People Who Make a Difference

Pauline Carey is the author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

This collection of more than 100 black-and-white photographs of
Canadians who have made a difference reminds us that we have much to be
proud of. Some of the photographs jump off the page: a semi-nude shot of
the musical group Barenaked Ladies; the riveting eyes of filmmaker Atom
Egoyan; the closed eyes of actor Brent Carver, who stands half-hidden in
shadow. Other photographs—such as Thomas King’s uncompromising
portraits and the quiet directness of W. Shane Smith’s heads—are
deceptively simple. Heather Graham makes effective use of backgrounds in
her portraits of Richard Heinzl, David Mackin, and Douglas Cardinal.

The book, a project of Photographers and Friends United Against AIDS,
includes a foreword by Margaret Atwood, as well as brief biographies of
the photographers and journalists. Each photograph is accompanied by a
short commentary, which appears in both French and English. People Who
Make a Difference demonstrates that the more one looks, the more one
sees.