In a rare but welcome deviation from the norm, this month's artist of the month is actually two artists! Larry McTaggart and Terry Bunston will both display their photography this month.
After a chance meeting seven years ago at the Happy Gang, McTaggart and Bunston became fast friends and both shared the same love of photography. Because of this, they often go out together to take photos.
For McTaggart, he's always had an interest in art, although getting to be a photographer was a lifelong journey. Having initially been interested in drawing, McTaggart says he instead took photography up instead, as he believed he didn't have the talent for drawing.
"I originally started photography in 1974, old film cameras. I was in the military and I did black and white for over a year because I could bulk load the film, it was cheap. And when I got out of the military in 1982 I didn't have time for photography," McTaggart said.
As McTaggart adjusted to post-military life and found the time for photography again, the switch to digital cameras threw another wrench in his plans. It wasn't until he retired in 2004 when he reignited his love for photography with digital cameras, which eventually lead up to the beautiful pictures displayed in the library!
As most people who try to take a photo with their phone camera know, it isn't always easy to capture the beauty of nature through a picture. For Bunston, he explained his process is finding something he thinks would look good, and then finding how to accentuate it through editing.
"It's whatever you think would look good, you see something and you take a photograph of it. Or you might just take a shot down a valley or something and we get it home, we put it on the computer and you blow it up and you think 'oh, that piece that looks really good.' So you you crop it down to the piece that you like... a lot of this stuff is done on computer. You go from there you can pick the pieces of the photograph that you want," Bunston said.
For Bunston and McTaggart both, editing plays a huge role in their photography. While finding great opportunities and angles is difficult enough for many to master, they both take it the extra step to really make their photos shine. McTaggart explained it's because they take RAW photos, rather than JPEGs, which allows you to mold a photo to turn it into art.
"Because you shoot in RAW, there's so much you can do with it. It's like you've got an apple pie, if you shoot in the JPEG all you can do is put ice cream on it. In a RAW file, you have all the ingredients. You can put in or take out whatever you want," McTaggart said.
"Rail Tressle" by Larry McTaggart.He explained this photo initially had what he called a boring sky, but through editing he was able to create this beautiful scene
Both men use editing as a fantastic tool to create their art, but ultimately editing can only take you so far if your source material isn't great. Bunston explained there's many things to take into consideration prior to taking a photo, like properly framing your subject. He used his photo "Ya Bu" as an example.
"Ya Bu" by Terry Bunston"You see a lot of space in front of them, when you're taking shots of animals or anything like that, you need the space so that they can fly, they can move, they can go out," Bunston said.
Both Bunston and McTaggart said their love of photography mainly comes from the satisfaction of seeing what you can create, as well as successfully hitting goals or objectives you may set for yourself. Another big aspect is being able to share their creations and share the beauty they found in the world, as well as improve from any potential advice or feedback they receive from the community.
If you're interested in purchasing their art you can do so at the library, or contact them at:
Larry McTaggart: larry_mctaggart@shaw.ca
Terry Bunston: tdbunston@gmail.com
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Sat, May 4, 10:00 AM
