A Way of Seeing

Waiting for You

2012-01-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

2011-12-16T22:22:00.000-08:00

The balsamroot flowers are spectacular during springtime in the interior of British Columbia.

Arizona Dreaming on a Cold Winter Night

2011-12-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

Zombies are loose!

2011-10-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

Zombies lurching, staggering and crawling around Kamloops this Hallowe'en season.

Looking for Brains!

Watch your de-composure.

Must have BRAINZZZ!

Where is my next Brain?

Darn it! This BRAIN is done.

I'll eat your Brain!

YOU

ARE

MY BRAIN Soup!

Yumm! BRAINZ!

Did you know a fly could be this hairy?

2011-10-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

Light Dancers

2011-09-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

Placer Creek

2011-06-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

Still more snow to melt at high elevations in British Columbia, although we've likely seen the peak.

Interior British Columbia

2011-06-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

Interior landscapes of British Columbia always bring a feast to the eyes.

2011-06-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

Soon, they will all pass.

Accent of spring

2011-06-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

Yellow, I love the energy and vibrancy yellow splashes on springtime landscapes. The Arnica flowers carry the kiss of sunshine. A beautiful reward after a long cold winter.

Mambo Italiano

2011-04-03T23:31:00.001-07:00

Finishing up show shots for MI for Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops. The show runs until April 9, 2011 at Sagebrush Theatre, tix here: http://www.westerncanadatheatre.bc.ca/mamboshow.htm

It's a comedy and comedic relief is always welcome.

American Conservatory Theater: What's Playing Now

2011-04-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

American Conservatory Theater: What's Playing Now

Johnny Winter

2009-11-22T01:00:00.001-08:00

No Exit

2009-11-22T00:31:00.001-08:00

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre and produced by Western Canada Theatre in association with The Virtual Stage and Electric Company Theatre. Starring Lucia Frangione, Laara Sadiq, Andy Thompson, and Jonathon Young. Directed by Kim Collier. Kamloops run October 22 - 31, 2009. All photos by Barbara Zimonick.

No Exit starring Jonathon Young

2009-11-22T00:30:00.001-08:00

No Exit starring Andy Thompson

2009-11-22T00:29:00.001-08:00

No Exit starring Lucia Frangione

2009-11-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

Laara Sadiq, Lucia Frangione, Andy Thompson

No Exit starring Laara Sadiq

2009-11-22T00:23:00.000-08:00

No Exit

2009-11-22T00:19:00.000-08:00

No Exit is intriguing and a bit frightening all at the same time.

No Exit

2009-11-22T00:06:00.000-08:00

Balsamroot

2009-05-07T10:23:00.001-07:00

This is the most abundant field of Balsamroot I've ever seen in my area; it's between Pinantan and Pritchard up a fairly steep rough road but worth the journey. These flowers are the flagship of spring, a welcome sight.

Vaida

2009-05-05T20:31:00.001-07:00

Babies, you can't help but love them! Their eyes sparkle, they are so soft and fresh and full of beauty; especially this little Vaida girl.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

2009-04-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe runs at Kamloop, Sagebrush Theatre until April 18, 2009. An amazing show, highly recommended!

Stampede Horses

2008-07-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Last week we traveled to Williams Lake to visit relatives and watch the 82nd annual Williams Lake Stampede . This event involved teams of guys roping wild horses to attempt to put a saddle on them. It is considered one of the most dangerous events, notice the guys are wearing flak jackets or some such protective vests.

Vaida and Ryder

2008-06-24T23:43:00.001-07:00

Vaida and Ryder enjoy the flowers together. This is one of my favorites from the Balsamroot sessions at LacDuBois. These babies are 8 months old and it is such a joy to watch them discover the big colourful world. Today Vaida was sitting outside and a little sprinkle of rain fell, for just a few moments, she was sooo excited. She knew something odd was happening and kept looking to the sky trying to figure it out. Funny!

More Babies and Balsamroot

2008-06-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

Vaida, Cindy and Micah. It was a delight to photograph these children playing among the gorgeous balsamroot flowers.

Lindsey and Jeff

2008-06-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

Lindsey and Jeff are going to marry soon and they are truly into each other. I know it is going to be a lot of fun to photograph their special day because they are genuinely fun people. Congratulations Lindsey and Jeff!

Babies and Balsamroot

2008-06-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

I delight in the spring and summer seasons and all the wonderful plants that flourish. We could not resist making photos among the field of Balsamroot that burst forth from the LacDuBois grasslands near Kamloops. Vaida, Cindy, Micah, Ryder, and Erin were willing participants in this spring-time dally. Vaida and Ryder particularly enjoyed their first look at the bright flowers.

