Photographer Steps Back Into Time

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Blake Chorley, “Lake O’Hara,” 2016

multilayer ambrotype, 24” x 20”

Looking at Blake Chorley’s landscape photography is like stepping back in time. While it seems everyone is now posting quickie phone shots to Instagram, Chorley is carving a niche with painstaking labour over black-and-white images that not only use analog technology but reach further back to the old wet-plate processes of the 1800s.

His approach evolved out of a need to be more thoughtful and focus on producing a few excellent images rather than the myriad so-so shots that digital photography enables. In essence, he says, he wanted to savour the landscape rather than focus on conquering a goal.

“The slowing down really allowed me to start seeing all those other views that were along the way to the destination,” he says. “So that gave me motivation to try and slow down even further.”

Chorley, who grew up in Toronto and moved West to do a Master’s degree at the University of Calgary, enjoys the outdoors. So he decided to focus on what he calls “pristine views” of wilderness scenes, primarily in the Rockies. Ten of those images are showing at the Christine Klassen Gallery in Calgary until Aug. 19.

Blake Chorley, “Lake O’Hara Pond,” 2016

Blake Chorley, “Above the Notch,” 2016

Chorley is aware that contemporary photographers have backed away from the pristine since the heyday of great wilderness photographers like Ansel Adams. Instead, many serious photo-based artists, including people like Toronto’s Edward Burtynsky, focus on the unprecedented scale at which the Earth is being exploited to sustain an ever-growing human population.

Chorley, who is enamoured with the Group of Seven, takes a contrary view. He believes it’s important to show people the wilderness that remains. “We need to display the pristine because all these other things are going on – to remind people that these spaces are out there,” he says.

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Blake Chorley, “Back Lit,” 2017

multilayer ambrotype, 20” x 24”

His artistic process is complex – and time consuming. After taking the original shot with a digital camera, he spends some 50 to 60 hours refining and printing it.

The process involves editing the image on his computer, where he separates and masks foreground from background, and then transferring it onto film and heading into the dark room, where he prints the image using glass plates in a way that echoes the old ambrotype process.

“The original way it calls for back in the 1800s is that you would put the glass right into the camera and take the picture,” says Chorley. “So I’ve altered the process to be able to do it in the darkroom so it all allows me to go a little bit bigger in size because then I’m not restricted to how big the camera is.” 

Chorley cautions that viewing the work digitally does not do it justice. It’s meant to be seen in real time, where the optical illusion of depth is more apparent.

Calgarians will get another chance to see Chorley's work at next year’s Exposure Photography Festival. Chorley received first prize this year in the festival’s emerging photographer showcase, which means he’ll get his own solo show at the 2018 festival.