Our natural world around us has suffered as yet to be assessed damage. We remember the physical treasures of woodland and flowers. And by sheer fortuitousness a new photography exhibit has just opened at the Almonte Library that will enable us to forever fix those previous memories and hopefully give us encouragement in nature's ability to renew itself.
 
Majestic forest glades, a quiet laneway, morning mists, the surfaces of a hunting "camp", closeups of fallen logs and wild flowers as gems set in greenery move in front of our eyes reflecting Peter Wright's quest for quietness and centeredness that he wants to convey to the viewer.
Nine of the photographs were taken on or within 100 yards of his property on the 7th line of Beckwith, the rest are of Lanark County and a sturdy oak was seen in Goulburn.
 
For camera buffs; he uses a large format camera with 4" by 7" negatives that enable the tonality in black and white to be smoother, colour to be more saturated and a depth of field that encourages the viewing of all detail no matter how small. He personally prints the black and whites while the coloured prints are done professionally from slides.
 
However the remarkable colour print of the floating leaf ( from a negative) allows him to produce a subtle "painterly" effect not too different from an oil painting. The informal placement of the leaf on the left against the larger area of many layered colours on the right speak of Peter Wright's surity in chosing his compositions.
 
The real tour de force is his use of infra red film that creates an ethereal, mystic light glow in the forest glade photographs taken at dawn. They are the stuff of dreams.
 
He grew up in Rosemere, Quebec, surrounded by woods and farmland on the Riviere des Milles Iles. At twelve years he borrowed his mother's Brownie, later buying a Russian 35mm"Zenith" with saved up paper route money. He was taught by a family member to develop and print his own film. Then he became involved in high school newspaper and year book photography and editing under the guidance of a teacher.
 
Finding that community college and the early term of university took him away from his passion to photograph he left schooling, purchased a Nikon with his reimbursed tuition fee to walk all over Montreal looking and photographing. However the need to be gainfully employed in a profession brought him to Concordia to study computer science where he received a summer grant to work in Tennessee as well as becoming entranced by it's landscape.
 
Peter Wright is a perfect example of the youth who needed time to search out his own vision while recognizing the need to be a productive member of the community.
 
Reva Dolgoy
Through the Eye of the Camera