Jan
05

Time Passages: Panama Canal

Panama Canal (2015)

The Panama canal is one of those places that is so ingrained in our collective consciousness that, when you are on it, you can see yourself as the little red dot on a map, passing through the isthmus of North and South America.

I had the pleasure of visiting Panama, in December of 2015. This ‘Time Passages’ series takes you from the southern starting point of the canal, at Isla Flamenco, past Isla Naos, and southward through the canal, passing by the Frank Gehry-designed Biomuseo, the Amador Marina, the containers terminals in the port of Panama, and on through the locks to the continental divide just south of Gamboa.

Oct
10

Beaver Lake by the Numbers

Beaver Lake, by the Numbers (2010)

This project started as a question that arose while going for a run. I would often run around Beaver Lake as part of my circuit through Stanley Park. The Vancouver Parks Board had added an interpretive trail marker system around Beaver Lake, but the information about the different points was sorely lacking. I would see these markers on the edge of the forest and they would remind me of the obelisk on the cover of, ‘Presence’, by Led Zeppelin. Like the obelisk, theses numbered markers were, a mysterious object meant to signify something, but what?

This got me thinking about those ‘scenic viewpoint’ locations we’ve all stopped at or seen, and about the interpretive trail around beaver lake, where the viewpoint of contemplation is not necessarily a scenic vista or even really scenic. I was also thinking about the prepared photo, or the prepared nature aspect, where the numbered posts indicate a position for action – specifically photography.

I soon found the literature for the interpretive trail online – a pdf you could download from the Parks Board site (how a tourist would ever find that is beyond me). I have created a small book combining my photos with the corresponding locations around the lake.

Oct
10

Carnage

Carnage / Gargages (2006 – Ongoing)

Based on the concept of, “start with what you know, and start close to home”, I went to my apartment garage.

The ‘Carnage’ shots are an abstract study of the patterns and marks left by the impact of car bumpers, tire marks and exhaust spatter, while the ‘Garages’ series takes a wider view of the vacant, yet purpose-built spaces designed for the automobile.

Although there are no people in the photos, both series represent to me evidence of human activity. Sort of an anthropological study of an ancient race. The ‘Garages’ series also has a forlorn quality about it – these spaces, waiting patiently to be used – with their spare tires and windshield washer fluids at the ready – to be made purposeful. Awaiting the return of their automotive master.

Oct
10

Pyres

Pyres (2008 – 2011)

Pyres is a study of refuse wood piles at the end of Iona Island, in Richmond, BC. Iona Island sits at the western end of the Fraser River Delta. A salvage and recycling company is situated there to collect the wood debris and flotsam flowing down river into Georgia Strait.

I have been going out to this location every 4 to 6 months to photograph the piles of wood and other junk – old wharf pieces, tires, boat bumpers. A regular returning to this spot affords a new view every time, as the piles of wood and debris are in a constant slow morphing and shifting, with the wood being eventually ground into mulch and loaded into barges for use in other wood products.

These large wood piles resemble pyres set for spiritual of religious purposes, or the crumbled and dilapidated remains of the company towns that were erected to house the  mining and forestry workers of the early 20th century. Epic in stature, these wooden hills mimic the mountains they once grew upon. (awaiting the corpse of a once great king).

There is another aspect to these images; that of the role of the heavy machinery workers who move and organize the pyres and piles with their excavators and bulldozers. In a way I feel as though they are the artists themselves – creating sculpture out of the refuse of the formidable forest industry of British Columbia, capturing the detritus flowing from it’s main transport system – the Fraser River – and assembling the pieces, forcing us to consider where this wood came from and the effects of our constant encroachment into the forest.

Oct
10

Time Passages: Trains

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 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.