Daily Photo Dose

By May of 2022, photography assignments were finally beginning to trickle back in after a long stretch of uncertainty. Like many photographers emerging from the pandemic, I was saying yes to just about every opportunity that came my way. When my friend and colleague Nathan Elson called and asked if I could help out on a shoot at an Alberta oil rig, I didn’t hesitate. There was only one catch: if I wanted to get on site, the beard had to go.

So the night before the shoot, I found myself in a motel bathroom shaving off years of facial hair in exchange for a day of work. At that point, getting back on set and working alongside other photographers felt worth the sacrifice.

My role was simple—help move gear, lend a hand where needed, and support the production. Fortunately, I was also able to bring along my Widelux panoramic camera and make a few photographs of my own behind the scenes. The Widelux’s panoramic 35mm format felt perfectly suited to the scale of the oil rig, allowing me to capture both the industrial environment and the people working within it.

These images were made during a time when the photography industry was slowly finding its footing again. Looking back, they document more than an Alberta oil rig—they capture a moment when work, travel, and creative opportunities were beginning to return. Shot on a Widelux panoramic camera using 35mm film, these behind-the-scenes photographs are a reminder that sometimes the most memorable assignments begin with simply saying yes.

On March 19, 2022, I headed into downtown Calgary to document one of the many demonstrations that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a professional photographer, I had spent much of the previous two years watching assignments disappear and work slow dramatically. Like many people, my routines had been disrupted, and I found myself spending far less time with a camera in my hands than I was accustomed to. The protest offered an opportunity to dust off my camera, get back out into the city, and document the world around me once again.

Debates surrounding vaccines, public health measures, and government mandates had become deeply divisive, and the so called “Freedom Protest” reflected just how polarized public opinion had become. Rather than participating, my goal was simply to observe and create a photographic record of the moment.

For this series, I photographed the protest using a Widelux panoramic camera on black and white 35mm film. The Widelux’s swing-lens design allowed me to capture a much broader view of the scene than a conventional camera, placing individuals within the larger crowd and providing context that would have been difficult to achieve in a standard frame. The panoramic format felt particularly well suited to documenting public demonstrations, where the scale of the gathering is often as important as any individual subject.

Black and white film helped simplify the images, drawing attention to expressions, signs, gestures, and interactions rather than color. Looking back, these photographs are less about politics and more about documenting a moment in Calgary’s history when conversations around personal freedom, public health, and government policy dominated daily life. Regardless of perspective, the images serve as a visual record of a period that shaped communities across Canada and around the world, while also marking my own return to documenting life beyond my front door.

See more of my widelux work here.

Widelux 35mm panoramic of a taxi in Chicago IL, USA. 2019.

Waterton Lakes National Park shot on the Widelux F7 and hand processed.

Another great use of the widelux camera, showing the entire space in one shot! Here’s master craftsman Elliot Mereski in his wood working shop.

Construction of the new Scotia bank on 1st Ave in Lethbridge, shot on the widelux panoramic camera.

Lethbridge’s Shanghai Chop Suey in the Burns Building, shot on a widelux with CineStill 800t 35mm film.

Shot on 35mm film from a widelux camera looking down 4th Ave towards the Paramount Building, and the Post Office clock tower.

Sunrise hike in the mountains. Widelux shot was taken from the top of Bears hump.

The aftermath of a fire that destroyed three houses just a few doors down from our home. Such a tragic and terrifying day.

Photographing The Tragically Hip was one of those assignments that felt significant at the time, but became even more meaningful in hindsight. While covering one of the band’s tour stops in Canada, I spent most of the evening creating digital images for the assignment, but I also carried a Widelux panoramic film camera loaded with Cinestill 800T film. Between songs and moments on stage, I exposed a handful of panoramic frames that captured the energy of the performance in a way that felt very different from my digital work.

The Widelux is a unique 35mm panoramic camera that uses a rotating swing lens to create an exceptionally wide image. For concert photography, the format allows the entire stage, lighting design, and atmosphere of a performance to exist within a single frame. Combined with Cinestill 800T, a tungsten-balanced film known for its rich saturation and distinctive rendering of artificial light, the resulting photographs captured the vivid stage colors and mood of the show in a way that immediately stood apart from the digital images.

What makes these photographs especially meaningful to me today is that this would be my first and last opportunity to photograph The Tragically Hip. At the time, none of us knew that Gord Downie would later announce his diagnosis and that his passing would mark the end of an era for one of Canada’s most beloved bands. Looking back, these panoramic film photographs have become more than concert images—they are a record of a moment that can never be repeated.

Photographed on a Widelux panoramic camera with Cinestill 800T film, these images remain some of my favorite examples of film concert photography, combining the unique perspective of a swing-lens camera with the unforgettable atmosphere of a live performance by The Tragically Hip.