2009 Banff Mountain Photography Competition
Grand Prize
Nathalie Daoust: Tamas —Frozen in Time
“This series of photographs was taken in Switzerland during a six month residency exchange between Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and the Christoph Merian Foundation. During this stay, I was struck by the immanence and perpetuity of the Alps, as well as by the eerie perfection of its overpowering peaks. Compelled to carefully register a response to this physical environment, these photographs reveal an acute sensitivity to the landscape, a fleeting moment standing still. I sought to maintain not only the memory of the place, but also my own state of mind while contemplating the scenery: that of someone who felt suspended in time and trapped in a surreal world. These feelings arose from the discomforting perception of abandonment and desolation that appeared when facing a landscape that seemed flawless, physically creating a sensation that falls between lightness and restlessness. Artistic treatment: black and white photographs taken with a pinhole camera, subsequently hand-coloured.”
Nathalie Daoust was born in Montreal, where she studied photography at the Cegep du Vieux-Montreal before moving to New York City to start working on New York Hotel Story, her first solo published photography book. In 2001 she moved for a period of two years to Japan to document the red light district of Tokyo. Since then she has created several new thematic projects including Entre Quatre Murs, Berlin, Street Kiss, Brazil, and Frozen in Time, Switzerland, and has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Poland, Finland, France, Spain, England, and Japan. Her photographs have been the subject of many publications and have been awarded several prizes.
Français
Español
Deutsch