people — Lidgard Photography

A year in photographs, 2015

9 February, 2016 by damian lidgard

To follow on from my previous ‘A year in photographs, 2014‘ here are my best shots from 2015, each with a little blurb.

Bald Dune, Sable Island. This is one of my favourite places on Sable Island. Once the highest point on the island, it has recently changed form but remains as elegant as ever.

Dune, Sable Island. I have awlays been fascinated by the forms that are created using such simple ingredients as sand and wind.

Sanderlings, Sable Island. For such a small bird as the sanderling, Sable Island is a harsh place. Here they huddle behind a very small hump of sand in a sand storm.

Grey seals in coitus Sable Island. Naughty, yes, but I find this shot so beautiful to look at. Very peaceful and I love the form and textures.

Dune, Sable Island. I often find myself drawn to lines when I look at the world.

Snowy Owl, Sable Island. A rather tame image but it was a joy to share Sable Island with this amazing bird. The owl was on the island throughout January and was still there in June when we returned.

My niece, Abigail; Ireland. I enjoy shooting people but find it difficult. Occasionally they drop their guard and just look at you, and not the camera.

My nephew, Tadhg; Ireland. I really like the composition of this shot. Tadhg is very energetic and awlays playing up for the camera. I think I got him here though.

Hadrian’s Wall, Scotland. I am really not great at shooting landscapes but like the feel of this one. An amazing place to visit.

Trees on the path of Hadrian’s Wall, Scotland. Trees are very expressive and display a strong sense of place.

My nephew Sam; Hove, England. Sam is always full of energy and simply a crazy kid, but very artistic and creative.

Clouds, Sable Island. The formation of these clouds was something I had never seen before. I have been to Sable Is. each year since 1996, and every time I go Sable always shows me something new.

Arctic Tern, Sable Island. These birds are very elegant, in appearance and behaviour. I find it a challenge to express it.

Sable Island horse, Sable Island. The Sable Island horse is the main reason why people are fascinated by this island. Although there is so much more to see, I too find myself drawn to them, especially their wildness.

At Jim McMillan’s wedding, Annapolis Valley, NS. A moment during a busy colourful day.

The digital seal, Sable Island. This is why I go to Sable Island, to study this critter, the grey seal. This male has been deployed with a GPS satellite tag to record his movement and diving behaviour, an accelerometer which, 50 times a second, will record its head movement so we can study its behaviour while at sea, and an acoustic transceiver that will record the presence of any acoustically tagged fish. Using these tags, we hope to better understand how seals behave at sea and what they are feeding on.

A year in photographs, 2014

2 February, 2015 by damian lidgard

After being inspired by a recent post of ‘A year in photographs, 2014’ by the official White House photographer, I thought I would pull some images together from my library for 2014. And here they are.

Helping birds — On Sable Island, I spend my time working in the seal colony for Dalhousie University. Whenever we can, we try to assist animals that are having a hard time but only those that don’t need too much help since we are not well equipped. This bird, held by Sarah Wong, was found helpless on the shoreline, looking wet and exhausted. We picked it up, let it rest inside our cabin for the night and released it the next day. A feel good feeling…

Swants on Sable Is. — On Sable Island, we work full days for 4-5 weeks spending all of our time outside in the seal colony. So, to shake things up a little, we occasionally get inspired and do a photo-shoot. Here sweaters have been re-shaped into highly fashionable, wearable swants. Thanks to Sarah Wong (left), Laurie Baker and Rob Ronconi (right).

ATV driver and snow — Sable Is. is ~ 50 km long so an ATV is a critical piece of gear. They also help people avoid bites from seals. Unfortunately, they don’t come with heated seats nor protection from bad weather.

Ferns — in February I seemed to be focused on form. Here dried leaves from a decaying fern

From Hawaiian dried ferns to Hawaiian concrete high-rises... — From Hawaiian dried ferns to Hawaiian concrete high-rises…

Starlings in winter — This was taken from the back door of my house. I really liked the splatter of silhouetted birds, fine branches and the grey hues

Purple beets, purple hands — I love cooking and being intimate with the foods I use. You can’t get much more intimate than par-boiled beets.

Rusty nails — I came across this small pile of nails while canoe camping somewhere.

Bald dune + tourists, Sable Is. — It is unusual to see many people on Sable due to its remote location. Last year, Adventure Canada brought quite a few tourists to the island. This dune, called Bald dune and one of the highest on the island and usually ‘bald’, was dotted with tourists, similar to little shafts of hair poking through.

