Fitzpatrick is a photographer, curator, and researcher. His work from the mid-1980s, such as Research Photographs, 1984, and Work with Artifacts, 1985, examins the production of knowledge by exploring archival, scientific, and cultural institutions. He is a member of the Atomic Photographers Guild, a collective established in 1987 by Robert Del Tredici to call attention to the impact and legacy of the nuclear era and atomic power. Fitzpatrick is a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Image: Blake Fitzpatrick, Biomechanics Lab—Biomechanical Models, 1984, Kodak paper, type “C” colour print, 40.6 x 50.7 cm, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario.

For further reading, see:

Fitzpatrick, Blake. “Atomic Photographs in a Fallout Shelter.” In The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada, edited by Carol Payne and Andrea Kunard, 195–211. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.

Murray, Joan. Blake Fitzpatrick: Photographs of Science. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1988.

Fleming was a missionary, photographer, and filmmaker who came to Canada in 1906. He led mission work in the Arctic and trained to become a priest in Toronto, eventually being appointed the Anglican Bishop of the Arctic in 1927. Fleming produced many photographs of Indigenous peoples, Arctic communities, and landscapes for his reports and lantern slide shows, and for publications such as Dwellers in the Arctic Night (1928) and Archibald the Arctic (1929).

Image: Archibald Lang Fleming, Community of Akalvik, NWT, 1930, gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 11.5 cm, General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada, Toronto.

For further reading, see:

Geller, Peter G. Northern Exposure: Photographing and Filming the Canadian North, 1920-45. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004, 4, 135, 176.

Born in Newfoundland, Foote worked in a wide variety of jobs on the East Coast before moving to Winnipeg in 1902. There he ran a successful photography studio with another commercial photographer, George James. For more than four decades, Foote photographed many aspects of urban life, from royal visits to the construction of the legislative building. Among his best-known photographs are those of the Winnipeg General Strike (1919), showing crowds of protesters and police violence. Between 1916 and 1945, Foote photographed crime scenes as the official photographer for the Winnipeg Coroner’s office. His work is held in the Archives of Manitoba.

Image: L.B. Foote, 1919 Strike June 10th Portage Avenue, at corner of Main Street Crowd outside drug store, during street demonstration Tuesday afternoon, June 10, 1919, gelatin silver print, Winnipeg Free Press Archives.

For further reading, see:

Jones, Esyllt W. Imagining Winnipeg: History through the Photographs of L. B. Foote. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012.

Smith, Doug, and Michael Olito. The Best Possible Face: L.B. Foote’s Winnipeg. Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1985.

Famed Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank moved to Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 1969 and split his time between there and New York for the rest of his life. Frank is best known for The Americans, his 1958 book of documentary photographs. After its publication, Frank moved away from straight photography into film and video, though he continued to make manipulated photographs and collage work. Frank’s presence in Canada had an impact on photographers and artists, particularly as he occasionally taught filmmaking and lectured at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University). Sick of Goodby’s, 1978, printed 1979, was made in Mabou after the death of his daughter.

Image: Robert Frank, Sick of Goodby’s, 1978, printed 1979, gelatin silver print, 35.3 x 27.9 cm; image: 34.4 x 23.1 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

For further reading, see:

Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003, 256–257.

Pollak, Benjamin. “Photography from the Inside Out: Robert Frank’s Memorial Images.” Criticism 59, no. 1 (2017): 27–48.