A nation of photographers and a nation of models

DYING TO BE IN THE PICTURE

Canadian master photographer Ed Burtynsky got it half right while speaking at a Contact Photography Festival event when he told the media that Canada has become a nation of photographers. Cell Phone cameras. Cheap high def video cams. The explosive rise of the digital camera. Twitter Vids. You Tubes. Facebook. Canadians are documentary every aspect of life in this country.
Burtynsky, a Ryerson Polytechnical Institute grad, is world famous for his landscape photographs, so he should be excused for not mentioning the other half of the equation. Canadian has become a nation of models!
For every person who carries a camera to a public event, there is an equal or greater number of people willing and waiting to poise for that Kodak Moment. During Scotiabank Caribana 2010, 600 media, most of them videographers and photographers, registered to be on the parade route.
While the parade marshals find the photographers annoying in the least and downright disruptive in the pejorative, the barely clad dancers didn't mind stopping the parade to constantly pose for pictures. Within days of the Parade over 3,300 YouTube videos (marked Caribana) had been posted and 24,000 pictures (marked Caribana) posted on Flickr. And Facebook? 100,000 jpgs and counting.
It is not just events where body beautiful rules. On Saturday October 23rd my photographer son Andrew and myself took our cameras to Trinity Bellwood Park where 6,000 peoples drenched themselves in fake blood and shuffled through the park and into the streets of Toronto in the annual Zombie Walk.
There were hundreds and hundreds of photographers following the moaning, stumbling rag tag parade. The zombies had worked hard on their make-up and wanted to be photographed. Ever had a corpse ask you to take her picture? I have.
The Zombie Walk has no sponsors (save beyond a Henry's Camera portrait booth), and no actual raison d'etre. But because of the growing Yin and the Yang between people's need to be seen and people's need to be camera carrying voyeurs there is no stomping on Toronto's undead parade.
CUTLINES
Top - Complete stranger asks Zombies to deadpan it for his camera. (But he still told them to say "Cheese")
Bottom - Andrew Weir's picture of the Zombie Parade - Trinity Bellwood Park.

Scotiabank makes CONTACT with the photography world -- the Toronto press conference

We are all photographers says Burtynsky
SCOTIABANK NOW HAS PICTURE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP WITH COUNTRY'S LARGEST PHOTO FESTIVAL

Scotiabank has upped the ante for the support of the arts ... again. On the last day of March, Scotiabank's public affairs department took over the uber-cool Nicholas Metivier Gallery on King Street in Toronto, to announce their title sponsorship of CONTACT, the World's Largest Photography festival and their creation of a yearly $50,000 cash and publishing award to a Canadian photographer.
"We are all photographers," said renowned Canadian photographer (and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute grad) Ed Burtynsky. " Canada is a nation of picture takers and CONTACT is a festival for all Canadians."
CONTACT, a not-for-profit organization based in Toronto has been celebrating the art of photography for 13-years. The association stages an annual month-long festival in May holding photography exhibitions at galleries and cafes throughout the city.
The Festival attracts both established photographers like Burtynsky and emerging photographers. Long on fans the Festival has traditionally been financially challenged, until now.
The Globe and Mail, one of the few media covering the press conference, reported that Scotiabank has long been a supporter, but now as the name sponsor its annual commitment to the Festival will be $150,000 a year beginning immediately. An additional annual $50,000 cash prize and a pre-negotiated book publishing deal (Steidl)will be handed out annually beginning in 2011.
The addition of the CONTACT Festival gives Scotiabank name recognition in the arts throughout the spring, summer and fall here in Toronto. Other festivals here in Toronto that have name sponsorship from the bank include: Scotiabank United Way Rat Race (June) Scotiabank Caribana (July 15 to August 2), Scotiabank Buskerfest (August), Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (September), the all night Nuit Blanc (October),the Scotiabank Giller Prize (October/November) and the Christmas Cavalcade of Lights (November / December).
The creation of a $50,000 annual prize for a photographer immediately vaults the award into the same class as the $50,000 Giller, the $80,000 Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry, the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the Royal Bank's $25,000 Canadian Painting Competition.
"Canadian photography has reached a level that deserves to be recognized here in Canada, after all, photography - like all visual art -- is about communication," said Jane Nokes, Scotiabank Director of Corporate Archives and Fine Art. "Through the establishment of this Scotiabank Photography Award, we are helping engage Canadians in the photographic art scene and reward outstanding photographers for their contributions, a further support to their careers."
In announcing the new Photography Award, Burtynsky admitted that the details about the $50,000 prize are not available. "This is the framework" he said. "Stay tuned (for the small print)."
Burtynsky told the press conference attendees that in the first 20-years of his career he didn't have a published book of his work. Even though he didn't realize it then, the lack of a book hurt his career ... people upon seeing his work were suprised that they had never heard of him. After his first book was published, his fame spread around the world.
The power of the published book on the career of a photographer is one of the reason's that Burtynsky has gotten involved in the Photography Award. He will be one of three judges to hand out the yearly prize of $50,000 and the book deal with his European publisher.
The funding that Scotiabank is providing has allowed CONTACT to expand the content and the look of its website. For a preview of the first festival that is to bear the Scotiabank name visit www.contactphoto.com

CUTLINE: TOP: Ed Burtynsky,one of Canada's most successful landscape photographers, speaks at a morning press conference held inside the Nicholas Metivier Gallery, in Toronto.
BELOW:Scotiabank's Jane Nokes, watches from the wings as artist Ed Burtynsky speaks to the media.