One Thing, Yellow, Under the Sun

2008-06-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

Yellow glacier lily (Erythronium grandiflorum) usually grows at high elevations in the subalpine and alpine and appear just as the snow is receding. This beauty is among a rare cluster growing near my home at a relatively low elevation about 600m. The bulbs of these plants were food for Interior Salish people's who lived in the interior of British Columbia year's ago. I wonder if some people still eat them? Bears like them too.

Rachel and Anthony

2008-04-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Rachel and Anthony in one of Rachel's favorite hiking spots. They are getting married this summer. Yah! And, I'll be making the pictures for them.

Beetle Hill

2008-02-04T22:38:00.001-08:00

Mountain pine beetle has wiped out a huge area of British Columbia's interior forests. The background image with all the red Ponderosa Pine has been logged since this photo was collected about a year ago. There is the culprit on the left, it is about the size of 1/2 of my baby fingernail. The centre image is a stem riddled with pitch pockets and on the right is a closer look at a pitch pocket. This pitch pocket is created while the insect is boring into the bark. Sometimes the tree is successful at pushing out the intruders with this mass of pitch it exudes. Mostly...not!

Vaida

2008-01-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

Vaida is our newest family member and to my delight she already knows what to do when a camera is presented...look through it, at you. She is so cute! I can say that.

What I find so amazing about babies is the speed at which they learn. They may not have much muscle control nor skills to use language but they know what is going on. And, they teach us a whole bunch if we pay attention. When I see Vaida taking her nourishment from her Mom it reminds me that we are all part of the Kingdom....the Animal Kingdom, and inextricably linked to the earth at our feet and the UNIverse surrounding us. Babies are the manifestation of love. xoxo

Solid as a ...

2008-01-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Kirsten and Todd popped into my world when they were young undergrads working as summer students doing forest research work; they were not a couple then. I used to regale them with stories of living with teenagers which I think they found amusing since they were not far beyond that age themselves. Now look...they have gorgeous twin boys, Matt and Gabe, and I am so impressed with their gentle strength and the way they operate as a team. They don't live near-by anymore and we only had about 5 minutes to make some photos before meeting others for lunch. We will keep in touch and I want to hear their child-rearing stories; they ought to be doubly as good as mine!

Open Invitation

2008-01-08T22:45:00.000-08:00

Some fun news today. The call for submissions to the Px3 photo competition out of Paris was released recently. I logged in to check on the requirements and found that the image above, which I submitted last year, won an honorable mention from the judges in the Fine Art category. I'm working really hard on lots of projects at the moment but will try to post an image every couple of days.

Distant Destination

2008-01-05T01:02:00.000-08:00

Distant Destination is part of the IceElation series which we dismantled from the Kamloops Art Gallery this week, the end of the exhibition period. This piece was printed on a transparency and backlit using Electric Vinyl, aka electroluminescent vinyl, a unique and innovative method for lighting images. You can see the website for Electric Vinyl here: www.electricvinyl.com

I presented this image in a different medium than the other images which were on metallic paper b/c I feel it represents the theme of the series, traveling the lake on skates with a camera.

The show at KAG was a wonderful experience with lots of great comments from many friends and gallery visitors. I especially want to thank the staff at KAG who provided guidance and worked very hard to present this show...so, Thank-you Kristen Lambertson, Jen Budney, James Gordon, Vaughn Warren, and Trish Keegan. Also, Thank-you to the jury members George Harris, Dona Moore, Deborah Loxam-Kohl, and David Langevin.

IceElation - Bubble Bath

2007-12-31T15:57:00.000-08:00

The IceElation series is coming down on Wednesday, Jan.2 as the Undiscovered show at Kamloops Art Gallery ends; so in honour of the show I'll post some more of those images. I love this freshwater shell trapped within the ice with air bubbles suspended around it. To capture this image I placed the macro lens directly onto the ice surface. These shells are are very delicate and much more fragile than salt water shells. The November issue of National Geographic includes a story called "The acid threat: As CO2 rises, shelled animals may perish". The article describes how shelled animals are at risk of dissolving because of the corrosive environment created by atmospheric CO2 making ocean waters more acidic. I suppose the same may happen to lakes. Check it out here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/marine-miniatures/acid-threat-text.html

The conditions that allowed me to collect all these ice images for the series I call IceElation were very unique; Paul Lake froze thick and solid but the snow did not fall for three weeks so I went skating with the camera at every opportunity available. This year there was no chance at all to skate the lake, the day after it froze we had a dump of snow. Not only that...the ice is yucky this year; not very thick, water coming up on top a creating a layer between the ice and snow so it is no good for skiing either.

