Overview

George Webber's poignant black-and-white photographs transport us into the forgotten, unknowable communities of the Canadian prairies. Throughout the journey, we're confronted by the mysterious particulars of life, death, landscape and faith. Intimate portraits and the hard facts of the place are woven together to create a body of work that is by turns inspiring, consoling and sometimes achingly sad. Individually, these works startle and challenge. As a collection, they represent a photographer's decades-long meditation on the ever-changing face of the Canadian West.

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9781927330272

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Reviews

Calgary photographer George Webber's moody black-and-white photographs seem to violate any sense of the wide-open spaces of clich�d flatland lore. In this coffee-table book that features a 10-page essay by Alberta writer Aritha van Herk, Webber's skies are overcast, more often than not, and towns are small and vulnerable, their bedraggled buildings tottering on the edges of rutted roads. Webber's interiors have a similar cramped and mothballed quality, and the people that occupy them are often elderly, with faces as weathered as slumping barns, yet resolute in their steadfast gaze. Collectively, Webber's images seem a visual dirge to what van Herk calls a place beyond place - the country he documents something we feel in our bones and cannot help but look at, again and again.--Galleries West-- (05/21/2013)

Calgary photographer George Webber's moody black-and-white photographs seem to violate any sense of the wide-open spaces of cliched flatland lore. In this coffee-table book that features a 10-page essay by Alberta writer Aritha van Herk, Webber's skies are overcast, more often than not, and towns are small and vulnerable, their bedraggled buildings tottering on the edges of rutted roads. Webber's interiors have a similar cramped and mothballed quality, and the people that occupy them are often elderly, with faces as weathered as slumping barns, yet resolute in their steadfast gaze. Collectively, Webber's images seem a visual dirge to what van Herk calls a place beyond place - the country he documents something we feel in our bones and cannot help but look at, again and again.--Galleries West-- (05/21/2013)

Author Information

George Webber is a renowned documentary photographer whose previous books include Prairie Gothic (RMB 2012) and Last Call (RMB 2010). He is the recipient of numerous National Magazine Awards (Canada), two Awards of Excellence from the Society for News Design (USA) and the International Documentary Photography Award (Korea). His photographs have been featured in American Photo, Canadian Geographic, Lenswork Quarterly, Photolife, The New York Times and Swerve magazine. In 1999 he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in recognition of his contributions to the visual arts in Canada. Aritha van Herk is an award-winning Canadian writer whose work has been acclaimed throughout North America and Europe. Her books include Judith, The Tent Peg, No Fixed Address, Places Far From Ellesmere, Restlessness, In Visible Ink, A Frozen Tongue and Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta. She first worked with George Webber on the photography book In This Place, published by Frontenac House. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, and a professor who teaches Canadian literature and creative writing in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. Aritha lives in Calgary, Alberta.

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