West Coast Impressions: The Dynamic British Columbia Landscape

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This handsomely produced book consists largely of Paul Gilbert’s fine
colour photography. Gilbert has been photographing wild places in North
America for 17 years. He also gives workshops, teaches classes in
photography, and serves as a guide for photography/hiking tours in the
Rocky Mountains.

Many of Gilbert’s photos in West Coast Impressions are of Vancouver
Island and the Queen Charlottes, including scenes from Pacific Rim
National Park, Carmanah Valley, and the coastal mountains. Subtle
colours of sunrise and sunset are captured through long exposures.
Others seem serendipitous, like the morning light on a feather resting
on ripples of sand. Wildflowers are a favorite subject.

Kathryn Graham’s text is brief and poetic. Her short essays serve to
group the photographs under such headings as “Colour,”
“Presence,” “Edge” and “Light.” The book also includes
technical information and some advice to amateur nature photographers.
Like many books of nature photography, West Coast Impressions is a plea
for the preservation of the beauty it celebrates, and a reminder of just
how vulnerable that beauty now is.