We first encountered Exposure Photo Festival in 2015. Now in its twelfth year, the festival includes exhibitions, film viewings and multiple opportunities to meet and speak with many of the participating photographers.

In Banff, admission to the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies includes three Exposure 2016 exhibits (plus access to all other exhibit areas, including the permanent Gateway to the Rockies installation). Unless you’re a Museum Member or under the age of 12, an admission fee of $8 applies. You can save 25% by showing a valid CAA membership card. Locals (Banff, Morley, Canmore) pay $4.

Through the Lens is a four-month extracurricular photography program for high school students from Morley, Canmore and Banff. Students chosen to participate in the program are involved in field trips, darkroom demonstrations, critiques and workshops. This exhibition showcases some of their work and this time around we noticed that our societal obsession with selfies came through in some of the work; many of the photographs are black and white and the care the students took in selecting their subject matter for these photographs was quite a joy to see.

Point of View is a collection of photographs inspired by the Canadian Rockies and includes images from quite a large group of photographers (including Ansel Adams, Bruce Barnbaum, Sylvia Plachy, Richard White, Jon Goodman, Clive Holden and more).

These two snowy scenes are Mr. GeoK’s favourites from Point of View. Photographer Jon Goodman made this pair of pigment prints on prepared paper (aka carbon prints). Since neither one of us has any experience working in a dark room or producing our own prints, we found the accompanying description of the printing process very informative.

My own favourite is the much more recent work of Clive Holden. This camera phone long exposure doesn’t begin to do justice to his Internet Mountains videos, so you should really view the digital paintings and videos on the project website.

We really enjoyed the portraits and accompanying back stories in Jeremy Fokkens‘ Back to the Land series. This recent Rocky Mountain Outlook article provides a good overview of the project (and more information on the other two exhibits). Mr. GeoK invested a fair bit of time studying the lighting, composition and overall appearance of each portrait.

I took a few minutes to make a couple of longer exposures incorporating intentional camera phone movement. These are based on Fokkens’ portrait series:

Our next stop was at Canada House Gallery, a new exhibition site for Exposure Photo Festival. Dualities featured works from Steven Nederveen and Dieter Schlatter. Both artists augment their photography with painting and then finish everything with a clear coat.

The technique was interesting, but I found my attention drifting to Paul Reimer‘s recent works. He’s evolved his forged trees to include several new varietals. One particularly eye-catching piece is this “Field of Dreams” table that includes 95 individually forged stalks of wheat. I found the play of light and shadow particularly appealing.

The Exposure Photo Festival calendar of events included at least two other events / locations in Banff but we wanted to get in a winter walk before heading east to Canmore.

In Canmore we visited two Exposure 2016 exhibits, starting with The Maple Leaf Collection by Calgary-born photographer Harry Palmer. The mostly black and white prints depict Canadian places (Calgary, the prairies, the mountains and the arctic) and people (including several Companions Of The Order Of Canada, indigenous people and Canadian veterans). I was struck by the similarities between The Maple Leaf Collection and Back to the Land, perhaps because we viewed the two exhibits back-to-back. If you clicked through to Harry Palmer and Jeremy Fokkens’ websites, did you see some common threads?

Also in Canmore we stopped at Elevation Place to view People, Places & Things, an invitational show featuring the work of nine Calgary and Canmore photographers. We didn’t stay long; it was too busy for us, with lots of customers swarming the vendors set up for the Mountain Made Craft & Artisan Market. The exhibit we viewed came down February 16th to make way for the Canmore Art Guild Members’ Show which runs through March 1st and includes images from invited members of the Canmore Camera Club.

I’m planning to visit at least a handful of Exposure Photo Festival Calgary shows before the end of the month. Recommendations for “can’t miss” locations would be appreciated!