Larry Towell is the only Canadian ever admitted to Magnum. As part of Contact, Toronto, Canada's month long photography festival which runs throughout May, Stephen Bulger Gallery is showing "No Man's Land", a series of photographs from Gaza and the West Bank.
As today was the opening of the show, Mr. Towell was there to meet & greet and sign books (which I sadly didn't have the money to buy). I do know one of the people who work at the gallery, and she rather insisted on dragging me over to meet him, and shake his hand. It was pretty cool. Didn't talk much (he was quite inundated with well-wishers and paying book-buyers, so I didn't want to take much of his time), but I overheard him mention to someone else that he shot this collection on a Hasselblad PanX. Some of the photos are pano (at least in aspect), and some are more traditional 36x24 (or whatever "35mm" is). He won the inaugural HCB award in 2003, which allowed him to finance this particular project. Here's a bit about him from the Magnum site, and you can click on "No Man's Land" to see what the book's about: http://tinyurl.com/bwnt9 Please note, this is the first time I've attempted to use a tiny url, so I hope it works. Hard to pick one photo that moved me more than others, but this one (exhibited at about 3 by 5 feet) certainly stands out: http://tinyurl.com/8vdwk Anyway, it was an interesting afternoon. The gallery was quite crowded, so while I enjoyed perusing the powerful photos, I hope to get back there another day when it's less crowded, so I can take my time and soak it all in. For any Torontonians, or anyone who might be in the area in the near future, the show continues until June 25. I highly recommend it. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
