Dylan Leeder - Contact Correspondent

The Contact Photography Festival is going on in Toronto and usually at least one of the faculty members makes it down to see some of the shows.  Unfortunately, this year we are unable to attend so we asked a few of our Alumni in Toronto to give us their impressions of the Contact Festival shows.

Alumni Dylan Leeder is one of our Contact Correspondents here is his impressions of some of the Contact shows in Toronto's historic Distillery District:

As many of you may know Toronto hosts the annual Contact Photography Festival every month of May. During Contact over 200 different venues hosts photographers work from Toronto and all over the world.  For any photographer this is a must attend event. During the month the whole city is buzzing with a passion for photography - you can easily spend a whole day hopping gallery-to-gallery getting inspired by different styles of photography or even attend workshops by world famous photographers to learn their secrets.  Basically… Contact has the power to inspire any photographer.

My first trip out I spent an afternoon walking around The Distillery District. In just 3 hours I was able to check out 12 different showings and heres what I thought…

 Cabinet Gallery - Image By Dylan Leeder 

Cabinet Gallery – “Afterimage” by Jeffrey Berman
Described by the artist as an “exploration of the stories shadows tell”. All images were of shadows - an every day subject we may take for granted. With shooting shadows comes the obvious use of contrast and I found the artist realized this producing a series of high contrasted images. An interesting showing having been displayed in a furniture store – so you could also buy a 4200$ table while you were there.

______________________

Arta Gallery – “Land Escapes” by Laura Carnie, Bob Carnie, Mark Freedman, Dennis Lalonde

Laura Carnie - “Dream Escapes”
A collection of photos taken with infrared film over a period of twenty years. The images expressed a look of genuine innocence through life, community and other rural areas. I found the use of B&W film with a high grain really helped to express the sense of nostalgia.

Bob Carnie – “Heavy Metal”
A photo-series based strictly around metal objects - all developed “through a solarization process in a wet darkroom with heavy handed manipulation”. I found the darkroom techniques were well used to bring unison between a potentially mundane subject matter.

Mark Freedman – “Landescapes”
Described by the artist as “environmental portraits that highlight the intimate interplay between creature and habitat”. I found the images to be some of the most compelling of my trip that day. The animal portraits were intimate to the point that it seemed as though they were posing and the landscapes were extremely strong through impressive use of composition. An overall powerful documentation of life in the arctic.

Denis Lalonde – “Autogalaxies”
This series was extremely rich in texture – the images made me wonder what they were of and in most cases I came to the conclusion that they were macro shots of either metals or liquids. Initially I found myself taking the photos very literally wondering what the texture was but then I began comparing the images to the landscapes of space.

______________________

Archeo - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Archeo – Grand Bruit, Newfoundland by Johan Hallberg-Campbell
An interesting showing as it was laid out in a beautiful restaurant. The images were all taken from Newfoundland and depicted some of the classic images of colorful waterfront towns but what stood out to me was an image of a deck of cards. The artist was able to produce images that went out of the stereotypical Newfoundland scenes but still fit in perfectly with the series.

______________________

Boiler House - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Boiler House – Place To Call Home by Jesse Louttit
Another showing inside a grand, classy bar. I found the images struck a sort of nostalgic feeling with photos of tree houses, clothes lines, and fields. I found the images were brought together nicely through the constant use of greens throughout. My favourites of this series were two identical images of a fence in front of a big bush but one was taken during winter and one during summer.

______________________

Corkin Gallery – Andre Kertesz in Toronto
Photographs by a now deceased master photographer the series are images taken strictly from his visits to Toronto. The showing was of many images that were no larger than 8x10s. Although a lot of the images seemed to be a “behind the scenes” of the photographers life I became particularly intrigued by a few of a ballerina on a hardwood floor. I found this showing was more to bring light to the artist himself rather than the work he was showing.

Corkin Gallery – Wolfgang Keuchl
An interesting series derived of strictly Polaroid’s. I found what made the series interesting was the medium in which he was so confident in. The images of every day objects became masterpieces based on the respect he had for Polaroid’s. My particular favorites were images built of 9 different Polaroid’s of one object – making the perspective skewed. You can also get a blown up print of a Polaroid for only $22,000!

______________________

Proof Gallery - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Proof Gallery – F&G by John Drajewicz, Natalie Drajewicz, Sheila Jonah
The images were primarily of doors and windows taken in different cities around the world. The photos were all with very rich, warm colors. Taken by three different photographers I found it impressive how they maintained a unison between each photo even though they were all seen through different eyes.

______________________

Balzac's Coffee House - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Balzac's Coffee House – Wander by Maihyet Burton and Marjolyn Van der Hart
An interesting series that were all done through the use of mixed media (prints and paper mache). The images were of a similar theme of people in water. Although the prints were clearly relied on post-production and mixed media I found it would not have been nearly as intriguing without.

______________________

Pikto Gallery - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Pikto Gallery – Urban Shadows by Carlos Cazalis
Definitely my favourite showing from my day in the Distillery District. Carlos Cazalis images were right up my alley as they were all moody, dark images from around the world. Through the use of shadow and contrast the images provided a wonderfully dark mood that makes the viewer curious of the relation between the subject and their surroundings.

Pikto - Image by Dylan Leeder 

Pikto also decided to put half of his showings outside on the walls of the distillery district. At first, because of my appreciation of prints, I thought that this was a bad idea but after discussing it with Pikto’s owner, Andre, he explained that they’re printed on a biodegradable vinyl that does not damage to liquid and is environmentally friendly. Under the image they also included the line “Can you tell us which city?” with a #piktocontact hashtag – Andre explained that this was to get people thinking further into the image while also encouraging viewers to get involved with the Contact festival through twitter.

______________________

We would like to thank Dylan for taking the time to write up his thoughts on these Contact shows and for the awesome pics.

Take a look at some of Dylan's great work online: flickr, web and blog.