THE IMAGINEERS GALLERY
The Imagineers Gallery features talented local photographers and designers of note. Come visit our gallery and experience the work of lightsmiths that are exploring and reflecting the world around us and sharing their unique vision with us in thier work.
Garnet McPherson
The Imagineers Gallery opened with a one man showing of the work of Garnet McPherson. Featuring a collection of images from his world travels including some of his best known samples of his dramitic landscape photography, inspiring wildlife phoography and many original images from his book on wildfllowers.
Garnet McPherson graduated in photography and film from Sheridan College in 1974 and went on to study under many prominent photographers of the time including the famous Ansel Adams. He spent most of his career traveling the world as a freelance photographer,
McPherson taught at Sheridan College and has done many speaking tours not just on photography but also on global environmental issues.
Over his life time he has been known as a philanthopist for supporting many environmental education and arts organisations.
McPherson traveled for 40 years photographing the natural wonders of our world and directing a sustainalbe living documentary series for television. Though currently semi-retired, on occasion he can still be found as a keynote speaker or teaching photography and film for The Creative Arts Institute.
We were lucky to have his images on display for our opening. In addition to the prints on display we have a few rare copies of the first edition of the book he created for Algonquin Park for sale. His prints are also available online.
Mike Gaudaur
As a career teacher, photography was a great part time job for Mike Gaudaur, an interest he had been exploring since he was a teen. Through out college and his first ten years of teaching he continued to shoot weddings, portraits, and sports events. It was only after taking a teaching position in Kenya that wildlife and landscape photography became his passion.
Teaching photography in Kenya provided him with lots of opportunities to photograph, develop, and print; to refine his 'craft and vision.' The school's switch to digital photography seemed inevitable so he began to research and learn all he could about it. Digital capture and processing enthralled him, but it was not until inkjet printing came of age that he was willing to commit to a totally digital workflow.
He has spent the past decade teaching photography during school terms and photographing on safari during the term breaks. Online training and countless late nights experimenting resulted in a full compliment of Photoshop skills. While back home in Canada he was able to formalize his training and become an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop. The learning didn't stop there. Lightroom, onOne Perfect Photo Suite, and the Nik Software collection have allowed him to push his photographic style even further. As he puts it “Although many images speak for themselves straight out of the camera, I find that others require some interpretation to really communicate the sense of wonder I experienced while on safari.”
In 2013 he moved back to his hometown of Trenton, Ontario to set up a portrait studio and build his fine art photography business. He has been recently invited to teach workshops on digital editing at The Arts Club
Mike Gaudaur's exhibit will be on display this summer starting in July at The Arts Club
Debby J Smit
Debby Smit has been working with photography for deeply personal reasons. "For me, photography is about capturing the heart and soul of God and His love for us, which is demonstrated by the beautiful world He has given us to enjoy and take care of. It is also about giving voice to all creation that longs to be seen and heard."
"As a shy kid and a bit of a loner, I loved the outdoors, spending time exploring the woods, going for walks or taking my dad’s binoculars to go bird watching. It was after seeing two white tailed deer, bounding through the woods one day that a dream was birthed in my spirit. I heard my heart whisper, “I want to be a wildlife photographer.” "
"Fear, insecurity and never believing that this dream was even possible, buried the dream deep inside me . . . and I went on to work and live in the inner city of Winnipeg, working with children and adults living with disabilities. But at a seasonal winter job in Churchill, Manitoba for the polar bear season, I met Robert Taylor, a wildlife photographer. I was captivated by his adventurous life and the amazing photos he took. So I bought an SLR and started taking pictures of people and nature. I took a few introductory classes to get to know my camera better, but that was as far as it went until I found a letter which I had written to a friend 20 years ago (but never sent) where I had stated, “I should go back to school for photography or learn how to fly.” The dream reawakened and the journey to pursue photography more seriously continued."
