Photography is my art

Page 5

Some people don't think that photography is an art. This perplexes me. Photography isn't just taking a picture that is there. There's often a lot of posing that goes into making a picture. You can also put several photographs together.

The last stage of many of my photographs is the hand painting.

There's often many hours of work in hand coloring just one black and white photograph. Lately, I have started to work with old pictures taken 40 or 50 years ago.

There's a saying that says, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Sometimes it's very hard for me to write my columns because the picture says all I wanted to say and it's very hard for me to put it into words.

This picture is of an old school house, but there is another good story about an osprey. I took my kids out into the bush just a little ways from our house.

Where I took the kids, this osprey had its nest. I have never heard of this before, and I may not have believed it, if I had not seen it. But this osprey got pushed out of his nest by two geese.

Everytime the osprey would try to go to the nest, the geese would fight him. We watched the fighting for a long time.

The next time we went back, about a week later, the osprey was gone. I don't know where the bird went for a couple of years, but this year it is back again.

There's also a photograph of the dancer and a tipi that was taken at Whitefish powwow last year. It rained and rained at that powwow. I took that picture during the grand entry while the dancers were all waiting to file into the arbor. I realize when I take pictures that I am recording history. The images of my photographs will be here a lot longer than I am.

For First Nations, I believe our history is very important and I am proud to be able to record today for tomorrow. We always had artists who recorded our history. It used to be recorded on skins or rocks and now we have technology. I believe that tradition is in my photographs.

I was always interested in taking photographs. I can't remember when I first got the idea, but I was attracted to cameras. I started taking pictures of kids. After I got married, we moved to Ottawa. This was the very first time that I had been away from the Prairies and I did not like it over there at first. I missed home and I did not have too much to do with myself.

One day my wife brought home a calendar from Algonquin College and asked me if there was something I wanted to take at school. I really wanted to take some photography courses but I was pretty shy about going to school. If someone had told me just a few years later that my pictures would be published and that I would be in an art show, I would have not believed them.

My wife encouraged me. She never lets me quit and I think that's pretty important. It seemed like an impossible dream at first, I never even had a camera. Now, I have at least six cameras and I also have a collection of old cameras.

I guess that's the thing about dreams. First you have to be able to say it, then you need people who care about you to support you in your dream. Getting to your dream isn't about taking one big leap, it's about taking little steps all in the direction of your dream.