The road has always called to me; perhaps it’s part of bearing the last name, duChemin, all my life, which means “of the road.” It’s in my blood too, born to a mother who was a nurse in the RAF when she met my father, a Canadian soldier, both stationed in Cyprus in the late 1960s. Here on the road …
I’m Outta Here!
Today we packed the Jeep and hit the road. We’re heading east, across Canada to Newfoundland and Labrador, and won’t head west again until the autumn leaves begin to turn, coming back to Vancouver around October 15. Time for an adventure, some silence, and a chance to play with the light while camping for two and a half months. I’m …
A Beautiful Way to Tell Stories
The first thing I noticed about Maptia was the manifesto, one I can buy into with my whole heart. I, David duChemin, want to see the world. Follow a map to its edges, and keep going. Forgo the plans. Trust my instincts. Let curiosity be my guide. I want to change hemispheres & sleep with unfamiliar stars and let the …
The Hunger & The Hype
I spent this morning with my coffee and Instagram, Facebook turned off for the sake of my spirit. More and more I wrestle with leaving Facebook. I’m not sure (m)any of us are wired for such a constant stream of hyperbole and hysteria. I know I’m not. It’s become so, so noisy and then I open Instagram, a social media …
The Adventure Resumes
It’s been a weird few months. After an incredible adventure in January and February – Lalibela, Ethiopia, then Kenya’s Maasai Mara, then diving in Zanzibar – I came home to (yet another) foot surgery and (yet another) recovery, one I didn’t write much about because I’m getting a little self-conscious about just how many times I reference the fall …
2013 Retrospective
Kenya, January 2013. It’s the nature of time to go too quickly. Maybe that’s one of the reasons photography works so well for me: in making time one of our raw materials we pay more attention to it, honouring it down to thousandths of a second, more present, more perceptive. I wish paying more attention slowed it down somewhat, and …
Hokkaido Landscapes with Martin Bailey
I fell in love with Hokkaido, Japan, last year. I joined Martin Bailey as a guest on his Winter Wonderland tour, and spent almost two weeks photographing monkeys, cranes, eagles, and beautiful landscapes. I wanted more of the landscapes and Martin and I talked long and hard about the possibilities. So the second he started getting serious about running a …
Christmas Presence.
In the coming days, if you’ve not done so already you’ll see all kinds of articles about making better holiday photographs. They’ll be filled with advice from the banal and obvious, to the dubiously helpful. Mostly they’ll be written to drag people to their blogs, and increase traffic, when those same people should just shut the laptop and be with …
SEVEN+ AND A NEW C&V WEBSITE
SEVEN+ IS NOW AVAILABLE When I launched SEVEN, my limited edition book, earlier this year, we offered a special edition that included an expanded digital edition. 200 pages long, SEVEN+ was a chance for people who purchased the uber-edition to look at the work on a bus, a plane, anywhere you weren’t going to take a 4lb book that cost …
November Desktop Wallpaper
Desktop Wallpaper from Hokkaido, Japan, last winter. Enjoy! I’ve just got back from a nice road trip – one that took me for the first time in almost two years over the US border. Let’s just say I’ve had some unnecessary issues stemming from a decision to live nomadically with no fixed address a couple years ago. Anyways, there’s some …