Steven James Brown

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein

Toronto photographer Steven James Brown was born in 1955 to British parents in London, England, and soon after moved to North Battleford, Saskatchewan, where he lived for 12 years until his family relocated to Toronto. Growing up in the starkness of the Prairies definitely cultivated his vivid imagination, which continually feeds him ideas for new work. In 1985 he left his career in the music business to attend the Creative Photography program at Humber College in Toronto. After working for some time as a commercial photographer, he decided to pursue the fine art side of photography where he could express his own ideas instead of someone else's.

Steven does not use photography to document reality, but to alter it. He employs unconventional props and lighting techniques to achieve his intriguing still life colour photographs. His avant-garde style features intriguing subject matter, while remaining simple, iconographic and vibrant. Steven's photographs are created using 4x5 positive transparency film and a medium-format view camera.

Steven's photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal and belong to collectors from Britain, the United States and Canada.

Joe Cornish

Joe Cornish is one of the UK's leading landscape photographers and photographic educators. His work has been exhibited widely, and he has two galleries devoted to his work near to his home in North Yorkshire. These are also the base of his card and calendar publishing company.

Leaving university with a fine art degree in 1980, Joe worked first as a photographer's assistant, in Washington DC and in London, before becoming a successful photographer for travel books. Having established himself as a National Trust photolibrary contributing photographer, he went on to specialise in landscape. Since 1998 he has shot almost exclusively on 5x4inch equipment.

His philosophy of landscape photography comes from a belief in advocacy for wild places, and that photography can help inspire respect and reconnection with landscape and the natural world. As an educator he has worked mainly for Light and Land and Inversnaid Photography workshops, as well as running his own one day workshop programme in North Yorkshire. Joe has had successful collaborative book projects with fellow landscape photographers, Charlie Waite and David Ward; he has worked extensively with designer/photographer and printer Eddie Ephraums, and lectures with wildlife specialist Andy Rouse.

He was featured in the 2005 book, The World's Top Photographers, Landscape; and in 2006 was honoured with the Amateur Photographer magazine's Power of Photography Award.

Denis Lalonde

Denis was born in June 1946, in a small rural community east of Ottawa. He bought his first camera at age 23, a Polaroid. Its purpose was mainly to record birthdays, parties and holidays. Denis still possesses many of these pictures; they are his treasures and a reminder of life then. In the 1970s, Denis moved to North Bay. Nature seemed so vast and so different. This new discovery increased his desire to take better photographs. This eventually led to courses in photography and darkroom technique. His studies further fueled to his desire to improve my imagery.

Work brought Denis to the Toronto region in the late 1990s. He began to explore the region, more specifically the Niagara Escarpment, with its many waterfalls. This brought a new reality - beauty; we are surrounded by it. Beauty has always been a fascination and photography has provided Denis with ways to capture it. It is an exhilarating journey; at times it brings emotions and photography the means with which to express them. Nature's beauty and artistry has captured his spirit.

Denis feels fortunate to be on this path . Photography is where life is most enjoyable. His soul has found its home.

John Douglass Callow

I was born and raised in the Detroit area. Currently my wife and I are living in Vancouver, British Columbia. I first picked up photography at about age 13 when my sister lent me her camera. It was not my first love or something I felt born to do. I far preferred painting or drawing, but photography has stuck with me and it has been a good relationship.

Often enough, or maybe all the time, art is a simple thing. It is the activity of creating something that is maybe bigger than its parts or equal to an idea that is difficult or otherwise impossible to articulate or maybe it is just trying to capture something that is interesting, ironic, iconic, emotive and probably still difficult to quantify. Art is a creation thing, something that requires participation on the physical, intellectual and emotional level. At least that is how I see it. Sometimes I'm not a participant but a spectator of other people's work. I know that most see art as something that is viewed, read, or heard. I see art as something you do and the object created as being secondary.

For me, photography is a tool that adds images to a narrative. The story of life that I keep in my head is defined or made out to be a lie by the thing I record on film and subsequently print to paper. It isn't a grand thing. I see a subway tunnel with all of the attendant history and I try to record it in such a manner as to build from the history. I'm moved by the mundane, but not moved to elaborate on its commonness, but to expose its otherness. In the back of my mind there is this conflict between what we think about ourselves and the places we live and the actual reality of the place and what it says about us.

