When people find out I am a photographer, the first question they ask is what my favourite photo is.
This actually isn't a difficult question to answer because I have two that really stand out for me. I'll start with my second favourite image because it is a bit of a sad story.
I grew up in a small farming community in Southern B.C., Canada, and worked for a couple of years for my hometown newspaper. In early 2005, I decided to spread my wings and spend a month travelling across Canada by Greyhound. I had some amazing pictures of the prairies, Northern Ontario, Niagara Falls, and the CN Tower. I took pictures of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City; I could go on...
I ended up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While job hunting, I had an opportunity to visit Peggy’s Cove, which is an iconic fishing community with an amazing lighthouse. The day of my visit was extremely dreary. It was cold, there was some fog and rain. You couldn’t see much; you could barely see the top of the lighthouse.
I was walking around town, and this one scene jumped out at me. There was a fishing boat in the harbour shrouded in mist. You could really only see the back half of the boat and its name, Harbour Mist. I turned it into an amazing black-and-white photo. I ended up giving a copy of the photo to Hostel International Halifax Heritage House, which was where I ended up working before moving to Montreal.
Here is the sad part of that story. I don’t know if that photo is still hanging in the hostel, but it is the only copy. My computer with all cross-Canada photos and my camera were stolen. I was fairly new to digital photography, so I didn’t have anything properly backed up. Even a CD that had some of my images ended up being corrupted, so I have nothing.
It has been nearly 20 years, and I still think about that magical day at Peggy’s Cove.
It took a few years to get over that loss, but I managed to get back into photography, and you can see the results in my side hustle.
My number one favourite image is a much happier tale because it is a reminder and anchor in my belief as a photographer that beauty is everywhere we look.
I ended up moving to Montreal from Halifax, and because I travelled so much, I never had a lot of stuff. Most of my possessions were stored in my mom’s house in the basement. I recently visited my mom and took a few moments to go through some of my stuff, and I managed to find my top image.
It is a three-hour nightscape image of the North Star. It was actually one of the last photos I took before I started my trans-Canada trip.
It’s also not a digital image. I took it with my Nikon 35mm film camera, developed the film, and printed the image in my homemade darkroom. This was my creation from start to finish.
What makes this shot unique is that it is all or nothing. It was a three-hour exposure, which means if I got it wrong, I wouldn’t be able to easily redo it. But it came out beautifully.
This nightscape was always something I wanted to capture but nev
er had the courage to do.
I also think the North Star, Polaris, is amazing; it is the one consta
nt in our life, while everything spirals around us.
With everything that is going on in the world, with all the chaos and uncertainty, it is nice to know there is an anchor we can hold on to. It has also been exciting to see the graphic that I created from this image.
Please reach out and tell me your favourite image and the story behind it. I would love to hear from you.