to be fussy about what I can control and to be open to a process that I can step into but not entirely control, sort of like stepping into a river.”
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ABOVE: Images by DANIEL BOUMAN LEFT: Daniel’s pinhole camera .
LIGHTING 1
CHALLENGE
BILLED AS THE WORLD’S GREATEST PHOTO GAME, GuruShots is an international competition platform for photographers. Players get feedback from more than three billion monthly voters and try to work their way up through rankings, from Newbie to the ultimate status (and bragging rights) of Guru. 2
GuruShots’ challenges are voted on by the platform’s Gurus and the wider community, with a fresh challenge every day. Winners can receive prizes from GuruShots’ sponsors such as Adorama, Kodak, Lowepro, and Lensbaby. From city streets to ocean views, the Lighting Challenge showcases a world of wonderful images from around the globe.
1. GURU'S TOP PICK WINNER Jan Chan • Hong Kong
2. Laimute Kuriene • Netherlands 3. Salvijs Bilinskis • Latvia
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4. TOP PHOTO WINNER Ailon Glitz • Israel 5. Yana Raaga • Latvia 6. Mike Christoff • USA 7. Barbara • South Africa 8. Gerben Eijs • Netherlands 9. Unnamed • Germany 10. Ilan Horn • Israel 11. Simona L Neumann • Romania 12. Marija Jilek • Croatia 13. Jrwelngtn • USA
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14. Peter Merz • Canada 15. Unnamed • Finland 16. Kate Young • Australia 17. Gretchen Huber • USA 18. Franck Germain • France 19. Godwin Cheung • Hong Kong 20. Katrina Scotka • USA 21. Svetlana Soboleva • Austria 22. Terry Nunn • USA 23. TOP PHOTOGRAPHER WINNER Viktoria Farkas • USA
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THE GALLERY SUBMISSIONS BY OUR READERS
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1. MONICA ROONEY
2. RIVALUTIONARY
3. MILENA VASQUEZ
4. MARGARET GDYCZYNSKI
Toronto, ON ASPECTS OF LIGHT monicarooney.com IG:@monicarooney
Edmonton, AB BRIDGING LIGHT AND TIME IG:@rivalutionary
Calgary, AB NOSTALGIA LUMINOSA milenavasquez.com IG:@milena.vasquez.mathewson
Toronto, ON LAKEVIEW coffeecoreconfession.com IG: @coffeecoreconfession
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE... Check out the DIGITAL EDITION EXTRA ONLINE - JUNE 1, 2024 to see more LIGHT work by more Canadian photographers.
ALSO FEATURING:
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AARON BONK-RICHARDS ANGELICA BOROWSKI DARREN KOOYMAN DAVID DORRANCE E MCDONOUGH ELIO RIFAAT FABIAN OTERO FRANK LEPRE GARETH JONES GERALD WOLFE GERMAN GARCIA GUSTAVO JABBAZ JENNIFER RIBOUT JOHN JETHI JUDE MARION KAREN RUET KARENE-ISABELLE JEAN-BAPTISTE KELLY QUINN LORETTA MEYER LORI RYERSON MELISSA RICHARD MICHAEL COMTE MICHELINE GODBOUT PATRICIA ABREU RALPH TEEPLE ROBERT TAYLOR ROLLY ASTROM ROSEMARY BURD SARAH BOUTILIER SHAWN HAMILTON TANJA TIZIANA TRACEY HALLADAY VALERIE DURANT VANESSA PEJOVIC VICTOR LE
+ MORE! 5. GRACE HALLEWELL
6. JAMES R ROWAN
7. LOANNE II TRAN
Fredericton, NB CROSS CONTOUR LIGHT DRAWINGS IG:@grace.anais.photography
Cornwall, ON OBSERVATIONS IN LIGHT AND SOLITUDE X: @fstopclick37
Toronto, ON i am simply nothing but i am everything liit.format.com IG:@loanneiitran
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LIGHT AND SHADE: MINNA KEENE AND VIOLET KEENE PERINCHIEF BY MINA MARKOVIC In these two portraits by Minna Keene (1859–1943) and Violet Keene Perinchief (1893–1987), a diffuse, atmospheric light illuminates a self-assured woman and a demure debutante on the cusp of adulthood. For both photographers, light played a central role in the construction of their portraits as reflections of their sitters’ inner and outer worlds. Minna was a pictorialist who used photography to emphasize beauty and emulate classical paintings. Violet adapted her mother’s aesthetic, modernizing it by applying sharper focus and subtler retouching. Minna had an acute eye for utilizing natural light to transform her sitters from the quotidian to the mythological, while Violet was particularly skilled at mimicking natural light in a studio setting using lights and props. Minna was one of the first women admitted as a fellow to the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, then the highest honour bestowed on a photographer. In 1903, Minna and her family emigrated from England to Cape Town, South Africa, and later settled in Canada in 1913. Minna opened several portrait LEFT: Minna Keene, Fruit and Sunlight, 1903–1913, carbon print. The Minna Keene and Violet Keene Perinchief Collection, The Image Centre, Gift of Sturrup Family, 2020. RIGHT: Violet Keene Perinchief, Miss Belinda Lyon, ca. 1933–1948, gelatin silver print. The Minna Keene and Violet Keene Perinchief Collection, The Image Centre, Gift of Sturrup Family, 2020. 62 photo ED
studios in Montréal and Toronto, which Violet helped to manage. In 1921, the Keene family moved to Oakville, Ontario, where Minna ran a home studio until her death in 1943. Violet managed the Eaton’s Portrait Studio in Toronto from 1932 to 1948, where she primarily photographed brides, debutantes, children, and families. On occasion, her sitters included prominent cultural figures from Canada and abroad, such as past Governor General of Canada Vere Ponsonby, Amelia Earhart, and Aldous Huxley. From 1948 until 1974, Violet ran a studio from the Oakville house, continuing her mother’s legacy. After having achieved success during their lifetimes only to fall into posthumous obscurity, in recent years the work of Minna and Violet and their contributions to Canadian photo-history are slowly reemerging in the public consciousness. The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University now holds the comprehensive Minna Keene and Violet Keene Perinchief Collection, which will be featured in a major survey exhibition in 2026.
This feature was produced with the support of the Photographic Historical Society of Canada. www.phsc.ca
Remarkable photographs of Canada from the photo archive of The New York Times—now online
Photographies remarquables du Canada provenant des archives photographiques du New York Times—maintenant en ligne
The Image Centre’s (IMC) Rudolph P. Bratty Family Collection comprises more than 21,000 photographs of Canadian subjects, from political events, to wartime conflicts, to travel documentation, to portraits of notable and everyday Canadians. Explore the collection at theimagecentre.ca/collections/
La collection de la famille Rudolph P. Bratty du The Image Centre (IMC) comprend plus que 21 000 photographies de sujets canadiens, qu’il s’agisse d’événements politiques, de conflits en temps de guerre, de documents de voyage ou de portraits de Canadiens célèbres ou ordinaires. Découvrez la collection à theimagecentre.ca/collections/
Unknown photographer, [Victoria, B.C. saying farewell to 88 Battalion], Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1914–1916, gelatin silver print. The Rudolph P. Bratty Family Collection, The Image Centre
Photographe inconnu, [Victoria, C.-B. faisant ses adieux au 88e bataillon], Victoria, Colombie-Britannique, Canada, 1914-1916, épreuve à la gélatine argentique. Collection de la famille Rudolph P. Bratty, The Image Centre
Canary Wharf Bikes by Jonathan Pearce
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