Here are some recent black and white photos, taken over the past few months. With these images, I revisit familiar themes of juxtaposition, societal symbols, isolation, humour, and the human-altered landscape. In the absence of colour, the photographs gain a level of abstraction; we must use our imagination in a sense to complete the picture. The tones and contrast of the black and white also serves to highlight the graphic elements.
Though I shoot mainly colour these days with a digital camera, monochrome takes me back to the 1980s when I shot tons of Tri-X and spent countless hours in the darkroom. I miss those days sometimes, but feel that I can much the same results with digital technology. For me, it’s what you see, and capture, that’s most important, whether it’s with film or digital; Leica or Brownie box camera.
For me, nothing beats a straight photo of an unusual scene. I’ve never had much interest in image manipulation after the photo has been taken. I’d rather see the scene and try to record it in an interesting way–a sort of truth is stranger than fiction approach.
There are plenty of famous photographers out there who have a knack for recording oddball scenes. Lee Friedlander, Martin Parr, and Elliott Erwitt are three that come to mind. Their images can make you laugh out loud, or shake your head in wonder. You ponder how they were able be in that place and capture that fleeting moment. Part of the answer, I think, is natural ability, but the bigger part is just practice. They were out shooting everyday, honing their skills, and sharpening their eye.
My photos of unusual scenes are mostly things I come across in everyday life. Seeing them sometimes makes me chuckle, or makes me think that the world is , indeed, a strange and wonderful place.
Hi! If you’re new here, my name is Avard Woolaver, and I’m a photographer based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Many of you have probably found this website from my one of my social media platforms. I’ve recently stopped posting photos on Instagram but hope to spend more time posting on this site. So here’s an introduction to my work!
A lot of the people who follow me are especially interested in my Toronto photos, taken mostly during the 1980s. (The above photo, previously unpublished, is an example.) I did a lot of street photography and urban landscapes during and after my photography studies at Ryerson University. The negatives sat sorted in files on a bookcase for thirty years before I started scanning them in 2016. The photos are very nostalgic for me–a blast from the past.
One of my main interests is New Topographics–the human-altered landscape. With the rapid advance of the climate emergency, our mismanagement of the environment is becoming more central to my work. I want my photos to be visually interesting, but also carry a message.
Another one of my interests deals with visual perception. My Wish You Were Here series aims to challenge the viewers’ attention in a subtle way by finding everyday scenes with elements of whimsy and surrealism. Emulating artists like Rene Magritte and Lee Friedlander, I want to make the familiar seem a little strange, but without Photoshop or image manipulation. These photos come about through observation, using juxtaposition, reflection, typography, and scale.
My travels have taken me various places in the world. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked in Japan, which gave me a chance to visit southeast Asia. Travel photography is exciting because nearly everything is new and interesting, and you may never be in that place again.
Along with photographing the unfamiliar, I do a lot of revisiting familiar scenes during different times and seasons. A familiar scene can seem so changed under different lighting conditions. I pass the scene below on a daily basis and have photographed it numerous times. It never gets old.
Finally, I like doing self-portraits, and also incorporating humour in my photos when I can. I saw some Lee Friedlander self-portraits when I first got a camera, and they made a lasting impression.
I have always been monochrome dreaming. Since first picking up a camera, I have been interested in recording odd 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 this post I show photos taken over the past decade
In my Wish You Were Here 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. My new project, “Monochrome Dreaming” shows black and white images with dream-like qualities that aspire to entertain the senses.
There’s a new word for describing the marvel of seeing a place for the first time. It is allokataplixis, a conjunction of two Greek words: allo, meaning “other,” and katapliktiko, meaning “wonder.” Professor Liam Heneghan of DePaul University in Chicago coined the word in 2018. He had been taking his students to Ireland every year and noted that they delighted in many things–the food, the smell of the air, architectural details, the local language, as well as many small things they had never seen before. Heneghan grew up in Ireland, but had lived in the United States for many years and no longer looked at Ireland with fresh eyes or noticed its peculiarities. His word really describes my experience of discovering Toronto for the first time. Fresh eyes notice things that accustomed eyes don’t.
The above photo, taken in 1980 shortly after I arrived in Toronto, seems to be a good example of allokataplixis. I had grown up in the country, and never lived in the city. In the first several months everything seemed brand new and my photography studies at Ryerson meant that I had a camera in hand at all times to capture what I saw. I discovered the photo just recently while scanning negatives, and it’s like seeing it for the first time. I marvel now at the numerous geometric shapes, and the contrast between the old buildings and the modern ones in the background. And how the old fashioned antenna and power pole seem to dwarf the CN Tower. After having lived in Toronto for twenty years, I can no longer see it with country eyes. When I visit now, everything seems familiar.
The series “Toronto Gone” puts a focus on things that have disappeared–buildings, businesses, parking lots, cars, people that used to be a part of the city in the 1980s and 1990s prior to the condo boom, and before the widespread use of computers and cell phones.
