2021 Photographic Artist of the Year

DANIELLE BARABÉ-BUSSIÈRES, cpa,

2021 PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST OF THE YEAR

THE SIMPLE BEAUTY OF THE NATURAL WORLD

By Terry Tinkess

WHEN DANIELLE BARABÉ-BUSSIÈRES WAS ANNOUNCED AS THE 2021 PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST OF THE YEAR, SHE BECAME QUITE EMOTIONAL AND WAS VIRTUALLY SPEECHLESS. FORTUNATELY, HER WORK SPEAKS FOR ITSELF AND HER PASSION SHINES THROUGH IN EVERYTHING SHE CREATES.

Danielle’s interest in photography began as it has for so many people: with their children as their initial subject and inspiration. As they grew older, however, she found she had time for herself and the camera and the natural world became an ideal combination. Since 2014, when she invested in her first “serious” camera, Danielle has developed her skills, to the point where her images are uniquely her own. Her philosophy: keep it simple. “I kind of have my own style of photography and editing and post and all of the editing work, I think it’s my signature,” says Danielle. “I think I’ve grown to develop different techniques and different methods. I work in a very simple way, that’s for me. It’s really important to keep everything simple because I’m not a complicated person in life. What I like is as long as my shots are sharp and they’re in focus I can do anything with them.” When it comes to capturing the image, many photographers suggest having an idea of what you are looking for before heading out. Others, like Jay Maisel, for example, suggest “going out empty,” with no preconceived notion of what you want to come back with. Danielle has developed a method that is a combination of both. “I’m going out most of the time and whatever comes my way, that’s what I will be shooting,” she says. “Most of the time I know places where I can get a lot of different variety in the type of birds or animals that I will see, but there are specific shots that I would like to get. “ She, of course, does have locations that she returns to often (the Richmond dump, Amherst Island, to name two), but many times it becomes a case of going where the road takes her. “If I feel like driving farther, then sometimes, I just hit the backroads and I just drive,” she says. “It’s a good thing I have a GPS because sometimes I’m an hour and a half away from home and I’m thinking, where am I and how am I going to get back home?” When she goes out, Danielle believes in being prepared. “When I go out, my car always has all of my equipment,” she says. “I have three bodies, all of my lenses are there and it’s like I have a little luggage and it stays in the car even if I go grocery shopping or anything.

When I go out to shoot, if I get out of the car to shoot, I only have my D500 and my 200-500mm lens, that’s all I need. I don’t use a tripod for wildlife. I’ll use a tripod to get the sky at night and stars or whatever but, for the wildlife I just handhold my D500 and 200-500.” The images that Barabé-Bussières submitted this year are a testament to the range of her work, with three achieving Merit status with the fourth, Accepted status. Majestic Hunter, in the Animal category is an image of a red fox, an animal that Barabé-Bussières built a relationship with over the better part of a year. “When we started working remotely last year, I was working in my kitchen in front of my window and this little guy would just go by every day, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon,” says Danielle. “I thought ‘I need to grab my camera and leave it on the kitchen table’ so that’s what I did. “So many times I was just sitting on the front porch and just waiting for something to happen because I could see her every day. At some point she got used to me and she knew that I wasn’t a threat to her. I was talking to her and asking her how she was doing today. She was just looking at me taking pictures and I would talk to her and say thank you so much for this opportunity.” Constance Bay is about 30 minutes West of Ottawa, and that is where Danielle found inspiration for her image Hazy Day in Constance Bay. “It was extremely foggy and for me when the fog is out, Danielle is out,” she says. “I mean the scenery is just beautiful and what you can do with those images is absolutely gorgeous. I got home and then I think it took me three weeks before I actually really paid attention to that photo. As I’ve said before I really liked working with clouds and skies and so that’s how I create that kind of dreamy look.” Danielle has a great love of macrophotography, and it is displayed in her image Wrap of Softness. “I always have a shot like that when I submit my images. I really like details and the dreamy look of things,” she says. “When you look at a flower or whatever, you have to do some kind of a treatment to it, because otherwise it’s not that attractive or it just has ordinary impact. “You still see the details inside and that’s what I really like with the macro lens. If there’s no wildlife one day, I will just grab my body with the macro lens on it and I always find something,” Danielle enjoys being close with nature and often sets out on foot. This was what allowed her to create her fourth image, Bohemian Rhapsody. “I was very fortunate I was just walking along the road,” says Danielle. “In the background sometimes you can hear the birds and after a while you kind of recognize their calls. I was just shooting whatever I could see. I think there’s only two photos really, two pictures really that are good because the other ones have too many branches that go across their bodies or stuff like that. I don’t mind removing branches around my subject but not on my subject. That can make it difficult to make it look like it’s natural, and I want things to look as natural as possible.”

Always looking for that special image can be challenging, but for Danielle, it also brings peace. “For me a perfect day is when I can go out shooting all day. If I can go and be in nature and even if there’s not much wildlife around, I just need to get out and walk in the woods or, you know, just sit in a park and listen to the birds, look at how they interact with each other and their environment, see how they acted in different situations and then come back home with a card full of whatever. For me that’s the perfect day!”

Congratulations Danielle on your 2021 PPOC Photographic Artist of the Year award!

Danielle Barabé-Bussière, CPA

Since her childhood, Danielle has been a lover of nature and uses it fully to recharge her batteries and to meditate when life goes too fast. She is involved on the committee of her branch of PPOC, Eastern Region and is a mentor for three new PPOC members. Danielle is the proud mother of two and soon to be the grandmother of a third granddaughter. She can’t wait to teach them how to fish and introduce them to the wonderful world of insects! www.daniellebarabebussieres.com/ www.facebook.com/DanielleBBphotography/