All this makes the IceElation series seem even more important to me.

Happy New Year!

St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland

2007-12-29T23:22:00.000-08:00

The Port of St. John's, a sheltered harbour on the east coast Newfoundland, has been a haven for ships, sailors and fishermen for over 500 years. I'll be throwing out a few photos from my visit to that curious and rugged part of Canada and inter-leafing them with other subjects. A blog is not so formal as a website I figure so don't expect these pictures to come in an organized gallery fashion, I'm going to mix up the subjects.

So, since I've had the IceElation show at Kamloops Art Gallery lots of people like to talk photography with me. Several have pontificated to me their opinion that film format is still better quality than digital. I disagree. One thing I've noticed is all these people are old men (>50 years-old) who are serious about their photo hobby. The thought that rolls around in my head is the classic cliche, 'dinosaur'. I do not disagree that as an art form film has beautiful qualities all its own. In that regard it is like suggesting water color paints are better than oils, really that is a matter of taste. But, if you compare other qualities of image capture using film vs digital such as color rendition, dynamic range, detail, resolution, noise/grain, and processing flexibility then digital produces superior quality. I think a lot of people are still rating digital based on the entry-level point and shoot cameras and comparing results from them to Ansel Adams prints. There are medium-format and full frame SLR digital cameras that make incredible images.

Anyone who wants to learn more should refer to Stephen Johnson's, On Digital Photography. He is one of the world's top landscape photographers and he packed away his film in 1994 to use digital only. Mind you he shot right to the big gear and was working with a large-format scanning camera, he is truly a pioneer in digital. His book gives all the details about how digital whoops film, but if you are working with film for nostalgic or artistic reasons...then I have no dispute.

And, oh, I know not all old men are dinosaurs.

Stephen Johnson's images are stunning, you can see them here:

www.sjphoto.com

The Twisters and Roots Music Kamloops

2007-12-29T00:17:00.001-08:00

Among my favorite photographic subjects are performers because they are putting themselves 'out there' and music shows are especially fun when the crowd is dancing and rocking. The Twisters are a fabulous jump blues/roots band who performed in Kamloops early in the month.
They are David "Hurricane" Hoerl on harmonica, Damian Graham on drums, Brandon Isaak on guitar, and Keith Picot on bass.

Here is their website:
www.twisters.ca
and
www.myspace.com/thetwistersband

The Twisters were brought to town by a grassroots group of live-music lovers called Roots Music Kamloops

www.rootsmusickamloops.ca

Mushroom

2007-12-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

This Winter Chanterelle, frozen to the ice surface, is common in coniferous forests but what was it doing out here on the ice? Here's my guess...squirrels love to stash mushrooms up in tree branches, they eat them and it is common to see mushrooms tucked into the trees in the fall. I think this one might have blown out of a tree. Notice how rough the ice was that day. While collecting images for this IceElation series over a 3 week period the texture of the ice surface changed often depending on weather conditions.

"Sunken Treasure"

2007-12-26T22:57:00.000-08:00

I discovered this boat is sitting on the floor of Paul Lake while skating. It is probably submerged under about 4-6 meters of water and I photographed it through the ice. Hard to say how long it has been there. I have not seen it since making this photo. The conditions that allow photographing through ice are very rare around here. This year there was no opportunity at all; the day after the lake surface froze the snow fell.

The images on display at the the Kamloops Art Gallery in the IceElation Series are printed in various sizes up to 20x27 inches on metallic paper.

"Gastropoda Glow"

2007-12-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

"Gastropoda Glow" is from a series entitled, IceElation currently hanging at the Kamloops Art Gallery in the group show Undiscovered. It is a freshwater shell suspended in ice on the surface of Paul Lake. In 2003 the lake froze and for 3 weeks I took the camera and went for a skate. This image was captured by placing the macro lens directly onto the ice surface. There is only 1 week left to see Undiscovered. The show has been hanging since Oct. 28 and came about as a response to a call to artists in the Thompson Nicola Regional District. See the links for more:

www.kag.bc.ca/exhibitions/current.htm
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_thompson_nicola/kamloopsthisweek/entertainment/11140811.html

Jumping In!

2007-12-25T23:05:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays!

So, it's about time I jump into the rushing torrent of bits and bytes. People keep asking about my website and I sheepishly have to say,

"it is not up yet", and "maybe...soon".

In the meantime, a blog.

Why is there no website? I'm a photographer without a website! Well, I work alone, mostly... with many projects on the go and many more brewing. I want creative control of the website, that's all.

This blog spot will be photo-based and feature the images I've collected and include a bit of commentary.

Let's get to it ~