Best I Ever Had by Second Nature

When Gavin DeGraw's song "Best I Ever Had" came out last year I had it stuck in my head for weeks. I eventually went looking for covers to switch things up and fell in love with Second Nature's version of the song. Here's something upbeat that's bound to get stuck in your head too. 

Saskatchewan Grain Elevators: Part 2

A continuation of my photo series featuring wooden grain elevators in Saskatchewan.

Sunset Dinner / Sunshine Skillet 2014

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting the photography and video for the Sunset Dinner in participation with the 2014 Sunshine Skillet Food Festival. The event was presented by the Alberta Culinary Tourism Alliance and featured a five course meal with each course prepared by a renowned chef.

Participants in the Sunset Dinner were Chef Ray McGuire from Desert Blume Golf Club, Chef Boonying Khumdha from THAI Orchid Room, Chef Ben Cherrett from Connaught Golf Club, Chef Pierre Lamielle from Top Chef Canada Season 4, and Chef Karine Moulin from Hotel Arts and Top Chef Canada Season 4. 

The joy of shoots like this is that the artistry that goes into preparing each course provides stunning visuals to work with. The colours, smells, and lively conversation made the event really entertaining and engaging. I was constantly switching between cameras to capture highlights throughout the evening, and I'm really excited to have the photography and video from this event go public shortly. Here are a few photo highlights from the night - video to follow soon.

Morse, Saskatchewan Grain Elevators

After the great response I got to the first part of my grain elevator photo set I went searching for a few images that I remembered shooting years ago. These two shots of the grain elevators in Morse, Saskatchewan are from October 2005, and the reason that I wanted to find them is that both elevators have since been demolished. I found a video that someone posted of one them collapsing, which can be viewed below. It just goes to prove my point that these wooden icons of the prairie are becoming history.

Saskatchewan Grain Elevators: Part 1

The wooden grain elevator is an icon of the prairies. Towering and monolithic, few buildings encapsulate the identity and history of Western Canada so completely. They've become a stereotype of an entire region, and yet year after year they've been disappearing from the landscape. Occasionally abandoned, more often demolished, you'd be hard pressed to find a wooden grain elevator in many major centres anymore - none spring to mind in fact. 

Driving from Medicine Hat, Alberta to Regina, Saskatchewan I made a concerted effort to stop in small communities along the Trans Canada Highway to photograph any of the remaining wooden elevators that I could spot. From Gull Lake to Mortlach, I allowed myself to get lost in the local scenery. Towns that I'd driven through a hundred times before became uncharted territory that was suddenly worth exploring. 

After editing all of my images for this three part series, the value of what I'd come away with sank in. If I had done this a decade ago there would've been so many more elevators to seek out. Thus is the appeal. Photographing places that aren't often thoroughly documented makes them more profound in the long run. After a few years the work is more than art, it's a rare archive of something that most people didn't even notice until it was gone.