Nina Raginsky is a freelance photographer who worked with the National Film Board’s Still Photography Division between 1963 and 1981. She is best known for distinctive portraits created in British Columbia in the 1970s, which are often frontal, full-figured, and hand-coloured. Raginsky has also worked on series on remote communities in Yukon and B.C. and taught at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Image: Cover of The Banff Purchase: An Exhibition of Photography in Canada, 1979, featuring Nina Raginsky’s photograph, Lynn Chrisman, Vancouver Art School Student, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1975.

For further reading, see:

Payne, Carol. The Official Picture: The National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 1941–1971. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013, 49.

Phillips, Carol Corey. “Speaking through Silence: Female Voice in the Photography of Nina Raginsky, Clara Gutsche and Lynne Cohen.” In 13 Essays on Photography, introduction by Geoffrey James, 113–27. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, 1990.

In 1908, Brown purchased an established studio in Edmonton with stock images dating back to the 1880s, and Reeves soon began working there. When the business went bankrupt in 1920, Brown undertook photographic projects in rural Alberta and became increasingly involved in socialist politics. Reeves then founded and operated a studio called the Art League. In addition to the usual portrait and commercial work, Reeves documented many important events in Edmonton’s history, while also winning awards at international photo competitions. In the 1930s the pair founded the Pioneer Days Museum, a collection of natural history and material culture objects, as well as a huge number of photographs mainly taken by Brown on his hiatus from Edmonton. Through the Art League, Reeves and Brown also published “The Birth of the West” an educational series of cards composed of text and images. Brown’s collection was donated to the province in 1947, and Reeves was hired to catalogue it, providing a unique, if often problematically colonial, visual archive of Alberta’s history.

Image: Gladys Reeves, Sons of England Fair, St. Albert and Edmonton, Alberta, August 23, 1907, black and white photo print, Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton.

For further reading, see:

Dyce, Matt, and James Opp. “Visualizing Space, Race, and History in the North: Photographic Narratives of the Athabasca-Mackenzie River Basin.” In The West and Beyond: New Perspectives on an Imagined Region, edited by Alvin Finkel, Sarah Carter, and Peter Fortna, 65–93. Athabasca: Athabasca University Press, 2010.

“Interview with Gladys Reeves.” Ernest Brown: Pioneer Photographer, directed by Tom Radford. DVD. Vancouver: Film West & Associates, 1973.

Jones, Laura. Rediscovery: Canadian Women Photographers, 1841–1941. London: London Regional Art Gallery, 1983.

Yaremko, Scott. “Ernest Brown’s ‘Birth of the West’: Early Narratives of Imagined Space and Race in Western Canada.” Master’s thesis, University of Calgary, 2018.

Russell got his start as a photographer at Contrast newspaper in the late 1960s. After taking a break for several years, he worked freelance for the Toronto Sun, the Oakville Beaver, the Scarborough Mirror, and the Etobicoke Guardian. From 1981 until 1991 he was a photographer for the Toronto Star, and in 1992 he won the Canadian Press Photographer of the Year Award. His subjects included fashion, beauty pageants, portraits, sports, and political events.

Image: James Russell, Miss Black Ontario winner, Miss Rexdale, Rhonda Broadbent, 1981, gelatin silver print.

For further reading, see:

Crooks, Julie, and Karen Carter. Ears, Eyes, Voice: Black Canadian Photojournalists, 1970s-1990s. Toronto: BAND Gallery and Cultural Centre, 2019, 50-59.