Exhibitions & Printed Work

2009
Personal Exhibit, The Centre Mall, Amber Gallery

Prints Shown: Magnolias, Cold Sulphur Spring, SaskEverywhere, The Birch Bandit, Robot Love, Cowgirl, Lucky Seventeen: Underground, Foundation, Sign of the Times, Bjossa, Tree, Found, Chez Brun, Pray for Rain, Quality Control

Also displayed ribbons for Third Place and Honorary Mention at Saskatoon Ex.

2007
Showcase of Arts, Saskatoon Ex

Prints Shown: Call Waiting, Magnolias, Quality Control, Frame Story, Electric Third Avenue

Awarded Honorary Mention in Advanced Amateur for Quality Control.

2006
Showcase of Arts, Saskatoon Ex

Prints shown: Boat Launch in Jasper National Park, Cold Sulphur Spring, Crooked Bush, SaskEverywhere, The Birch Bandit, The King George Motor Hotel Limited

Awarded Third Place in Advanced Amateur for The King George Motor Hotel Limited.

2006
Handbook Cover, University of Saskatchewan
Graduate Student's Union

Depicted Print 'Interlocking'

2005
Showcase of Arts, Saskatoon Ex

Prints Shown: Foundation, Citywide Sunset, Sign of the Times

2005
Handbook Cover, University of Saskatchewan
Graduate Student's Union

Depicted Print 'Crooked Bush: Twisted'

2004
Showcase of Arts, Saskatoon Ex

Prints Shown: Serife at Floral Grain Elevator, Lucky Seventeen: Underground

Awarded the Motion, Picture, Sound Judging award for Lucky Seventeen, Underground.

2005
Handbook Cover, University of Saskatchewan
Graduate Student's Union

Depicted Print 'Cement River'

New Beginnings

All of this started out innocently enough. At the end of the 1999 academic year, my family moved away from Prince George, BC to Surrey, BC, which meant leaving university and eight years of stability for a new and uncertain future. During my time at the University of Northern British Columbia, I had edited fifty editions of the student newspaper, Over The Edge, and had some basic knowledge of newspapers, production, and visual layout. Once I had moved south, however, I found myself without work, eventually landing a job in a photography store and working for a variety of talented managers in locations all over Vancouver.

It was during this period that I began to realize some things that I had not previously known about myself. Composition came easily and naturally to my work, and I was able to make concepts and formats that were difficult for many of the other photographers around me work nearly immediately. I would go on to take some basic courses through the British Columbia Institute of Technology, which would lead me to learning development and advanced printing techniques under Al Reid's studio in Burnaby, BC.

In the fall of 2001, I moved across the country to live in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. I would spend a significant span of time completing odd jobs and taking photographs before landing a role at the Box Office for the Atlantic Theatre Festival. In between transferring their databases into a new computer system and selling upcoming subscriptions, I managed to make strides on putting together a body of work while travelling around the local area in a Dodge 600, affectionately called 'Eunice' for her reliable yet gutless uphill performance. I also would come to work for the Old Orchard Inn, a fantastic 100 room property overlooking the Minas Basin area in Nova Scotia, where my pounding about would come into fruition as a guide for tourist in the area seeking the latest niche getaway.

At the end of my year in Nova Scotia, I found myself striking out for the heart of the country, that easy-to-draw province that helps feed everyone, Saskatchewan. Setting up shop in Saskatoon, I would start out setting up a furniture warehouse in the north end of the city, eventually leaving there to take up work with The King George Motor Hotel Limited, a turn of the century hotel (built 1910) that has fallen on desperate times in recent years. Operated at that time as a step-and-a-half ahead of the term 'flophouse', my desk role at the property extended to security, maintenance, housekeeping, and general labourer. Following a series of unfortunate and inevitable events, the hotel was closed once more for health and safety reasons, at which time I made my way over to the Evening Desk at the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel. For seven years, I worked in a variety of roles at night, eventually holding the post of Evening Manager for two years. Now working for the Hilton Garden Inn, a new chapter of photographic work is just beginning, just as the city of Saskatoon ungoes a dramatic series of changes in building and business.

Theory & Practice

There are a lot of reasons to make a photograph, most of which are taken for granted in the modern age we enjoy. Awareness, Education, Commercial, Historical - all enjoy one type of practice - which is building a case for existence. We want to belong and the act of photography can lend an immediate sense of community to a place or action in a manner that few other formats can muster. Our ideas about who we are and what we are often are framed by the things we desire and the objects we fill our lives with, which in an era of ever intensifying mass global production requires the photograph.

There is an arrogance to the world of photography found mostly in the commercial sector, where results matter and the end result is completely controlled. This arrogance places us at the cusp to a very difficult argument, where the speed and demand of the modern information age is pouring steam into the engine of digital formatting and remodelling, just as the engineering of unique film types had begun in newfound earnest. This is a difficult process to watch, as film companies close down production of film types based on the single idea that demand will be non-existent.

In fact, as we enter 2007, the number of camera makers that have been claimed in this rush to populate the new landscape is somewhat dizzying. This rapid change is even in the face of people already owning film cameras into the billions of units, but buying into consumer marketing that they need to make that change today. For the millions of people travelling about the face of the planet snatching moments of their friends and selves, this is certainly an advancement in the end result. No longer do they have to face Auntie Flo who was cut out of their family reunion shot. This is an admirable process and certainly part of what the digital technology was intended for.

Ultimately, there are people on all sides of these issues, espousing a variety of viewpoints, and this is one more area of confusion in the always present argument that photography may or may not be a big-'A' Artform. My view is fairly staunch on the side of chemically based methods, despite the obviously growing armies of digital-wielding photographers. As these processes gain momentum towards producing ever more visual information, I wish only to apply the brakes, slow down, and tether my contributions for the visual record to points of real interest. This is not to suggest that I am intentionally seeking to pull my own work down, but to actually ensure that what I am saying gets heard. To this end, I am breaking slightly with my digital stance to bring this website to the fore once more.