Canada: A Landscape Portrait

Andrew E. West was a librarian at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto.

Canada: A Landscape Portrait presents the reader with a selection of photographs by 42 of Canada’s foremost nature photographers.

The work begins with an essay by Robert Fulford in which he describes how the geography has shaped our country. Although this theme is not new, it deserves careful reading for its own sake while at the same time providing an excellent introduction.

Janis Kraulis discusses, in an editor’s essay, the relationship of photography, and in particular landscape photography, to the other art forms: “In the final analysis, of course, photography is a medium all its own, with only partial links with any other single medium. Its validity, its value as an art lies precisely in the degree to which it can be differentiated from the other art forms. The differences are especially marked in the case of landscape photography.”

The book consists of 84 colour photographs and 12 black and whites. There is only one plate per page with the name of the artist, the nature of the subject, and the place where it was photographed appearing above or just to the side of each plate. In this respect the layout is excellent, placing as it does all the information with the photograph.

The contributions vary from a single photograph to thirteen by Egon Bork. Some pictures verge on the impressionistic, while others are truly still life. The reader will have his/her favourite picture, but all can take pleasure in this beautiful book for revealing something of the tremendous natural beauty of Canada.