Grass and Downpour - Limited Edition 1 of 5 Photograph

In February 2022 FRAMES, a European fine art photography journal, honoured me with a lengthy profile. You can access it with this link: https://readframes.com/frames-podcast-with-harvey-schipper/ I am often asked, "What is my style?" Many comment that my work is very painterly; soft colours, abstract gestures, perhaps more mood and tone than documentation. Others posit that I'm a soft documentarian, often with a wry or subtle ironic sense. I'm neither, and as I explain below, my style is one of 'resonance'. My artistic goal in presenting an image is to take you into the moment and have you linger, even come back to consider the story further. As with a materials artist who matches material to context, my goal is to match a style with the story. It is artistic eclecticism. My intent is that the image so resonate with the moment that every aspect takes you, the viewer there. Its not the big bang of first sight, though that certainly helps. Rather I hope you will be intrigued by the emerging story, and the small details that keep bringing you back. What follows is how I got there. ............................................................................. I still have memories of the ominous knock on the darkroom door of Oakwood Collegiate in Toronto at about 2:00 a.m. when the imposing school principal, William Tovell, found me there after my parents phoned the school in a panic because their son had not come home. It was the early 1960’s and I was hooked on photography. My photographic exploits became much less intensive during the university years studying engineering and medicine. I had a camera and a few lenses and would occasionally take them on trips. I didn't do any darkroom work until many years later. Nonetheless, along the way I would go to photography exhibits, read about photography and occasionally have the pleasure of conversation with camera artists such as Yusuf Karsh. I set up a home darkroom, and began to work in color and develop some expertise in the use of Cibachrome. I began to carry my camera again. My work as a cancer researcher took me around the world, and my camera was the way I told my story. Could I become so in tune with what I experienced that, in a single image, I might convey more than the ‘facts’,-the spirit, the emotion and the context of what I saw? I began to develop a style I’ve come to call ‘resonance’. From there a show and some sales followed.