“I may not know who I am, but I know where I am from.”
Wallace Stegner,Wolf Willow
I have photographed the Saskatchewan prairie for over forty years and have developed an abiding attachment to the land. I began to realize how profoundly the prairie landscape influenced my seeing when, early on, I spent a year in California and could only photograph the sea with its strong horizontal divide near the middle of my viewfinder. Traveling over the years, I have often photographed landscapes reminiscent of the prairie.
In this book project, I place Saskatchewan prairie landscapes alongside photographs from other places that are reminiscent of the prairie—Europe, Central America, Tuscany, the United States, and other Canadian provinces
A number of artists have reflected on how growing up on the prairies has had a profound influence on their work. Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings reflect the “barren beauty” of the plains. Wright Morris said of the prairie that it:
“conditioned what I see, what I look for, and what I find in the world to write about. The plain is a metaphysicallandscape...Where there is almost nothing to see, there man sees the most.”
I left Saskatchewan for British Columbia ten years ago. I return regularly to photograph my adopted homeland. Photographing the prairie is my strength. But, my strength is also a limitation as I am less and less interested in photographing other places.
Were you and I to drive the plains together, and the day turned out to be a good one, we might not say much. We might get out of the truck at a crossroads, stretch, walk a little ways, and then walk back. Maybe the lark would sing. Maybe we would stand for a while, all views to the horizon, all roads interesting. We might find there a balance of form and openness, even of community and freedom. It would be the world as we had hoped, and we would recognize it together.