River Ice, Trees, JNP
Leon StrembitskyOur friends Tom & Louise owned a house at Folding Mountain Village for a time and would often let my wife and I stay there when they were at their Edmonton home. It was a lovely place just minutes from Hinton and the park gates. On one such occasion in late February of 2001, I went up on my own for a weekend. As it turned out it was a bitterly cold one, -25°C for the high both days. This photograph was taken just inside the east park boundary off of Highway 16 and was a bit of a challenge. I had to get back in the van frequently between steps to warm up! So the process went kind of like this...get out, look at the scene and decide where to set up and focus the camera, get back in the van to warm up. Get out, set up & focus the camera, get back in the van to warm up and wait for the frost on the camera ground glass to dissipate. Get out, load and expose film, break down the setup, get back in the van to warm up and carry on looking for more photographs. The notes that I kept at the time tell me that I took another photograph at this location just before this one and there’s a half hour time difference between the two. It’s not unusual for it to take 5 to 10 minutes to set up for a photograph but this was on a whole different level.
Information
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Media
photography -
Subject
Bring it Home -
Artwork Type
photography -
Dimensions (framed)
20" x 27"
Cost
Leon Strembitsky
My first love is black and white photography. That probably has to do with the fact that I started out many years ago sloshing around in a makeshift darkroom set up in my parent's basement bathroom. In the last few years I’ve transitioned from shooting large format film, almost exclusively black and white, to a digital slr which allows me to produce colour as well. Regardless, whether the final image will be black and white or colour, I'm always drawn to scenes with strong compositional elements and strong lighting. Most of my images are manipulated and often times quite different from what a literal translation of the scene would show. I do, however, strive to maintain the believability of the image. So, even though there may be a great deal of manipulation, it isn't readily obvious.
People often ask me why I photograph and after much consideration the one thing that I come up with is this...it gives me joy. To find exciting things all around, sometimes in the most familiar places, fascinates me. Showing it to others is my way of sharing that joy. That's all there is to it, no drawn out explanations, no spiritual intervention, no existential undercurrents, just good, strong photographs! After all, when I'm not here to explain it, there will only be the work so it has to be able to stand on its own.