Benoit Côté poses with abandoned machinery on the site of a closed asbestos mine in Thetford Mine September 3, 2009. Côté worked 40 years as an asbestos miner. Photo Francis Vachon/ THE GAZETTE
The portraits where made for a Gazette article on « La Grande Noirceur », a dark era in the province of Quebec dominated by the clergy and Maurice Duplessie, a Premier with an iron fist.
My day spent in Therford Mine hunting for stock photos paid of to find a great location.
Diane Ippersiel, a McGill University graduate who manages a firm called Une affaire d’Anglais in Quebec city. Photo Francis Vachon for McGill News Alumni Magazine.
Technical: Canon EOS Mark III, 1/320 at f9 with a 24-70 at 46mm – ISO 200 + one direct flash camera left
When you look out for new clients, don’t only look on the magazines you see on the stand. There is a ton of magazines that do not target « normal » consumers that you would never imagines they exist. Twice I did a job for a magazine called « Metal Cutting magazine ». It’s hard to be more specialized than that!
Sun Life senior vice-president Kevin Strain poses at the Chateau Frontenac hotel in Quebec city August 25, 2009. Photo Francis Vachon/ The National Post
Technical: Canon EOS Mark III, 1/320 at f5 with a 70-200 at 110mm – ISO 400 + one flash through an umbrella on camera right and one direct flash behind the subject on camera left (this flash created the two highlights on the « object » beside the subject)
Nuclear physician Dr. Norman Laurin, V.P of the Canadian Association of Nuclear medicine, poses in his office in Trois-Rivieres August 13, 2009. Photo Francis Vachon for the Globe and Mail
Story (and another photo) about isotope production crisis on The Globe and Mail web site
Martin Dumas, left, and Bertrand Cloutier pose in their wing suit for base jumping at the Observatoire de la Capitale at the last floor of the Marie-Guyart building in Quebec city August 5, 2009. Cloutier and Dumas were involved in the new Quebec movie Les pieds dans le vide where they base jumped off of the Montreal stock exchange tower. Photo Francis Vachon/THE GAZETTE
The story is online.
During the shooting, all of us kept looking at that mock of the National Assembly president’s chair. When we where done, We all said « we HAVE to try to do something with it. » So I put them in it and I asked them to goof a bit. The result is, I think, hilarious.
This is what I discovered about putting on a historically accurate, 18th-century British officer’s uniform and standing on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City pretending I was General James Wolfe: I might have looked like an overgrown lunatic playing dress-up, but when I actually slipped the coat and hat on, it felt surprisingly grave. It made me want to be serious.
Globe and Mail feature writer Ian Brown came to spend a couple of days in Quebec city to know more about the Plains of Abraham, the canceled re-enactment, and the various groups who battled for this cancellation.
Taking an Ontarian journalist, dressing him up as a British soldier for a photo shoot on the Plains of Abraham on St-Jean-Baptist day (Quebec National Day)…. That was daring, but fun!
Globe’s article on the web includes a very neat audi slide-show with many of my photos.
Globe reporter Ian Brown, dressed as a British soldier, takes note as he speak with reanactor Harry Hunkin on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City June 23, 2009. Photo Francis Vachon for the Globe and Mail
Globe reporter Ian Brown, dressed as a British soldier, poses on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City June 23, 2009.
A police officer blocks RRQ (Reseau de resistance de Quebec – Quebec Resistance network) protesters from approaching a small group of counter-protesters on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec city July 1, 2009. The RRQ held their annual protest against Canada in front of Wolfe’s monument. Photo Francis Vachon for the Globe and Mail.
A Quebec and a « patriot » flag fly in front of Wolfe’s monument on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec city
RRQ (Reseau de resistance de Quebec – Quebec Resistance network) leader Patrick Bourgeois gestures as he speaks during a protest in front of Wolfe’s monument on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec city