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Using a 113-year-old camera to capture Island farm life

Ken Miner hatched an idea two years ago to fuse farmers and photography. In doing so, the Victoria photographer discovered a small but dedicated group of farmers age 60 and up who play an important role in local food production.

Ken Miner hatched an idea two years ago to fuse farmers and photography. In doing so, the Victoria photographer discovered a small but dedicated group of farmers age 60 and up who play an important role in local food production.

“I grew up in rural Manitoba, so I know about farming a little bit,” Miner said. “But to hear the stories about the challenges they have here in B.C. is really interesting. And I can only imagine it’s going to get more so.”

Miner brought his idea and an 113-year-old Century View camera to staff at the Cowichan Green Community Society, a non-profit organization focused on environmental sustainability in the Cowichan Valley.

His intention was to capture farmers and food producers in their natural environment via “wet plate collodion” photography, an antique photographic process that dates to 1851.

He was unsure of how many subjects he could find who were worthy of inclusion in the book, but he had no such reservations about the photography itself. The time-consuming process of wet-plate photography lends itself beautifully to just about anything, he said.

“You can lose yourself in looking at these photographs. They have a different quality than a digital photograph, because the [subject] is giving themselves to the process, too.

“It’s like I’m a facilitator and the chemistry and the [subject] have to work together to get the image. People have to be a willing participant in the process, rather than rattling off 30 or 40 shots and walking away.”

With federal funding from the New Horizons for Seniors program, Miner and Vanessa Goodall, a co-ordinator with the society, decided to not only take photographs of food producers but let them tell their own unique stories.

The result is Of Land and Sea: Portraits of Coastal Food Producers, which is set to be unveiled in 2016 as a coffee-table book and Island-wide gallery tour. The goal of the project was to showcase the diversity of foods being produced on Vancouver Island, along with the producers themselves.

“They work quite hard to produce the food that is available locally,” Goodall said. “If there’s potential for the project to do a bit of marketing for farmers at the same time, that would be a great secondary outcome.”

At this point, Goodall and Miner have made connections with producers from Metchosin, Sooke, Victoria, Cowichan, Comox and Salt Spring Island. The plan is to capture farmers and food producers from up-Island as well.

“It would be great to see what is being produced north of Campbell River,” Goodall said. “We want this to be as broad and representative as possible.”

Based on their funding, the project has room for only 20 food producers from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Goodall said they were able to broaden their reach — be it farmers or fishermen to niche markets such as seed production and cheese or honey producers — so that the range of topics covered in Of Land and Sea: Portraits of Coastal Food Producers is considerable.

“We’re not looking specifically at agriculture, but the broader food systems as a whole. We’re looking mainly at those commercially engaged but on a small scale.”

Miner has shot only three of his 20 subjects thus far, but the process has been illuminating. Each photograph takes roughly 15 minutes from setup to completion, so the shoot requires patience, he said. He plans to spend four to six hours on each farm to capture the whole experience.

“I’ll talk to the people, get a tour of the place, see what they do, and pick a location for the photographs. Taking the shot will take the most time, but I also sit down and do an interview.”

Miner expects to shoot four photographs of each subject, which will give the gallery showing an added boost in terms of content. That said, they are always looking for more stories and more food producers. “We’re hoping to be able to do two or three showcases on Vancouver Island,” Goodall said.

“Others will be determined upon their availability, so we’re not going to say that we’re limited to those, in case an opportunity comes up that might work.”

To participate in the project, contact Vanessa Goodall of the Cowichan Green Community Society at 250-748-8506. She can also be reached via email at vanessa@ cowichangreencommunity.org.

For more information on the photography of Ken Miner, go to zuludog.ca.

mdevlin@timescolonist.com