Saskatchewan photographer depicts rural life in gritty images

REGINA – A Saskatchewan photographer now living in British Columbia has documented life in small towns in western Canada.

He’s been getting recognition from international newspapers, like this 2013 article in UK paper, the Dail Mail for his gritty – sometimes shocking, images many of which were shot in Saskatchewan.

“The people I photograph are sometimes people I know or family and friends. Or, sometimes (they’re) people I’ve just met for that particular instance,” Thomas Gardiner told Focus Saskatchewan.

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Gardiner, who now lives in Vancouver, grew up in Regina before going away to art school, first at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and then at the Cooper Union college in New York City.

“It was maybe such a culture shock or something, such a different place to go to New York, when I came back, I think I gained quite an appreciation for a place where I grew up,” he explained.

Gardiner shoots on an 8 x 10 film camera: “To me, the images at the time are very alive. So I don’t really have any preconceived notions of what the image is going to be before I take it…I don’t see the images right away, so usually there’s quite a time before I see them and I’m kind of guessing and imagining what the images are going to be and then when I finally see them, usually it’s a big disappointment, but then I start to scan the image, to work on it and they come alive to me.”

You can watch Focus Saskatchewan’s full story on Thomas Gardiner on Saturday and Sunday at 6:30pm.