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 (The above photo, previously unpublished, is an example.)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.
In some way, I only know how to take one photo. I just do it at different times and locations. It brings to mind a quote from blues harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite: “I only know one tune, and I play it faster or slower, or I change the key, but it’s just the one tune I’ve ever played in my life. It’s all I know.” There is a particular photo by Lee Friedlander that I believe may be the basis for my photographic approach. I discovered it in 1978, in a book titled Concerning Photography. At that time, I was just learning how to use a camera and was very passionate about this new endeavor.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1972 – Lee Friedlander
The black and white photo, titled “Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1972,” shows an intersection cluttered with a hydrant and various poles. There is a car tire in frame on the right, as well as a high-rise apartment building. In the centre, there is a small house (or small bank building), and on the right—the pièce de résistance – a dog sitting on the sidewalk, partially obscured by a pole, looking like it’s waiting to use the crosswalk. So much information, and wonderful balance of so many elements. And such beautiful, creamy black and white tones. The photo is bursting with creativity, intelligence and deadpan humour–and seems to be the visual equivalent of jazz music.
Over the course of forty years, I have taken many kinds of photos—landscapes, portraits, documentary, editorial, but I keep returning to this wonderful Lee Friedlander photo with its delicate balance of design elements, its visual humour and social commentary. When I go out into the world with my camera, the most satisfying moments come when I know I have taken a quirky photo, one that makes the viewer do a double take. It may be the only photo I know how to take, yet I was there, and I saw that!
It’s winter in Canada–a good time to post a selection of snow photos. It a wonderful sight to see the landscape transformed by a blanket of fresh fallen snow. In the following poem Emily Dickinson makes mention of the snow sifting down, making an even face of mountain and plain.
Taking snow photos is a good way to connect with the season, and enjoy the absolutely unique qualities of winter. On windy days, photographing snow is a good way to photograph the elusive wind. There are amazing shadows cast on sunny days, and an abundance of soft textures. I like to go out around twilight time when the snow is coming down. It’s a good opportunity to use a flash to freeze the snowflakes.
Snow by Emily Dickinson
It sifts from leaden sieves, It powders all the wood, It fills with alabaster wool The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face Of mountain and of plain, — Unbroken forehead from the east Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence, It wraps it, rail by rail, Till it is lost in fleeces; It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem, — The summer’s empty room, Acres of seams where harvests were, Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts, As ankles of a queen, — Then stills its artisans like ghosts, Denying they have been.
Here are my favourite photos of 2020. What a long, strange trip this year has been–one of isolation, uncertainty, and sadness as the pandemic spread around the world and took so many lives. It’s also been a year of hope– people have been brought together in unexpected ways, and a vaccines have been developed in record time. We can only wish for a better year in 2021.
The photo above seems to symbolize my year. It shows a twisted web of grape vines in the fog, illuminated by a flash. It has been a foggy year, but not without it’s moments of brightness. My year started out in Nagoya, Japan. My family was on a big trip through Europe and Japan–the trip of a lifetime for us. We started out in France in November and finished in Budapest, Hungary, in early March. We had to cut our trip short by three weeks in order to get back to Canada before the pandemic. The trip was fantastic in every way, and has provided a wealth of memories for my family.
I have continued to work on my photography–selling prints from my website Shop, and putting together photo books. The most recent is Toronto In Colour: the 1980s.
This was taken on the Tokyo Sakura Tram in late January, 2020. It is the only streetcar left in Tokyo, running between Minowabashi Station and Waseda Station (12.2 kilometers; 30 stations). The slow pace of the streetcar seemed out of step with the bustle of the city and reminded me of what Tokyo must have been like in the old days.
Taken along the Meuse River in Liege, Belgium, where I went jogging everyday (sometimes I did more photography than jogging!) It’s a juxtaposition of the new and the old, a thing I noticed a lot in Europe.
The metro in Prague was beautifully designed, with wonderful colours. I waited for the train to start so that the door was framed in the center of the entrance.
A train station in Budapest, Hungary. I remember having to hold my phone high over my head to get this photo. I just realized that all the travel photos so far include some means of transportation. Interesting!
Back in Canada in March to a pandemic lockdown, and snow. We saw almost no snow on our four month trip, but weren’t surprised to see it in Nova Scotia in March.
I really missed visiting my mother while I was away. She has dementia and is almost deaf, so communicating through glass with a cell phone proved to be challenging. But it was much better than not seeing her at all.