"I’ve taken a number of road trips across this beautiful country, to the east, the west and the north, specifically to the Yukon. Now most of my pictures have to do with nature, wildlife, abstract objects and photographing old cars and barns. I spent the past winter in Hawaii in Photography School at the University of the Nations and was really challenged to use photography as a way to help those with no voice have a voice. "
"On an outreach team to Germany recently, our team interviewed and photographed a community still living under the past effects of communism and made a book to show them the beauty of who they were and were they lived. Through my photography I want to help inspire hope in people: to look around them and appreciate the beauty in their own lives as well as the world. I want to help people tell their stories through words as well as through my lens."
Debby Smit's Exhibit will be on display this summer starting in July at The Arts Club
Harold L. Potts
Born and raised in England, Harold Potts is a graduate of the University of Birmingham in mechanical engineering. Immigrating to Canada in the early 1960's, he had a career both in the private and public sectors taking early retirement in 1991. During this time; He studied sculpting and drawing at the then Ontario College of Art. He renewed an earlier interest in photography in 2003 when digital photography was becoming more available to the general public. After several years "shooting everything"; His main interest is now people, portraits and pretty women.
First exposed to the activities of aerial performers in 2012, he is now regularly invited to photograph live shows. "I'm very impressed by the dedication skill and physical strength of these women. They work hard and long to produce their shows which are an amazing spectacle, and I feel their efforts are generally under-appreciated by the general public. I would like in some small way to pay homage to their work"
This exhibit is a small collection of images of performers working topless. It is intended as an artistic metaphor for an emerging endeavour. This show called "Feathers in the Wind" represents a small sample of a collection Harold is working on with a view of publishing a photographic book on the subject. Thsi Show opens at The Arts Club August 9th at 4pm.
Graham Davis
A Welsh-born Canadian photographer still committed to B&W film and darkroom work for my fine art images. I believe a great image comes from the heart and eye of an artist, and owes little to expensive equipment. I’ve got a lot of work to show and ideas to talk about. The main thing you need to know about me is I’m first and foremost a black and white, real film photographer. I love shooting black and white and I love darkroom printing. I know it’s easier on a computer but I don’t care. I find working with my hands, my enlargers, the light, the temperature, the chemicals, the paper, the timer and The Fates preferable to pushing buttons. Having said that, I shoot digital when I have to and I can manipulate images with the best of them. I just prefer not to … or rather, I prefer darkroom manipulation techniques that creative photographers and printers have used since the 1800s plus a few I’ve come up with myself. But I’m grateful for the technology that brings me online to share thoughts and pictures with the world. I hope you enjoy what you see.
DAVID DICK
The images that David has chosen for this exhibition reflect his passion for travel and landscape photography, culture, and light. From life that clings to the edge of a cliff 1,000 feet above the meandering
Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend, to the awe inspiring vista’s of the American Southwest ending at a surreal “Window to the West” at Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur that boasts coastal views & interesting rock formations,
"I hope that you will see nature in a way most people never take notice of."
RHEANA MARACLE
Rheana Is Exhibiting a show of prints from an abandoned prison this month. Very interesting show!
Rheana picked up a camera at a young age and took her first professional photograph on a point and shoot film camera of a deer with her grandfather. She didn’t realize her love for photography until her parents bought her a digital camera in high school. She was then hooked on photography and never looked back. She graduated from Humber College in 2011 with a diploma in Creative Photography. 400.jpg)
Portraying images of things are broken and/or rundown but beautiful in their own way is a specialty of hers.
NICOLE GUILET
NICOLE GUILET Is originally from Montreal she found that at a dark part of her life and found the light with painting ... She loves doing landscapes using Acrylic on canvas .... She loves painting nature and city scapes "I never new i had talent till I started to explore painitng, now when i paint i live in the moment in my canvas ... I love my job" Enjoy her rich canvases on diplay in our Backstage Theatre.
EILEEN SETO
Eileen first took up a camera in the days of film, teaching herself how to photograph her favourite subjects of nature, landscapes and travel. Now shooting exclusively digital, photography for her continues to be an engaging interplay between technical skill and artistic expression. She keeps her work refreshingly simple, while inviting deeper contemplation into the nature of her subjects The curator of the gallery was paticularly stuck by her impressioinistic images that are reminicent of the likes of the early work of Ernst Hass as he explored subjects in motion. Enjoy her soft elegently simple abstract photographic compositions .
