Memories of Summer

With the Victoria Day long weekend here, it seems a good time to share a few images I came across randomly while (trying) to organize my sheets of negatives and contact sheets from the past decade or two.
The Victoria Day weekend is sort of the unofficial start to summer and after the kind of winters we usually get in this part of the continent it’s one that means a lot to Canadians. When I was living and working in Brandon another hallmark of summer was the annual Summer Fair and especially the carnival midway.

It was a pretty terrific place to be a photographer, as you’d see a wide variety of humanity parading before you, all complete un-self conscious and not terribly concerned with a photographer. In other words, an ideal place to do street photography and (beyond that) the classic ideal of the ‘flaneur’ . I always found it a wonderful place to people-watch in a setting where a lot of the closed guardedness of daily life would fall away and people could just have fun.

The pictures shared here today were taken on medium-format film on a Hasselblad camera - not the most ideal set-up for street photography but one I’d used before in travelling to Nepal - I wanted these pictures, taken around 2014, to stand apart from the usual newspaper coverage or even street photography type of images. I set out to try photograph what it felt like to go to the carnival, in a slightly different way - a detached yet empathetic observer.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! I’ve enabled comments on this post, or head over to my account on Instagram or Foto and share there.

Rotating Back (to film)

Recently I had the chance to use a classic studio camera in a terrific studio. The Mamiya RB67 is a film camera that any commercial photographer who was working in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s would know of. Along with the excellent lenses as in other Mamiya cameras the big advantage of this camera is the film back rotates to either landscape or portrait view — RB obviously is for Rotating Back.
This lets a photographer change quickly between views, without having to waste time moving the whole camera around either in hand or on a tripod. And it makes a difference practically, especially when photographing portraits.

I don’t like to get bogged down in gear talk, though — to me cameras are tools to make an image, not to fetishize/collect/pontificate over, and the image is what drives (or should drive) photography. In terms of the mechanics, these images were made to test out this camera, its lenses and how it works with in-studio lighting; I’m a big fan of photographing with film (when time allows) and for those who think like I do on that topic, these images were made with Ilford Photo’s wonderful (and underrated, in my opinion) Kentmere Pan 100 medium-format black-and-white film.

Photographer Andrew Sikorsky — find his work at: https://andrewsikorsky.com

Potter and artist Christina Sikorsky

Portrait of Samantha. This was an impromptu photo, but often times those can yield the best results - spontaneous reactions and unplanned efforts can help us avoid ‘getting in our own way’, creatively.

Artist Thor Aikenhead.

National Strike

Last week, the Public Service Alliance of Canada - the union that represents federal employees across a wide variety of services - called a national strike to press negotiations that have stalled for 2 years with the federal government. With approximately 155,000 people on strike across the country this is one of the largest labour actions in Canadian history.

I’m one of those people, joining my co-workers and many other colleagues in the federal service in walking a picket line. It’s been quite an adjustment, as for several decades I’ve photographed all kinds of strikes and labour actions but now I’m experiencing it all first-hand.

I still have a camera, however — it’s a welcome bit of familiarity and mental focus during this uncertain time. No matter what I do or where, I will always be a photographer. It’s a way to live life and make sense of all that one experiences, and this week is no exception.

Placard signs carried by striking workers await their next carrier at a downtown Winnipeg picket line.

Strings attached to placard signs are seen with a badge at a downtown Winnipeg strike location.

A Walk With A Camera

One of the most enduring types of photography that’s been part of my life has been street photography. I prefer to think of it as ‘everyday life photography’, but ‘street’ is the most commonly known term for it.
I sometimes (only half-jokingly) call it ‘the least possible lucrative form of photography’ but maybe that’s part of the appeal - it doesn’t have to be bent or altered to do anything but what I feel about what I see, as I see it.

For me, it’s just pure reaction, in the moment, without any preconception. It draws on everything that’s happened in the past, but is also completely in the present moment. Going for a walk is always a great way to relax, but combine it with the keen observation that happens when you have a camera, and now you’re a flaneur. Finally, at the risk of reading too much into a simple walk with a camera, it’s a way for me to build empathy and understanding of others — I do think it’s only by being face-to-face and interacting with others (and no, via a phone does NOT count) that can hope to start appreciating them.

It’s with this background that I offer up a collection of street/everyday life photos from my own neighbourhood, a small selection from years of walking with a camera close to home. Wolseley is one of many interesting areas of this city, and of all the things many people will say about it, one undeniable fact is it’s one of the most walkable and varied neighbourhoods of them all. In other words, perfect for any street photographer.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say here that one of my main influences in everyday life photography, living one’s life with a camera and finding a sense of place through photography is a well-known figure in photography in this city and this country, John Paskievich. From almost inventing multimedia back in 1982 with his landmark short film “Ted Baryluk’s Grocery” to his excellent photobooks “The North End” and “The North End Revisited”, John has been an inspiration to a lot of photographers. I highly recommend either of his photobooks, by University of Manitoba Press.

For the camera nerds, all images were taken with a Leica M6, 35mm Leitz lens and mainly Kodak TMax 400 film.

Free Ukraine

As the world knows by now, months and years of rumbling has broken into full-out war in the Ukraine. Every day, the infrastructure of instant communications has brought a tsunami of powerful stories and images direct from the front lines, which like most wars now seem to be everywhere.
Canada has the highest amount of Ukrainian people living anywhere outside that country or Russia, and that community’s history runs very deep in Winnipeg, home of the fabled North End and adopted home to generations of Ukrainians. It is perhaps because of this that a rally held yesterday to offer support drew so many people and evoked such emotion.
I knew I had to bring a camera to this event, and with the privilege of not having a deadline (or, more to the point, an outlet) for my images I decided to use a few film cameras, in the hopes of bringing a different mindset to bear and overriding my ingrained newspaper-photography pattern.

A reminder to anyone wanting to help the civilians in this unfolding catastrophe, donations to the Red Cross will be matched by the Canadian government — a great way to make your money go farther!

Susan Boulter tears up while listening to the Ukrainian anthem, during a rally in Winnipeg, Canada Saturday February 26, 2022. Boulter has family in western Ukraine struggling to escape the country during a Russian invasion.