South Beach in June, Sable Is. — I took this photo shortly before leaving the island. Calm, elegant horizon, and a sky whose cloud patterns mirrored those on the beach.

Seal tracking by satellite — Each June I spend 2 weeks on Sable Is. catching seals to attach satellite transmitters to, to figure out where these animals go when they leave Sable. This adult male, after leaving Sable, toured the Eastern Scotian Shelf before spending his summer in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He came back to Sable in January allowing us to re-capture him and remove his transmitters.

Sea, sky, Magdalen Islands — I spent 10 days in the Magdalen Islands in July catching seals. We lived and worked on a fishing boat for 4 days north of the ‘Maggies’ which provided some wonderful shots of the sea and sky.

Tracking seals by satellite and bluetooth — This young adult female grey seal is about to leave our boat for a long journey. She is wearing a satellite tag and on her back an acoustic tag that will collect data from tagged fish that she may swim by or eat! Those data are sent to the satellite tag via bluetooth. This female spent a few days around Brion Island near the Magdalens before swimming directly to St. Pierre and Miquelon, some 300 km away. Her she spent several months doing very little; at one point I thought she had died. But in October she began to move again and headed south to Sable Is., another 300 km. We caught her on Sable in January.

Kiki by the lake — My partner Sue and I spend some time each year camping by canoe with our dog, Kiki. She loves the outdoors as do we. This photo seems to give a sense of the wildness and beauty that sits so close to the city of Halifax where we live.

Wood and shadows — Sometimes, the beauty is there right in front of us. We just need to stop and look to see it.

Dusk in Alsace, France — I spent 10 days in Alsace in September at a conference. When time allowed, I drove into the countryside and surrounding villages, mostly to drink wine and eat. This shot was taken in a small village south of Strasbourg after I found both.

Cathedral, Strasbourg — Sunday morning in Strasbourg. My travel companion was a practicing catholic and I asked to accompany her to Sunday Mass.

In October I participated in Nocturne, an all night art event. The project was called “Who Is A Stranger“. Briefly, we brought total strangers together in a makeshift studio and shot their raw first meeting. Then, after 15 seconds of eye contact and providing the strangers with props, we took another photograph. The first photograph shows the two people obviously being a little awkward, unsure, expressed by their body behaviour. After the eye contact, they start to loosen and feel more open to this new person.

Who Is A Stranger ? – a Pier 21 exhibit

31 October, 2014 by damian lidgard

On the 18th October at Pier 21 during the night of Nocturne, along with Hannah Minzloff and Orla MacEachern, I spent 6 hours photographing strangers.

The idea was simple: to take two people who have not previously met and bring them into a ‘studio’. As soon as they are together a photograph would be taken to capture their raw interaction, which in most cases would be cool. After, each person would engage in a 15-second continuous eye contact. During this time, the two people will learn of each other through their eyes. Finally, the two people are left to get to know each other during which time a second photograph is taken, which in most cases will show a warmer interaction.

That was the idea and, thanks to Hannah, Orla and the staff at Pier 21, especially Lorraine Plourde, the idea came alive during the six hours of Nocturne.

Here are some pics from the night:

The night went really well other than a few technical issues. Pier 21 was an ideal location with its history of people arriving and meeting new people. They actually funded the whole project, provided a bunch of volunteers and dealt with many of the logistics so you can imagine how grateful we are to them for making the evening a success.

With the arrival of cell phones, today people seldom interact with strangers and so it was refreshing to spend an evening watching people interact in the flesh. It was also interesting to watch how different people behave in such an awkward situation.

Hannah, Orla and I were so pleased with all of the people who came and did their part to meet a stranger. We had a great line up of volunteers too that made the evening run smoothly. We hope to present the best of the images in an exhibit next year.

14 days on Sable Island, 2014: day six

15 June, 2014 by damian lidgard

Quite a few things have happened in the past few days. Yesterday we were expecting rain but it didn’t start until late in the afternoon. This is good for the island since it has been very dry out here. It rained for most of today as well, and then we got fog. We spent yesterday morning and part of the afternoon catching seals to deploy our transmitters. We managed to catch three females so that was excellent. Because the seals are marked we know when they were born, so we had a 14, 15 and a 29 year old female. This morning all but one of the seals was out wandering the Shelf.

