I have previously written a Blog, “Where is home”, well, home for me these days is Canada, I have lived here for the past seventeen years now and for almost all of it (bar the first six months), home has been Oakville.
Today, I thought I’d write a little and share some photographs with you about my time here in Oakville and although I’ve been here seventeen years, I have haven’t shot very much of it. The first part of those years there were photographs of my family and not really much else. There is a large part with many, many images, which sadly I cannot show you…they are photographs that I have shot in various schools, over a period of years of the children there. They were not your regular school photographs shot once a year, no these are documentary style images with children I got to know in those schools over the space of a few years. I may include one or two, where permission has been given.
As I have written in previous posts, with the advent of Covid my movements around the area became very curtailed and all the projects I had either started or was in the process of starting came to an abrupt halt. Sadly, in one particular instance, a tattoo parlor I had started to photograph, went out of business, if they have opened somewhere else, I do not know.
Another particular area of interest for me was photographing one of the local fire crews, and I was in the process of developing a good relationship with them, which I was really enjoying. I continued to see them through Covid, but was unable to shoot images. It was fun riding around with them and shooting photographs with them, but it was never the same.
One of my projects that came about as a direct result of Covid was shooting in the woods, which has turned into a large body of work and has been more diverse and interesting than the day I started and wondered what I was going to be able to shoot.
In a way…I wonder if Covid and my relationship with the wood has made me more of a fine art photographer, especially these days, something I have never thought about myself and certainly I have never considered myself one.
Like many people, I have loads of ideas, some of them may even be good, but like some people, I also have not gone through with most of those good ideas. There are some factors that limit what I can do, but the reality is that if I was really determined…I would have done them. There’s a lesson here...probably for myself!
Oakville is not a spectacular place and probably not so interesting either, certainly there is no reason to visit here, unless you’re going to see family or friends, perhaps go to a restaurant. Our one shopping mall is pretty pedestrian, a large part of Oakville is residential, there are lots of trails and a large industrial belt runs through Oakville, towards the south and this could well be a source of many possibilities and projects and something that does warrant some exploration. It is a lovely place to live and many people work here, including myself. Oakville does not scream photography. No.
However, there are always interesting things to photograph and people too, Oakville is fast becoming a more diverse place and the more time you spend in a place and really look…see what’s going on, the more you can find to photograph. Spend a little more time talking and talking ideas through with other people and you may be surprised at what may turn up in conversation, by accident, by chance…or by design.
Granted this is not for everyone, those of you who are wildlife photographers or enjoy landscapes, this is not perhaps going to be a good hunting ground for you. Street photographers too may find the pickings a bit on the slim side. Much is going to depend on your willingness to go to the more industrial and commercial areas with an open mind and perhaps ideas for projects, and this is an area that does interest me and one that I do intend to explore.
In the meantime, the photographs here today, are images that I have shot mainly in the last ten years in Oakville, as I write this post, I haven’t picked them out as yet. They have been shot over a period of time, as my ideas and photography have been evolving…they are not award-winning images, they are however, special to me. I do hope that they portray an interesting range of the types of photography that have interested me in my short time here, that as I say, I have shot here in Oakville ~ my corner of this Earth.