I’m happy to announce that the two photographs displayed here, Solar Power and Seasoning, have been short-listed for the 2008 Travel with Purpose photo contest put on by Verge Magazine, a Canadian travel magazine that explores opportunities to study, work, and volunteer abroad. Both of the images were taken while I was in Peru - Solar Power, which was selected for the Developing World category, was taken on the Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca and Seasoning was taken in the Salt Pans near Cusco, Peru and was selected for the Environments category.
The images will be on display at the Go Abroad Fairs in Vancouver and Toronto in September and other events through the fall. Some of the short-listed images will appear in the Verge Magazine photo annual later this year, so if I’m lucky, I may get to see these photos published. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.
This past week I had the opportunity to participate in the second of three workshops that are part of the Exposures program put on the by Agnes Etherington Art Centre. The program was designed to bring together Kingston photographers and examine the changing Kingston landscape through photography. This workshop was lead by Preston Schiedel, a Kingston photographer who uses a large format camera to capture desolate black & white Kingston landscapes. The workshop was centered around his photography and raised some interesting questions about the images we capture and the process of photography itself.
It was interesting to hear Preston talk about his process, which is very different from my own. His camera is large (40 lbs) and the film he uses is expensive, so he only takes one image. This means that he will spend a lot of time studying a subject before photographing it and making sure that the exposure and other details are perfect before committing the image to film. In my case, I have a small camera and I can take up to 400 RAW photos on one memory card, which allows me to take large number of images in one sitting. What this means for me is that I’ll often walk around with my camera, photographing what I see along the way, often times taking several shots of the same subject. I don’t worry too much about exposure or composition as these issues can be dealt with in post-processing - I’m happy as long as the photo is in focus.
Before attending the workshop, I had an idea of the different processes we employed as photographers, having heard him speak before. However, the point really hit home when he asked us to do an assignment for the workshop, which was to go to the Richardson Beach house down by Lake Ontario and take one photograph. This exercise forced me to operate in a completely different mode and I struggled with myself to not hit the shutter button every time I saw something of interest. Before going there I thought about what time of day would be best and when I arrived I walked around the building several times, looking for the right shot. There were a few shots that I would have liked to take, however, when I saw the shadow of the railing on the stairs I knew I had my shot. The assignment was an interesting challenge, however, I can’t see myself abandoning my “shoot now, process later” appraoch anytime in the near future.
Next up is a workshop with one of my favourite photographers, Edward Burtynsky. Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to participate in a workshop with him.