Here are my top ten photos of 2024. I took trips to Toronto and Montreal and also spent some time in Halifax-Dartmouth, so there is a mixture of urban and rural. I looked for the usual suspects–good light, juxtapositions, unusual scenes. Most were taken with my iphone, and some with my DSLR. I often revisit locations throughout the year as the light and season can really affect the mood of the photo. Cheers! And all the best for 2025!
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There are various motivations for taking a photo–to capture a moment, to document a place or thing, to record beautiful light, or to fulfill an assignment. One of my interests in photography has been to somehow challenge the viewer so that they do a double take; the image holds their attention because there is something thought provoking about it. The notion of using visual trickery and humour came to me early on after discovering the work of American photographer Lee Friedlander, and also the paintings of Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte.
I had never dreamed in colour, until quite recently (which is rather odd since I spent 10 years of my life in a darkroom printing colour photographs.) My dreams are odd vignettes, where not much happens, yet I can almost always pinpoint the exact location of the dream. Since first picking up a camera, I have been interested in recording quirky scenes; photos that make you do a double take. In the early days, I didn’t concentrate on it very much. I’d take a photo whenever I came across something unusual. It wasn’t until I got a digital camera in 2006 that I began to actively look for everyday scenes that make the familiar seem a little strange.
With a digital camera, I could experiment more–take many photos of the same scene in order to change the angle of a reflection or align elements perfectly. My image making went from taking a one-off of a particular scene to exploring the scene more fully to get the best possible shot.
In my “Colour Dreams” series, I aim to challenge the viewers’ attention in a subtle way by finding everyday scenes with elements of whimsy and surrealism. Like Magritte, and Friedlander, I want to make the familiar seem a little strange, but without Photoshop and image manipulation. These photos come about through observation, using juxtaposition, reflection, typography, and scale. This series shows colour images with dream-like qualities that aspire to entertain the senses.
Each photo has been given a short title, that may indicate the general mood or emotion of the image. It is a reflection of the primal nature of dreams where we are left with a strong, sometimes, surreal feeling.
Product Details
10×8 in, 25×20 cm
Hardcover, 30 Pages
26 colour photographs
Here are some selections from the book:
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A selection of photos from my current exhibition at The Craig Gallery in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Dartmouth Now and Then
I took some photos in Dartmouth in 1978, apparently forgot about them altogether, and rediscovered them 40 years later, tucked into a negative sleeve with the cryptic notation, “Dartmouth — The Enchanted City.” (What a title!) Delighted by this find, I went back to rephotograph the same locations. This exhibition also includes some photos of Dartmouth taken in the past few years. It’s amazing how the area’s natural landscape and urban landscape have transformed over time. When we live our daily lives in a particular place, the change is so gradual that we barely notice it. But when the change is seen as a jump-cut after 40-plus years, the transformations can be drastic. And sometimes there has been barely any change at all.
When I was a young man, I was excited about the future, and yet a part of me dreaded any sort of change. The photos I took then were my way of pinning down moments in time, of grasping and understanding things I’d never seen before in my life. Changes in the physical world—as in our lives—are inevitable.
I do social landscape photography and am interested in New Topographics—the human-altered landscape–recording how human behavior and activity has affected the world. I also look for whimsical scenes, as well as elements of surrealism found in everyday life. My work is firmly planted in the documentary tradition, making photos through observation rather than through set-up and image manipulation. Photography keeps me in touch with the changing seasons and the passage of time. My images are intertwined with childhood memories, music, and locations around Hants County, Nova Scotia.
My work has been exhibited in Canada and, internationally, in France and China. The City of Toronto Archives has a collection of 700 of my digital images. Also, I have eight self-published photo books that are available online (through Blurb Books.)
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I took a lot of photographs in my early years in Toronto in the 1980s, capturing street scenes and ordinary aspects of daily life that happened to catch my eye. I had no way to anticipate how significant these Toronto photos would seem to me 40 years later. They show things that no longer exist, even though it hasn’t been that long. Without necessarily trying to, I caught images of buildings, cars, fashions, gadgets that are no longer part of our world. Toronto’s entire skyline is utterly changed, part of the inevitable growth and evolution. So, I thought I’d go back and rephotograph some of the scenes to highlight these changes in the topography of the city. It was both fun and challenging, trying to find the spot where a photo was taken 40 years earlier, using the same focal length. It took me back to familiar places like Yonge Street, Queen Street, and the Junction.
Here is a sneak peak at my upcoming photography exhibit at the Viewpoint Gallery in Bedford, Nova Scotia, July 4-28, 2024.
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I’m always on the lookout for quirky, whimsical scenes. Photographer Elliott Erwitt, who passed away last year at age 95, was a master of capturing ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings. He’s certainly been an influence on my photography.
Here are some recent oddities that appeared in my viewfinder. In the words of American clergyman Douglas Horton, “Smile, it’s free therapy.”
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