In Search of BC’s Underdog Photographers

Ten years ago I went down a rabbit hole of photographer history, and I haven’t yet found my way out.

I am a photographer interested not only in images but in the history of image makers, especially those who are overlooked and, even more so, forgotten.

I’ve been trying to gather their stories and associated materials to preserve them in some small way. To me, this work is important because our collective histories make our community, and our unique and distinctive culture, what it is. To lose our history means losing a bit of ourselves.

I came to this photographer history project via my career as an editorial and newspaper photographer, a job I held for most of my adult life.

Beginning in Vancouver in the late 1970s, I photographed the nascent punk scene and tried to find freelance newspaper work while working shifts pulling lumber on sawmill green chains.

My career saw me criss-crossing Western Canada, with a stint in Europe. When I left Vancouver for the first time, I worked at small papers in B.C., then graduated to larger papers in Alberta. From there, I returned to B.C., switched from working as a photographer to a picture editor at the Vancouver Sun, then left to work for the British wire service Reuters. I was based in Brussels, Belgium.

I made a brief return to Vancouver, then 14 years as assistant photo editor at the Calgary Herald before the shrinking world of newspapers sent me to Victoria, where I was fortunate to spend 20 years photographing for Black Press’s newspapers and, later, its magazine division.

I was vaguely aware of other photographers and photo events in Vancouver, but during the busiest years of my career, most of my attention was focused on newspaper shooters and magazine photographers.

All that changed when I came across some photographs by the late Roy Kiyooka, a celebrated Canadian painter and poet.

The photos stopped me in my tracks; there were two initially, both serial narrative images. The first, a single panel with multiple views viewed from Kiyooka’s studio at 382 Powell St., and the second, the massive 18-panel depicting Long Beach, B.C., to Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, in 1971, a record of a trip across Canada.

The multiple photographs gathered together in a single artwork seemed to me a new way to tell a story with photography — a modern version of the historic photo essay.

I was familiar with Kiyooka’s name, but our paths had never crossed. He was best known for his painting and poetry, and turned to photography later in life.

I attempted to find out more about Kiyooka’s photography practice and quickly discovered how challenging that was; he was no longer with us so I couldn’t ask him directly, and those I contacted often had no knowledge of the photography part of his life.

That search for Kiyooka’s work, though, opened up a new world to me.

Today, I have 50-plus audio or text interviews, 100 individual files and assorted books and ephemera related to British Columbia photographers from my 10 years of historical exploration so far.

And I’m still looking for more.

My historical deep dive has revealed to me that Vancouver, especially in the period from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, was a hotbed of photographic creativity. Out of that period came artists who became very famous, artists such as Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Rodney Graham, Ken Lum, Stan Douglas and Roy Arden.

There were, however, many more people working with photography. Often these photographers would work collaboratively despite differences in art styles.

Some had (and continue to have) their work shown in exhibitions; some have also produced books. But they have not seen the success of their contemporaries.

This was the world I had missed in the early days of my photo career. Names such as Michael de Courcy, Christos Dikeakos, Marian Penner Bancroft, Bill Jones, Vikky Alexander, Lincoln Clarkes, Robert Keziere and Henri Robideau — to name just a few — should be as familiar as Wall, but are not.

My project aims to shed light on the lesser-known photographers who were producing standout work that spoke to the times they lived in. To me, this is crucial for our collective understanding of a particular time in British Columbia photography that saw a spontaneous outburst of collective creativity and collaboration among artists that I don’t believe has been repeated.

I’m particularly inspired by the extensive collaborations between many B.C. photographers of the 1970s. A defining collaboration of that era was the Leonard Frank Memorial Project in 1972, named after a pioneering local photographer. It was funded by a federal government initiative aimed at providing employment for young people.

The ambitious project, which featured the work of several participating photographers, aimed to document British Columbia with each photographer choosing where, when and whom they photographed. The resulting works were donated to the Vancouver Public Library archives, where many images can be found today.

In 1970, the BC Almanac project brought together 15 photographers and produced three exhibitions and a book consisting of 15 unique portfolios. And the 1979 13 Cameras project, organized by Roy Kiyooka, featured photographers Marian Penner Bancroft, Iain Baxter, Taki Bluesinger, Chris Dahl, Michael de Courcy, Chris Gallagher, Barrie Jones, Martha Miller, Dale Pickering, David Rimmer, Kazumi Tanaka, Paul Wong and Kiyooka himself. He wrote about the project in his 2005 book Pacific Rim Letters.

Michael de Courcy was a great one for group projects that spoke directly to the times in which they were produced.

One of my favourites is Background/Vancouver, a precursor to the popular Day in the Life books of the 1980s. Four photographers, Taki Bluesinger, Gerry Gilbert, Glenn Lewis and de Courcy all photographed Vancouver on a single day in 1972.

The resulting 360 images are arranged in a grid with a key to locations below. The work was originally published in the Vancouver Sun and is seen now and then at the Vancouver Art Gallery as a large single work.

Fred Herzog is another name known across Canada and internationally. Herzog actively documented Vancouver in slide film from the late 1940s onward and was well known in Vancouver photography circles, but came to international attention late in his life.

He is now recognized as one of the early masters of colour photography with many exhibitions and multiple bestselling books of his photography.

Bruce Stewart, meanwhile, did not share the international spotlight as Herzog did, but was one of his colleagues in the imaging department at the University of British Columbia. The two were constant photo companions for decades.

Stewart has many images similar to Herzog’s, but they’re photographed in black and white, not colour, and from a slightly different angle. He also produced more than 200 images of Herzog in action.

More perplexing at times are the photographers who had a short period of recognition and then disappeared. Lynn Phipps is one example. She moved from California to Vancouver in the late 1960s and created what is likely the first still documentary photography of the Downtown Eastside.

Working with a large-format camera, Phipps photographed residents, residences and streetscapes. She had a 100-print exhibition at UBC in 1973 and in 1975 was part of a group exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery with Fred Douglas and Nina Raginsky (two more photographers who deserve greater recognition).

All I can find of her work are a couple of magazine appearances and exhibition posters for the two shows.

This article can’t begin to touch the number of photographers throughout B.C. who should be mentioned and remembered. To me, they each deserve an individual essay, if not a book.

My history project documenting B.C. photographers is far from done — and I’m keen to learn more about them.

The work of photographers, particularly those who produced work that didn’t receive widespread acclaim, is so important for helping us understand our social and political context, and the ground beneath our feet.

I am always looking for more information about photographers who are working or who have worked in B.C., from 1940 and later. I am interested in all genres — fine art, documentary, journalism or commercial.

I’m interested, too, in amateur photographers who have created bodies of work on certain subjects, communities or events.

These works may exist only in a box in a basement, but to me, they deserve to be brought back out into the light where they were created.

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Do you know of an under-sung photographer whose work should be celebrated and better understood? Email Don Denton or find him on social media. You can search for him by name on Facebook, Instagram or Bluesky.