J. Whyte Photography

Whether you are a travel photographer or any traveller really, its nice to have that one place you always visit when you return to a city or country.  For me, revisiting and photographing places over time reconnects me to past memories, building layers of perspective one on top of the other. Sometimes if feels like I am building a single memory that extends over decades of time. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that several distinct memories blur into a single memory, you know when you can't quite put your finger on which visit that was?  Its a strange thing, but for me its familiarity and nostalgia rolled into a memory and the anticipation of future visits. Sometimes I am alone, sometimes with my family. But always with my camera.  So, I have this one place in London, England that I always visit when I am there. Every time I have visited London, I have gone there, paid the small fee to enter, climbed the stairs, sat in the pews and listened. I plan to visit this spo...

Calgary has a number of brutalist buildings. In fact, the city came of age at a time when brutalist architecture was popular, and so we have religious buildings, education buildings and many office structures spread around the city.  One of the acknowledged brutalist landmarks is Nelco Square.  Nelco Square was completed in 1979 in the community of Franklin. According to Heritage Calgary , Nelco Square is considered "a  superb example of a late Brutalist-style office building in Calgary."   Designed like many brutalist buildings, Nelco Square has a multi-story building plan with the higher levels wider than the lower ground level floor. Nelco Square also has "symmetrical fenestration separated by pronounced vertical window fins at the top storey and decorative concrete panels with embossed rectangular motifs" while the "lower recessed two storeys have exaggerated pilasters and minimalist ribbon windows."  (Source, Heritage Calgary) Discovering the  Mystery...

Even though I do make money with my camera and spend time thinking about ways to make even more money from photography, when it comes down to it I consider myself a hobbyist.   And it’s okay to be a hobbyist. In fact photography is a great hobby.  It’s a hobby that gets you out of the house and away from your screens, pushes you towards fantastic adventures in other countries, hikes through beautiful landscapes, the exploration of places you would never have been. Or maybe you just like cameras,  your dad did photography and you just inherited it. Or perhaps it’s just an opportunity to be creative in a way you can’t be at your day job.   And while being a hobbyist may not have the cool factor that being a professional has, there are still so many great things about being a hobbyist.    First, there is the freedom to do whatever you want. I can jump in my car and just go. No plan, no agenda, no shot list. If I want to go downtown and photograph architecture ...

Importance of light Suggesting that light is important in photography is stating the obvious. Let’s be honest… of course light is important. But what I had to learn was that its not so easy to appreciate how light will impact the subject of the photograph, the particular building that is being photographed.  I came into photographing architecture honestly, as a stock photographer focusing on travel and landscape.  And if you are shooting travel stock, then its inevitable that you will need to learn how to photograph buildings.  But travel photography is different, there is a different feel and vibe.  Photographing the Pantheon in Rome? Throw in a great sunset! Make it eye-catching. With architecture photography, I think the building drives the photograph and the light is there as a compliment and not as a main feature.  Its unlikely that you want that insane sunset because that might just be confusing to the viewer. What’s the subject of the photograph? The suns...

Michichi is one of those little prairie towns that most people have not heard of and certainly have not visited.  It's located just south of Highway 9 between Drumheller and Hanna. There's no real reason to stop at Michichi. There are no services that I can remember seeing the last time I went through town. Its not particularly beautiful in terms of its setting. Having said that, the town has developed a fairly nice path system along the Michichi Creek which looks to be worth visiting.  If you are looking for some interesting facts about Michichi, the name comes from a Cree word and it means 'hand'.  It refers to the fact that Michichi is located near the scenic Hand Hills near Hanna. According to the 1941 census, there were only 73 people. In 1991, the population had dropped to 42.  I tried to find current census data, but that information wasn't easy to find. My guess is that the population has only gone down. Photographing Michichi There are really only photogra...

In the heart of Special Area No. 2 is a landmark abandoned farmhouse. It's a home that is often photographed by the many rural explorers who travel the great expanse of Canada's open prairies searching for beauty in the abandoned.  The Lund house, as it is known, is located along Highway 855 between and north of Craigmyle and Hanna. The countryside is beautiful in the Hanna area. And north of Dowling Lake where the Lund House is located, the low rolling hills and farmland is particularly nice in the summer.  If you are interested in the history of the Lund House, check out Glen's Travels .  Glen clearly spent a good deal of time researching and presenting the history of the place and the former residents. There is no point in me even trying to do what Glen has already done.  Why is the Lund House so Photographed?  So as the title to this blog post suggests, the Lund House is kinda famous amongst rural explorers and photographers.  I think there are a few re...

When you're an explorer of the great plains of North America, you'll understand that there are very few short cuts, no quick ways home. Truly, I have learned from past experiences that the distances involved necessitate some serious route planning to in order to pack in the most in terms of exploration and photography.  So on the way back from a trip to photograph Jack's Shoe Store in Coronation, Alberta, I decided to take Highway 36 towards Hanna so I could look for and explore the area of Garden Plain. There were a couple of spots that I knew I wanted to visit, including the old Netherby School and the old Garden Plain Community Hall.  You also hope to find some other unexpected spots and that can add interest to the trip. Sometimes the unexpected locations are the most exciting for an explorer.  Garden Plain  The town was named by T.A. Kane who moved from a town of the same name in Iowa. Apparently, he settled in the area and became the storekeeper and owner of a ...

  Brutalist architecture is a fascinating thing. Perhaps no other style of architecture captures the attention of people generally, particularly those outside the architectural profession – regular people like me.  And often the attention is not positive.  In many ways, brutalist architecture pushes itself into the consciousness because it so clearly typifies the gap between western elites and the majority of regular people. Indeed, brutalist architecture reflects the eternal project of the elites - the quest for positive social change and progressive ideological action. That was the point of brutalist design. But ultimately, the result turned out to be cold concrete, authoritarian forms, the esthetics of the prison.  How could it be otherwise? So as these buildings age, the issue of renovation has become a public issue. What do we do with these buildings? Do we demolish them as many people would like or do we renovate these structures and give them new lives? And if...