TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING: An Interview with Geoffrey James

Lethbridge, Alberta
It’s not every photographer that can claim to have officially been named ‘Photo Laureate’ of a
major city, or to have one of their first ever professional photographs immortalized on a postage
stamp, but Toronto photographer Geoffrey James can, on both counts. My sister, who now
makes her living as a wedding and portrait photographer, was James’ lab assistant after she
graduated college in the early 2000s, when James was still working in a dark room using the
gelatin-silver process, and I became familiar with his work then. Born in the UK, he found
himself in Philadelphia in the sixties working as a reporter at the now-defunct Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin. He later moved to Canada where, over a fascinating career, he has straddled
landscape, architectural and street photography, always with a rigorous point of view that
examines both ideal spaces - gardens and parks - and spaces where civilization has altered and
impacted the natural world. His work can be found i...