The West Coast: Barkley Sound to Combers Beach

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

The wild beauty of Vancouver Island’s West Coast draws over half a
million visitors a year to Pacific Rim National Park and the nearby
coastline and rainforests. Photographer and former resident Peter Ramos
has captured the essence of the area in this collection of 88
black-and-white “landscape portraits,” which are accompanied by his
field notes and personal musings on the subjects. This first album in a
planned series explores Barkley Sound, Ucluelet, and the southern half
of Long Beach, including Florencia Bay, Wickaninnish Centre, and Combers
Beach. The subtlety of fine black-and-white photography expresses well
the angular harshness of the rocky coastline, the granular abstraction
of wave patterns on sand, and the infinity of greys that is the
ever-changing continuum of sea, sky, and fog. Lush rainforest
vegetation, wind-tortured shoreline trees, birds, fish, and fisherfolk
are all part of the scene.

Taken over a period of about seven years in the 1990s, some of these
photographs have appeared previously in the artist’s series of West
Coast poster prints. A subsequent album will continue on from this one,
north to Tofino and Clayoquot Sound. This is an exquisite collection of
black-and-white photographic art showcasing one of Canada’s most
photogenic landscapes.