“As storytellers, photojournalists and documentary photographers create images, both still and moving, that record the history of our culture, evoking the momentous and the everyday circumstances of contemporary life. In recent decades, Photography, Photojournalism and the Documentary tradition have been transformed by digital technology; the dissemination of these images has radically increased to feed new modes of consumption.”

Curated by Diane Evans.

Diane Evans is the Gallery Coordinator at Presentation House Gallery, a public gallery devoted to photography and media art, where she has worked since 1988. Additionally, Diane is a practicing photographer whose work is included in museum collections world wide. She has taught in the Photography department at Emily Carr University since 1996.

More information at: http://www.ecuad.ca/about/events/208210

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Watoto Canada is having a little photo contest, so I thought I’d throw my name into the hat with these three images. The photo contest aims to illustrate what the African proverb “It Takes a Village…” means to Canadians. The photographs I have submitted illustrate, to me, intergenerational support and community efforts to overcome hardship in Canada and abroad.

Three winning photographers will receive mentorship from award-winning Canadian photojournalists while working on Watoto community development projects in Uganda this coming June. Watoto Canada’s charitable and humanitarian work in Northern Uganda includes supporting orphans and working with local communities, as well as supporting former child soldiers and victims of the LRA civil war through trauma rehabilitation programs. Watoto also supports HIV-positive women regain their dignity by helping to build upon and develop income generating skills through their ‘Living Hope’ program.

The photography contest is being hosted on the Watoto Canada Facebook page, making it very easy to vote. Please take a minute to ‘Like’ my three submissions: clicking on the images below will take you directly to the page to vote, . Casting your votes for me will help me continue to contribute to important development work, and maybe learn to learn a thing or two from my elders as I’m doing it.

Presentation at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, in the session “Indigenous Knowledges, Livelihoods, and Ethnoecology”:

Surging ahead or left behind: the off-grid experiences of First Nations in Canada

“As civic systems of energy, water, transportation and communication, grids enact a hegemony of technological infrastructure, disconnection from which may occur by choice, potentially constituting a counterculture of plural alternatives–a counterculture becoming known as “off-grid”. In Canada, however, many First Nations, Inuit and Metís communities experience this disconnect for reasons of necessity and remove. These experiences of off-grid living may therefore be seen to be unique: complex and variable in both motivation and performance, and influenced by history, tradition, and geopolitical circumstance.

This thesis is part of a larger ongoing ethnographic project that uses the appeal of photographic and filmic methods to bring an exploration of these disconnects into the public sphere, in print, on screen, and in the gallery space. It draws on fieldwork in off-grid Indigenous communities in British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories to present photographs and empirical findings with the intention of enhancing the role of critical ethnography in public engagement and social mobilization.”

Please note that presentation details and content are subject to change.

More information on the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference.

More information on the session “Indigenous Knowledges, Livelihoods, and Ethnoecology”

To register, click here.

Surging ahead or left behind: the off-grid experiences of First Nations in Canada

“As civic systems of energy, water, transportation and communication, grids enact a hegemony of technological infrastructure, disconnection from which may occur by choice, potentially constituting a counterculture of plural alternatives–a counterculture becoming known as “off-grid”. In Canada, however, many First Nations, Inuit and Metís communities experience this disconnect for reasons of necessity and remove. These experiences of off-grid living may therefore be seen to be unique: complex and variable in both motivation and performance, and influenced by history, tradition, and geopolitical circumstance.

This thesis is part of a larger ongoing ethnographic project that uses the appeal of photographic and filmic methods to bring an exploration of these disconnects into the public sphere, in print, on screen, and in the gallery space. It draws on fieldwork in off-grid Indigenous communities in British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories to present photographs and empirical findings with the intention of enhancing the role of critical ethnography in public engagement and social mobilization.”

Please note that presentation details and content are subject to change.

Details

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2012
University of Edinburgh
July 3 – 5, 2012

More information on the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference.

More information on the session “Indigenous Knowledges, Livelihoods, and Ethnoecology”

To register, click here.

Coastal British Columbia is a notoriously wet part of Canada. It seems that most places you go in this province water seems to find a way to get at you, whether it’s falling from the sky in the form of rain or snow, splashing up at you from the ocean, or just floating, ghost-like, as temperate rainforest fog. It can make being a photographer a difficult (if not downright stressful) occupation, so I’ve come up with a simple solution that helps me keep my lens raindrop-free when I just can’t seem to stay dry.

This little gadget came in handy on a recent trip to Haida Gwaii – an archipelago 80 km off the northwest coast of Canada – while canoeing up the rushing Juskatla Narrows in the rain in search of styuu k’amdala for the Elders in Skidegate.

To make Jon’s West Coast Retracto-Towel you will need:

• 1 Retractable ID Tag Holder (the kind designed to clip an ID tag to a belt or pocket, and it must have a retractable lanyard). These can be very easy or very difficult to find depending on where you work. I typically work in the woods so I had a friendly office-dweller swipe one for me, but a quick search suggests these can be easily found online for about $3. Most stationary, office supply and dollar stores carry them as well.
• 1 QuickDry Camp Towel. You’re going to cut a small piece out of it so if you can find an old one then so much the better, but if you must purchase a new one, don’t worry: there’ll be plenty left over to use as an actual towel on the next fishing trip. (Note: anybody who’s actually relied on one of these for more than a few days knows that, while they may do a half-decent job of drying you off after a cold Bolivian shower, they do a nowhere-near-decent job of covering you up on your way back through the hostel. If this sounds like a familiar experience you should have no qualms about cutting your cursed QuickDry to bits.)
  
