Darwin Wiggett Photographs Canada

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

The first feature of this book to be noticed is its awkward size. In a
coffee-table book big is good, but when a book is too big to hold
comfortably, size becomes a negative.

The next to grab our attention is color. This album of landscapes could
have been called “the colors of Canada.” Most of the 81 photos have
a color theme and use color to present a new way of looking at a
Canadian scene. This very imaginative use of color (which to a
photographer means light) gives the viewer a new perspective on and a
new appreciation of our countryside. By playing up the dominant color in
a scene, Wiggett turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, the familiar
into the exotic.

Traditionally, photographers go to hard-to-reach places and bring back
shots of scenes we would never expect to see for ourselves. Here, too,
Wiggett’s collection is different. Most of the shots were taken from
the side of the highway or from easy-to-access paths in popular parks.
In other words, he shows us what we could easily see everyday, if we
paused to look, and had his eye for color. He shows us the
breathtakingly beautiful scenes at our doorstep.

All provinces, as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories are
represented in the collection. An appendix gives the technical
photographic specs for each shot.

Clear your coffee table. This oversized album has earned the space.