My work weaves together the outer world of cloud-studded skies and shimmering treescapes with the inner mysteries of stream beds and lake weeds, focusing on undulating, vividly coloured reflections created by light on moving water, or transforming the urban landscape by reflection from shop windows, car windshields and glass building facades. My approach is to create beauty not through digital manipulation and processing of images in the studio but rather through careful observation of the mirrored world around us and technical mastery of the camera to translate light into image.
Reflections fascinate me because reversing the appearance of reality causes me to observe it with a fresh outlook, and because the vagaries of light, perspective and surface qualities transmute views into a visual magic realism. I am often transported into a sort of parallel universe where interior scenes coexist with exterior vistas, catching me and the viewer in an indeterminate location within layers of spaces which, in actuality, are simultaneously before, with and behind me as I compose the photographs. It is a type of meditative state, bringing to an integrated point of resolution the duality of “inside” and “outside”.
Similar effects are achieved by shooting through transparent or translucent materials, re-casting visual information by their particular characteristics, light quality, and degrees of separation of the physical strata in view. I have learned where and when to find these transporting images, calibrating sun and sight angles and tracing them from the sky down to physical surfaces and into the view finder—in fact, the photographer is the true view finder, not the camera!
I am a professional photographer, and an expert in sustainable development and design as a partner in blueandyellow Inc. I trained in photography 1972-1976 with the late Helmut W. Schade, architectural photographer and instructor, winner of lifetime achievement award from Ontario Heritage Trust. My photography is deeply informed by my training and practice as an architect. I studied at the Carleton University School of Architecture and the Architectural Association, London, UK, and practiced in Victoria, British Columbia and Montreal, Quebec.
In 1976 I garnered first prize in the Ottawa Visual Arts photography contest.
My first solo exhibition was Magico de Baja, December 2008 in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico where I lived and worked for three years.
Organized in parallel with the June 2014 Formula 1 racing event, I staged an open-air exhibition entitled Souvenirs de Montréal, at 440 Bonsecours in Vieux Montréal.
Artefact Gallery in Knowlton, Quebec held a solo exhibit of my work - "Réflexions" - in August/September 2014.
One of my images, "It’s a Wrap!", was selected for display on a giant multi-storey digital screen in Times Square, New York City on July 24, 2014.
My work was featured in club Toyota magazine, in the Spring/Summer 2013 issue, and my photographic process was documented in their YouTube Video automne/Fall 2013: (English: http://youtu.be/-cVADgWRj4c; francais: http://youtu.be/el-Rpdts4GQ)
Recent works are in private collections in Santa Fe, Scottsdale, Los Angeles, Irvine, New York, Toronto and Montreal.
More of my work may be viewed on Instagram at petershclark, and www.flickr.com/photos/buildgreenman.