  If you live in British Columbia then you probably already have a QuickDry towel hanging in the closet between your fleece and your headlamp; if not, you can buy one from somewhere like Mountain Equipment Co-op. A regular towel would work too, but QuickDry has the benefit of being almost as soft as a lens cleaning cloth and having a very tight weave, meaning it won’t scratch or leave fibres on your lens.
• A pair of scissors or an Xacto knife.

To assemble your lens cleaner:

1. Cut a small piece from your QuickDry towel. It can be any size or shape you like; mine is a rectangle measuring about 2″ by 4″.
2. Cut two small slits in your piece of towel, about a half-inch apart and a little ways down from the ‘top’. You are going to fold the towel so these slits line up and clip your ID tag holder through them, so make sure they are big enough to accomodate the clasp of your ID tag holder. You could probably get away with cutting just one hole near the top, but the two hole + fold method makes it less likely to tear when you pull on it.
3. Fold the towel over so that the slits line up.
4. Open the clasp of your ID tag holder, push one end through the slit, and close the clasp again.
5. Attach the belt clip of the ID tag holder to an accessible pocket, strap, bag – anywhere you can reach it easily.
6. Get out in some weather. If your glass gets wet, simply pull your towel up to your lens, give it a quick wipe, and release. The retractable lanyard will snap the towel back to wherever you have it clipped, and your lens will be dry. Even better, it’ll keep your lens cleaner from blowing away when the Salish Sea is blowing salt spray in your face at 30 knots.

Important notes

• Make sure you have a some kind – any kind – of filter on your lens before attempting to wipe it with anything. Even specialty lens cloths can get dirty, and an invisible grain of sand becomes pretty darn visible once you drag it across that front element. Common sense is key, and I accept no responsibility for any damage incurred through the use of this handy lens cleaner. A replaceable filter will protect your lens’ irreplaceable front element, and on some lenses is necessary to complete the barrel’s water seal.
• It is never a good idea to get your gear wet if you can possibly avoid it. To keep my camera bodies and lens barrels dry I use a couple of these clear rain covers when it’s really coming down. They’re cheap, reusable (provided you dry them out thoroughly), and not too offensive to look at.
• Much like writing, this important technological advance may have been developed simultaneously elsewhere on the planet – I haven’t searched for a similar solution, but you may find something equally brilliant elsewhere.

Emily Carr Lecture Theatre – Room 301
1399 Johnston Street
Vancouver, BC
V6H 3R9

Free and open to the public

For more information please visit http://www.ecuad.ca/about/events/208207

Wonderful Machine offers a unique and efficient way of connecting with a broad range of top-end clients, representing a high standard of photography across a spectrum of disciplines and locations. It seems like a good fit for me in Vancouver, and I’m excited to see where this relationship will go.

Read more about Wonderful Machine on their website, and keep up-to-date on their blog here.

Course Description

This course is designed to introduce students to advanced concepts in documentary photography. Through research and production of a non-fiction photo essay, students will encounter and discuss a spectrum of project-related issues that often surround documentary photography: gaining access; shooting what you know; ethics; traditional and emerging venues for communicating ideas; and the concept of ‘giving voice’.

Rationale

Increased availability and affordability of digital technologies is putting cameras in the hands of more people than ever before. Similarly, an ever-expanding array of electronic venues for the dissemination of images is bringing photographs to audiences further, wider, and faster. This ever-increasing power of production and dissemination brings a deepened need for documentary photographers to think critically about their relationship with, and responsibility to, the communities in which they work – communities that, in the traditions of the genre, are often depressed by social, environmental, and geopolitical circumstance. Added to the ability to navigate emerging platforms of funding and exhibition, the new breed of documentary photographers needs an understanding of contemporary ethical issues and an increased attention to the way they communicate about and through their work if they wish to represent the stories of others effectively and responsibly.

Prerequisites

Foundation in photographic principles and practical knowledge of your own camera are required. Students should have a comfortable analog or digital workflow and should to come to the first class with an idea for a personal documentary project.

Registration

Registration is now open. For more information and to register please visit the course page.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be teaching my first summer continuing studies photography course at Emily Carr University in Vancouver this July. The course, entitled “Documentary Process & Practice”, is designed to introduce students to advanced concepts in documentary photography. Through research and production of a non-fiction photo essay, students will encounter and discuss a spectrum of project-related issues that often surround documentary photography: gaining access; shooting what you know; ethics; traditional and emerging venues for communicating ideas; and the concept of ‘giving voice’.

Increased availability and affordability of digital technologies is putting cameras in the hands of more people than ever before. Similarly, an ever-expanding array of electronic venues for the dissemination of images is bringing photographs to audiences further, wider, and faster. This ever-increasing power of production and dissemination brings a deepened need for documentary photographers to think critically about their relationship with, and responsibility to, the communities in which they work – communities that, in the traditions of the genre, are often depressed by social, environmental, and geopolitical circumstance. Added to the ability to navigate emerging platforms of funding and exhibition, the new breed of documentary photographers needs an understanding of contemporary ethical issues and an increased attention to the way they communicate about and through their work if they wish to represent the stories of others effectively and responsibly.

Foundation in photographic principles and practical knowledge of your own camera are required. Students should have a comfortable analog or digital workflow and should to come to the first class with an idea for a personal documentary project.

The course runs July 7 – August 4 2012, Saturdays from 9:30am-12:30. Registration is now open. For more information and to register please visit the course page.