Benedict Brain explores Hope in British Columbia and discovers that deadlines can bring creative opportunities
(Image credit: Benedict Brain)
About Benedict Brain
(Image credit: Marcus Hawkins)
Benedict Brain is a UK-based photographer, journalist and artist. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel. He is also a past editor of Digital Camera Magazine, and the author of You Will be Able to Take Great Photos by The End of This Book.
Hope. It was everything I had hoped for! Recently, I was speaking at the Canadian Association of Photographic Arts in Kelowna, Canada. Due to a slight mixup with my itinerary and having to include a ‘Saturday’ in my schedule to keep flight costs down, I had an unexpected 36 hours to get from Kelowna to Vancouver International Airport. I had a rental car, so I scoured the map, delighting at the prospect of a drive through the Rocky Mountains. While I’m sure there were plenty of dramatic ‘classic’ landscape opportunities, they don’t inspire me photographically.
However, the map soon revealed a small town called Hope. Situated at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in British Columbia, Hope has a population of less than 7,000. The icing on the cake was the thrilling discovery that the 1982 Sylvester Stallone film Rambo: First Blood was filmed there so the potential for kitsch was high. So I booked into the Red Roof Motel, seduced mainly by a photo of a water feature in the parking lot.
I have many long-term projects on the go, some of which go on and on and on. So, I was drawn to the idea of making a quick-fire project that had to be resolved in less than 24 hours. I decided to make a small 32-page zine about the town. I challenged myself to shoot it, edit it, process the images and sequence them in a crude zine before returning to London. I was on course to make it, although a flat tyre and its associated drama, along with the looming deadline for this column, had put me on the back foot. (As I write this, I’m nursing a coffee at the airport, but I still have a nine-hour flight, so I reckon I can do it). In the meantime, I think the half-dozen images seen here will feature. What a fabulous place Hope is!
Whether or not I eventually manage to complete and print the zine, the entire process has been a deeply rewarding creative journey. I wholeheartedly recommend embarking on a quick-fire 24-hour project. It doesn’t have to be as exotic as a small town in the Rockies; in fact, something closer to home might even be better. The key is to challenge yourself and see where your creativity takes you. Give it a try and you might be surprised.
Benedict Brain is a UK based photographer, journalist and artist. He graduated with a degree in photography from the Derby School of Art in 1991 (now University of Derby), where he was tutored and inspired by photographers John Blakemore and Olivier Richon, amongst others. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and also sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel.
Until July 2018 Benedict was editor of Britain’s best-selling consumer photography magazine, Digital Camera Magazine. As a journalist he met and interviewed some of the world’s greatest photographers and produced articles on a wide range of photography related topics, presented technique videos, wrote in-depth features, curated and edited best-in-class content for a range of titles including; Amateur Photographer, PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Professional Photography and Practical Photoshop. He currently writes a regular column, The Art of Seeing, for Digital Camera magazine.
