Oct
09

The Bear Pit

The Bear Pit
2012

Growing up in Vancouver, my Mom would take me to the zoo in, Stanley Park – one of the largest urban parks in the world. Of all the animals on display, the bear pit always fascinated me. You’d wait for the polar bears to jump into the pool with bated breath, but they’d always be down in the pit pacing nervously, or asleep, dirty with filth. The brown bears would be the same, disinterested in the goings on of the humans gawking, waiting for them to ‘perform’.

Designed, and installed by Underwood McKinley Cambron Architecture, in 1961, The bear pit closed down in 1997 and has been falling into decrepitude ever since. I have always been fascinated with the architecture of the bear pit – so, modern, like the bad guy’s lair in a James Bond film. How could this be what a bear would like?

The Bear Pit is now used as a demonstration salmon spawning facility – releasing animals into the wild instead of confining them. I gained access into the bear pit and tried to get a ‘bear’s eye view’, looking out on the green and trees from behind the concrete and chain-link fencing.

Jul
16

Time Passages: Chicago

Time Passages
 (2012 – ongoing)

‘Time Passages’ is a continuing series of long-exposure photos split into several categories, ‘Mountains’, ‘Cities’, ‘Hulls’, ‘Trains’, and others, taken from the decks of passenger ferries, trains, and vehicles in motion as they pass along their routes; and is, in essence, painting with the camera.

The ‘Mountains’ series is compiled from a year and a half of travelling aboard the various BC Ferries. The ‘Cities’ series includes images from Istanbul, New York, Toronto and Vancouver.

‘Time Passages’ uses the technique of long-exposure photography in a way that allows an element of chance into the process. The movement of the boats I travel on, their course changes, the weather conditions and ocean swells are all beyond my control as a photographer and all affect the final image. Repeated journeys yield varying and dramatic results.

‘Time Passages’ was shot both in 4×5 slide film, and in digital format. The film and the digital media offer different results; the digital is more ‘painterly’, while the film is more sublime. Both mediums capture the passing of time and the questioning of memory and lie somewhere between a short film and a multiple exposure, capturing superimposed vistas in the ‘Mountains’ series, creating new architecture through abstraction in the ‘Cities’ series, and expressing the sensation of movement in the ‘Trains’ series.

Jan
05

Vancouver Park Studies

Vancouver Park Studies
2015 – ongoing

Vancouver has more than 230 parks that make up 11% of Vancouver’s land mass. I have always appreciated the forethought of the city’s early planners who saw the benefit of green spaces, recreational facilities, and physical buffers between neighbourhoods.

‘Vancouver Park Studies’ started as a documentation of the extant park houses – park caretaker suites attached to the public facilities – in many of the larger parks throughout the city. As the documentation continued, the project expanded to document candid moments of the people who use the parks, and the parks within the greater context of the city.

Oct
08

Time Passages: Azores

Time Passages
 (2012 – ongoing)

‘Time Passages’ is a continuing series of long-exposure photos split into several categories, ‘Mountains’, ‘Cities’, ‘Hulls’, ‘Trains’, and others, taken from the decks of passenger ferries, trains, and vehicles in motion as they pass along their routes; and is, in essence, painting with the camera.

The ‘Mountains’ series is compiled from a year and a half of travelling aboard the various BC Ferries. The ‘Cities’ series includes images from Istanbul, New York, Toronto and Vancouver.

‘Time Passages’ uses the technique of long-exposure photography in a way that allows an element of chance into the process. The movement of the boats I travel on, their course changes, the weather conditions and ocean swells are all beyond my control as a photographer and all affect the final image. Repeated journeys yield varying and dramatic results.

‘Time Passages’ was shot both in 4×5 slide film, and in digital format. The film and the digital media offer different results; the digital is more ‘painterly’, while the film is more sublime. Both mediums capture the passing of time and the questioning of memory and lie somewhere between a short film and a multiple exposure, capturing superimposed vistas in the ‘Mountains’ series, creating new architecture through abstraction in the ‘Cities’ series, and expressing the sensation of movement in the ‘Trains’ series.