Then again, I really don't think too much about it.

Regards,
jdc

Bill Schwab

Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1959, Bill Schwab's fascination with photography began at an early age having taught himself to process film and contact print at age twelve. Continuing his education with emphasis on the arts, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography and graphic design from Central Michigan University in 1983. He has pursued his photographic career both personally and commercially ever since.

Although his style has gradually developed and progressed over the years, the common themes that thread through this ever growing body of work is that of the natural and urban landscape. Emphasizing an ethereal, emotive quality, he chooses to make photographs during inclement weather and challenging lighting situations.

His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the US and abroad since the early 1980's and continues to become more widely known and sought after. It is in turn becoming represented in a growing number of private, corporate and public collections throughout the world. Among the institutions holding his work in their permanent collections are the George Eastman House, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Dayton Museum of Art, Polk Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Two books of his work have been published to date, Bill Schwab: Photographs (1999) and Gathering Calm - Photographs 1994-2004 (2005).

Russell Monk

Ryan Pyle

Recently Announced: Ryan Pyle has been included in the PDN 30, a list of this years thirty emerging photographers. Please check out the link for all the details. http://www.pdngallery.com/gallery/pdns30/2009/

Ryan Pyle is a Canadian born freelance documentary photographer, based in Shanghai, China.

Born in Toronto, Canada, Ryan spent his early years close to home. After obtaining a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto in 2001, Ryan fled to China on an exploratory mission. In 2002, Ryan moved to China permanently and began taking freelance assignments in 2003. In 2004, Ryan became a regular contributor to the New York Times covering China, where he has covered issues ranging from rural healthcare, bird flu and environmental degradation. More recently he has branched out in to mostly magazine work, expanding his portfolio to include the Sunday Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Forbes and Newsweek.

Ryan is a reportage style photographer, working almost exclusively in 35mm format range finder cameras. His work drifts between journalism and fine art as he roams through China photographing the country and its diverse people.

Jesper Sorensen

Jesper SØrensen has been visiting the Himalayan region for over twenty years. Recently he turned his camera towards the nomads. He travels to their camps with a small photographic team and, ethnographically, learns their stories and documents their lives with photographs.

In the beginning his photography was inspired by the life and wild untamed beauty of the high altitude planes. However, repeated visits soon made it clear that the culture was rapidly vanishing. He gradually became more driven to document a unique lifestyle, which he has been privileged to witness.

The nomads are in constant migration across remote grasslands, traveling either in smaller family-groups, or as entire tribal communities. The geographic remoteness shields them from the outside world; this, in combination with their shyness to foreigners, may be the reason that they have been able to preserve their traditional way of living, the same way they have done for hundreds of years. It is also what makes Dr. SØrensen's knowledge and work so significant.

Bob Carnie

Bob Carnie currently prints professionally for photographers from all points and selectively for clients that have been working on major photographic projects that require fibre based prints.

• 2000-present: partner at Elevator, a fine art photography, printing and framing facilitywww.elevatordigital.ca.
• 91-2000: opened up my own fine art printing facility for clients in the Toronto area specializing in black and white and cibachrome show printing.
• 80-91: worked as photographic technician in various high end photographic labs holding various positions.
• 76-79: worked as wedding photographer and printer.
• 1976: Graduated with 3-year degree in Photography from Fanshawe College in London, Ont.

Mark Loren Freedman

Mark Loren Freedman was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. An Emergency Physician by day, Mark balances his intense work with a passion for nature and wildlife photography. He has photographed in dozens of countries on all seven continents including some of the most remote regions on Earth. Mark finds inspiration in the raw beauty and innocence of his subjects and the harshness in which they survive. His current projects include photography in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, Spitsbergen, Antarctica, South Georgia, the Amazon and Africa.

Mark's photographic style can best be described as environmental portraiture. He strives to capture rare and spectacular creatures surrounded by stunning and dramatic landscapes. His provocative images highlight the intimate interplay between creature and habitat, a relationship so precarious that even subtle disturbances can significantly and irreparably upset the equilibrium. Ultimately his aim is to promote environmental awareness by sharing scenes we risk losing forever.

