Newsletter #148, 2017

Newsletter  #148:  November, 2017

© Chris Harris. All rights reserved.

Hi everyone,

This is my 148th monthly photographic Newsletter; my 13^th year without missing a single month!  Enjoy.

Our goal at the Chris Harris Gallery is to share photographic adventures and inspire others in the creative process. Please share this Newsletter with friends. We appreciate your interest and continued support for my work.

About this Newsletter

This is the time of year when Dennis Ducklow and I announce the dates for the upcoming photographic workshops we teach together near Bella Coola. Dennis and I consider photography an art form, and we are both excited to share what we each learn every time we pick up our cameras and head out to explore. We hope many of you will be able to join us in 2018.

Contents:

1.   2018 – Photographic Workshops:   develop your creative vision – Tallheo

2.   The Wildfire Summer of 2017:    a documentary in the making

3.    The Art Within:   the old 105 Mile barn.

1.     2018 – Photographic Workshops:    The dates are set; it’s time to sign up!

 Evening mist approaches our cozy residence at Tallheo

Once again, Dennis Ducklow and I are offering an intensive 7-day photographic workshop at the Tallheo Cannery on the central coast of British Columbia near the town of Bella Coola.

Do you wish to:

• strengthen your understanding of visual design and creative techniques?

• learn the art of story-telling through effective narrative image making?

• explore artistic expression through various photographic styles?

• grasp the art of seeing with ‘photographic eyes’?

• be inspired to create photographic art in a spectacular setting with individual guidance?

 The loft where fishing nets are hung to dry

If so, please visit our new website dedicated entirely to this workshop. Workshop features, location, instructors, how to get there, testimonials, and registration are all described there in detail.

 Creating new narratives with double exposures

This is the third year Dennis and I have operated at the Tallheo Cannery and there are several reasons; the hosts are a gracious family and the food is outstanding, the location is unique on the coast, and the subject matter for photography is infinite.

 Apple tree outside the kitchen window

 

Expressing a ‘sense of place’ on the central coast

 Spawning salmon in the creek which passes through the property

Please visit the website, and we hope you will decide to join us. Dennis and I value photography as an art form, and we both enjoy sharing our knowledge and encouraging students to enter new worlds of expression with their cameras.

 2. The Wildfire Summer of 2017:    a documentary in the making

 In my last Newsletter, I told you that Ken Marshall and I are working on a new documentary titled The Wildfire Summer of 2017; A Photographer’s Journey.  Well, it’s getting closer to completion, look for it in the next couple of weeks. I will send out a special release notification through this Newsletter. Ken has just finished composing original music to the entire production and we are all so excited with the result. We can’t wait to share it!

To give you a bit of a preview, within the documentary is a story from my personal evacuation experience, staying in a small cabin on Lac La Hache with my dog Duggan. During that first morning, I woke up feeling lost with little to do.

 Duggan waiting to explore the Douglas fir forest

That is when I opened that wonderful gift called imagination and creativity. I attached a rarely used fisheye lens to my camera, told Duggan my plan, and then we set off into a small area of Douglas firs behind the cabin, hoping to transform it into an enchanted forest.

 Duggan and I head into the forest

 

Forest expression I

 Forest expression II

 Forest expression III

 Together we turned a day with nothing to do into a stimulating visual adventure.

 The Art Within:    the old 105 Mile barn.

Also in my last Newsletter, I described how I hardly ever took note of the old historic barn just down the road from my home. Then, one day I saw it bathed in warm smoke-filtered light during the recent wildfire; I was hooked!

 One evening I went to the ranch with a self-assignment; the barn

 

I set out to discover the invisible

 I set out to find what I never knew existed

 I set out to seek a new visual vocabulary

 

Through the invigorating process of experimentation, I turned the logs of that old barn into geometric abstractions. My math teacher would have been proud of me!

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Thanks. See you next month!