Canadian Streets - Solo Exhibition

Well this is it, my first solo exhibition; Canadian Streets

The series is based upon the feelings and connections I hold with Canada and it's people. As I backpacked 7000km from one side of the country to the other via cars, busses, trains and planes, I met many people along the way who intrigued, inspired and enlightened me. Canadians are some of the most open and genuinely kind people I have ever met and with this exhibition I wanted to share these sentiments.

The diversity of the people I found on the Canadian Streets is testament to the relaxed mentality they have towards being an individual. No matter what background people were from, no matter how they dressed, no matter how they looked, all were allowed to express themselves without fear of being categorised, discriminated, ignored or avoided. This made the people approachable and gave me the opportunity to photograph and chat with hundreds of interesting passers by without fear of confrontation or rejection. That is the spirit of the Canadian people and is something I will never forget.

The exhibition is running until the 4th of December at the Canberra Institute of Technology - Reid Campus in Cafe Yala, so if you get the chance head along and check it out.

dt.

Alternative Processes

The National Multi Cultural Festival rolled around in Canberra and my mate Scotty and I decided we would document it with our P645 and P645N Medium Format cams and shoot some HP5 black and white film mostly at ISO400 and even pushing it as far as ISO3200 at night. It was good to get back to film for a while, my P645N usually just sits in the cupboard gathering dust but when it finally gets taken out it is a real pleasure to shoot with and makes photography feel less like a job and more like an enjoyable hobby, not that I don't have fun with digital it's just the pressure seems to be off when shooting film. There is the stigma that film can't produce the same or similar quality results as a digi. I still believe it is a case of the photographer and not the camera, but shooting film feels less about the job and more about the art of making photographs. Anyways for the images below, because of a lack of spare time I only had time to develop them and shoot the negs through a loupe with a crappy mobile phone cam. Now most people would think that would turn the photos to shit... well probably yes, but I like them, and to me thats all that matters haha. I love the rawness of the images with all the impurities that the image has gone through to get to the final output. I hope you like them too :)

Comments and critique are welcome

dt.