Osheen Harruthoonyan

Born in Tehran, Iran and raised in Athens, Greece and Vancouver B.C., Osheen Harruthoonyan is a Toronto based photographer and filmmaker. Drawing upon his rich experiences living in such diverse cities, he employs a multi-faceted approach towards his artistic practice, investigating memory and the deconstructive process of time. Harruthoonyan's work has been featured in various festivals and publications, has been exhibited internationally, and has been noted by the Globe and Mail as one of the top five "shows you should not miss" in CONTACT 2008. Harruthoonyan has also worked as cinematographer on numerous short films, music videos, and experimental film which have been supported by the NFB and CBC.

Mark Nowaczynski

Dr. Mark Nowaczynski was born in Montreal and educated in Quebec, Singapore, Kingston (B.Sc.), Vancouver (Ph.D., M.D.), and Toronto (C.C.F.P.), where he now lives with his wife and two children.

He began practicing family medicine in Toronto in 1992. From the very beginning he involved himself in the home-based care of frail seniors, and this gradually grew into his primary clinical interest. In July 2007 he closed his family practice in order to spend all of his clinical time outside of the office setting caring for frail house-bound seniors.

In 1998 he began to photograph this hidden and vulnerable population in order to advocate for change. His ongoing photo-documentary project has been profiled in national print, radio, and television media and is the subject of the Gemini Award winning National Film Board of Canada documentary film "House Calls". Working with a group of community partners, he is part of an interdisciplinary community-based team ("House Calls") that promotes aging in place and improves the health and quality of life of seniors by providing ongoing integrated home-based care.

He is a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. In 2005 the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto recognized Dr. Nowaczynski with the Educational Excellence for Community Care Award, and in 2007 he received an Award of Excellence from the Ontario College of Family Physicians "in recognition of his commitment to providing home-based care to frail elderly patients and his advocacy for the role that family doctors play in homecare."

He is actively involved in teaching, training, research, speaking, and advocacy about geriatric home-based primary care.

Abigail Godfrey
Director

Abigail received her B.A. in Anthropology and Film Studies from the University of Victoria and her M.A. in Communication & Culture from Ryerson and York Universities. Her Master's research involved detailed study of the visual history recorded via ethnographic, colonial and World Fair photography. The project itself is a series of photographic portraits and semi-structured interviews constellated around the interrelated questions of identity, multiculturalism, the historical photographic record, what we see and how we see.

Photographs have the power to confirm the world around us, or to create fresh, unusual perspectives. Abigail conceptualizes the visual as a language, and thus as a conversation between an image and its reader. Inspired by the Russian formalist concept of making strange, in her own practice Abigail seeks both communication, a process of reflection and projection, and visual-linguistic dislocation, in order to alter our pictures of reality.

Janieta Eyre

Joanne de Boehmler

Originally from Trinidad and now living in the Greater Toronto Area, Joanne has always loved 'taking pictures.' She began studying the art of photography in 1999, attending George Brown College and other photography workshops in Canada and abroad. Joanne is currently shooting in digital, focusing on capturing colour and shapes as art—rather than telling a story, which was her focus when photographing in black and white film.

Joanne does not limit her photography to any specific subject—photographing "any and all that moves me on a particular day." She previously exhibited in group shows at Elevator Gallery, Distillery District galleries, and Bathurst Street Theatre during Toronto's annual CONTACT Photography Festival. Her current photographs were taken during a trip to Venice, Italy, in spring 2008. All her work is printed by Bob Carnie of Elevator Digital.

Kevin Viner

From the first Kodak Pocket Camera (the one with the red shutter button) he was hooked. It would be many years later when he taught himself more, took courses, and eventually turned his passion into his vocation and opened his own commercial photo studio. As with most photographers, the desire to create images is always present, be it for commercial purposes or for fine art. Many photographers have fallen in love with Paris; it is too easy to do, cliché in fact. And so begat the title for this show of Paris. Taken in a few trips over 20 years, these quiet courtyards and architectural scenes depict an idyllic urban landscape.