Grey seals on Eastern Scotian Shelf — Eight seals that have been deployed with satellite transmitters and acoustic transceivers, roaming the Eastern Scotian Shelf.

While we were catching seals on South Beach, we noticed a line of people walking up Bald Dune. At one time, this dune was the highest point on the island, although it has changed its form over the past few years due to wind and may have lost that status. It is however a very handsome dune (!) and one of my favourite places on the island. On this occasion it was being visited by tourists from Venture Canada, a professional tourist company that takes people to remote areas of the world. It was an odd sight for us since we seldom see people around the island. It was clearly a very controlled operation with people simply walking up and back down the dune.

Bald dune, Sable Island — Tourists walking up Bald Dune

Swants – The 2014 Sable Island Winter Photoshoot

8 February, 2014 by damian lidgard

If you have an ugly, unused, lonely sweater (or jumper as they are known by us Brits) tucked into your bottom drawer, you can bring it to life by helping it evolve into a pair of comfortable, fashionable and will be much talked about, pair of swants (or jumousers).

While on Sable this winter I did a fashion shoot for Swants! Yes, three of my island mates modelled their favourite swants on the beaches of Sable Island. Even though I am very much a photographer that enjoys capturing moments, I really enjoy creating moments during a photoshoot. Here are some of those moments from the 2014 Sable Island Winter Photoshoot – Swants!

14 days on Sable Island: Day 12

27 June, 2013 by damian lidgard

We are coming to the end of our stay on Sable Island. Many of the maintenance projects are complete (a large part of doing research on Sable Island) but we still have to catch 8 seals. We only caught one today, partly due to there not being many suitable seals around and also because we had to meet a plane that was bringing in an engineer to set up a generator to power our camp.

Chatting — Two of my colleagues before seal catching, discussing the dinner menu

Many of the dunes on Sable Island are heavily vegetated. At first glance is looks as though much of the vegetation is beach or marram grass, however Sable has several hundred (200?) species of plant, including wild rose, wild strawberry, iris and beach pea.

Dune vegetation, Sable Island — The vegetation on Sable Island is very diverse

Beach pea, Sable Island — Beach pea is very common on the dunes on Sable Island

In the afternoon, I spent some time shooting photographs on the west spit of the island.

Sand dune, Sable Island — A very elegant dune!

Beach wood, Sable Island — I find beach wood very expressive, in its colour, texture and form

14 days on Sable Island: Day 6!

21 June, 2013 by damian lidgard

Another long day on Sable Is. The weather was great, beautiful and sunny for most of the day with a calm sea, but turned a tad cloudy+chilly in the late afternoon.

The South Beach on Sable is very wide and gives you a sense of vast emptiness.

Once again spent the day moving junk, fuel and dead ATVs around. We are almost done with this part of the trip, but still have some extra work moving fuel barrels (jet fuel for the helicopter, diesel for the furnace/generator and gasoline for the ATVs) once the resupply ship leaves, which is likely tomorrow.

Junk on to the barge — Moving the remaining junk on to the barge…

Jim on the orange tractor — Jim has been coming out to Sable Is. since the 1980s..he is very very old

Kevin and Sean,... — Kevin and Sean,…dare not say much about these unsavoury characters,..

I did however, steal a little time for some funky shots of the island….

Intestine! — This is part of the intestine from some dead animal,…dry and very very long!

Pipe and pipe — Sable suffers from a lot of erosion from the sea…we have never seen these pipes before.

Edward Weston on “Portraits in Photography”

26 January, 2013 by damian lidgard

“…to reveal the individual before his camera, to transfer the living quality of that individual to his finished print…Not to make road maps but to record the essential truth of the subject; not to show how this person looks, but to show what he is.” – Edward Weston

I searched through my albums looking for an image that would work well with this quote. The image of the Black Horse worked the best. It was a moment, I think, when I saw in to this horse, beyond the façade of being a Sable Island horse; the true wild spirit of this horse came out and showed itself on print.

One can find this hidden depth in people through looking. Sit across a small table from the person to be photographed. You have the camera in hand. Waiting. Through looking at this person, with a little chatting, you will make a connection. At some point the person stops looking at the camera, to them the camera has gone, and they will look right at you. At that point, and it may take time, the true character of that person comes through. One click of the shutter is all it takes. I tried this approach when photographing a teenager in a group home. She never really came through. And then, just as I was to leave, my friend started to comb her hair and she came out. For privacy reasons I can’t show the photograph but the story makes the point that through looking, and with patience, you will see.