The Georgian Bay has long provided inspiration to Canadian artists. This area is renowned for its beautiful wildlife as well as its haunting imagery. Many are drawn to the contrast of the vigorous, wind swept, vegetation thriving on the rocky coastline. It was my intent in creating this body of work to document the current state of the Georgian Bay. I believe that photography is a form of expression but also entails a fundamental component of documentation and reporting which I find equally as exciting.

 

On the surface, these photos portray the rare beauty of a boulder strewn coast contrasting with colourful lichens and clear aqua water. But in this case the beauty of the water belies its actual condition, which is one of a slow death. For the freshwater Great Lakes clarity indicates nutrient starvation which has been attributed to, among other things, pollution and the ever expanding zebra mussel population introduced to the Great Lakes in the mid 1980s via the ballast tanks of oceangoing freighters.

 

I believe the power of this series of photographs lies in how the imagery can speak of the landscape’s integral beauty, while also harboring a message of ecological crisis. It was the attractiveness of the scenery that drove me to capture these images, yet it was the importance of the message being told by the Bay’s exquisite symptoms that has driven me to share the photographs with the pubic.