All shot on B&W film, these recent works are large format negatives made with a 6x9 and a 6x120 panoramic camera, creating a more current and contemporary view on familiar themes.

The negatives were scanned and printed as archival, fibre prints with a Durst Lambda enlarger. Elevator is one of a dozen spots in the world where this kind of quality and archival craftsmanship can be achieved.

In addition to being a photographer, Kevin is co-owner and partner in Elevator.

Guillaume Zuili

Guillaume was born in 1965 in Paris, France; by the age of 21 he became a photographer. He has been a member of VU Agency (Paris) since 1992 and currently works for the French press, Liberation, Le Monde, Telerama, Le Nouvel Obs.

Beginning in 1986 through to 1995 he traveled extensively in India. From the work done during those years he published 2 Books, the first in 1992 followed in 2001 by the second. Both books relate to the French settlements in India.

Since 1996 his work has followed a motif revolving around memory in Europe. Using double exposure to reveal the complexity and layers that built different cities: Berlin, Moscow, paris, Prague, Lisbon. In 2002 he moved to Los Angeles as a correspondent for VU Agency and French magazines. At the same time his work changed to record the myth of California. Within the portfolio presented here you will find a sampling of Los Angeles efforts.

Recent Exhibitions:

• June 2008: "Exposed Cities" , Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles
• August 2007: "Go West", Deborah Page Gallery, Santa Monica
• May 2007: "Paris Double exposure", Hermes Gallery, Toronto.
• June 2006: "VU a Paris", Book and Exhibition, Pitie-Salpetriere, Paris.

Past Exhibitions:

• 1998: "Double Exposure", Blanc Manteaux Gallery, Paris.
• 1998: "India", La Passerelle Gallery, Gap, France.
• 1996: "Cafes Parisiens", Le Carre Gallery, Paris.
• 1992: "India Pondichery", Espace George V, Paris.

Touring exhibitions:

• 1992 to 1995: Exhibition tour "India, Pondichery" all over French Alliances in India.
• 1990 to 1992: Exhibition tour "India-Pondichery" all over FNAC Galleries in France.

Collective show and Fairs :

• Paris-Photo with Gallery VU since the beginning.
• Numerous collective shows.

Steven James Brown

John Douglass Callow

Bob Carnie

Joe Cornish

Joanne de Boehmler

Denis Lalonde

Mark Nowaczynski

Osheen Harruthoonyan

Laura Paterson Carnie

Mark Loren Freedman

Dylan Ellis Gallery

This new gallery at our space in Leaside marks the beginning of an even greater commitment to making and selling photography at Elevator. This very special gallery will honour the work of world-renowned photographers who are committed to their craft and to the process of photography.

The inaugural opening on Thursday, October 16, 2008 will showcase the work of British photographer Joe Cornish. Cornish is known for his large format landscapes.

Working mainly with 4x5 cameras, his images have been featured in many photography magazines, including Outdoor Photography. He has also authored several books of his images, teaches landscape photography, and owns two public galleries in Britain.

Three additional bodies of photographic works will be showcased on that evening: Colours of Venice by Joanne deBoehmler, B&W works by Denis Lalonde, and "Beaucoup de fromage" Images of Paris by Kevin Viner.

This gallery will also honour the young man for whom it is named. Dylan Ellis was an integral member of the Elevator team for several years and he knew what it meant to take a good picture, and to make an even better print. We have missed Dylan immensely since his death in June; not only for the wonderful person he was, but also for the contribution he made to our work and the talent, energy and care he put into every job.

With this gallery we honour not just his memory, but all that he would have contributed to the world - the photographic world and beyond.

• March 22 - April 20 Kevin Kellar, Steelwork
• April 22 - May 26th - Sue Russell, The Remainder Project
• May 27 - June 22 - Michelle Maria Kemble - A celebration of spirit

Bob Carnie
Partner

Kevin Viner
Partner

Dylan Ellis Gallery

105 Vanderhoof Avenue,
Toronto, ON M4G 2H7
Hours: M-f 9am to 5pm;
Sat. noon - 5pm
Sun. by Appointment
416.406.3131 • 888.470.7555
info@elevatordigital.ca  

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