The use of icons shows us what is revered or idolized by a society. Photographer, Kamal, creates photographic works that illustrate people in Montreal responding to the COVID 19 pandemic after authorities mandated that people must wear masks to protect themselves and others from the illness. The photographs show that people were complying . At one location, the image of Superman, created by artist Sandra Chevier, provided a perfect backdrop for Kamal to record a period of time which will not be forgotten.

Archaeologists indicate people reach out for a higher being or a superpower to provide security and comfort when facing situations of crisis. Seeking this comfort from divine and superpower images marks humankind’s awe of the unknown.

The icons used by people change with the time and crisis. In the 16th century artists used religious symbols such as those employed by El Greco in his ”Christ Carrying the Cross”. In 2020, the changing world has brought people a health pandemic. People are using new symbols when looking for comfort and strength against possible affliction and misery.

Kamal has captured the people and the new symbols in his photographs. The solace provided by the masks and the image of Superman shows the 21st century to be a mixture of beliefs. Western society provides messages that people can be saved by science or by a Superpower.

Will Superman be the victor?

Photo Credits

Photos are by Kamal – All Rights Reserved

For more images, visit kamalphoto.com

Guest Author Bio
Charalee Graydon

Charalee Graydon was born in Alberta, Canada. She is a writer, journalist, academic and past lawyer. She works in the areas mediation and collaboration and is currently a faculty member at EUCLID University.

Charalee holds degrees in Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science, and a Juris Doctorate in Law. Following receipt of a Rhodes scholarship in 1982, she pursued legal studies in Oxford, England where she obtained a B.C. L degree. She held academic positions in England, New Zealand, and Canada and is presently a faculty member at Euclid University. She completed her Ph.D. in Mediation and Conflict Resolution in June 2020. She has also practiced law in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.

She has published three books of literary fiction  and one of which has been translated and published in Spanish.

She developed programs for students, judges, and the corporations on legal issues and published academic works in environmental law, sentencing and commercial law.

Blog / Website: Charaleeg.com

The exhibition consists of 20 large format black and white photographs, and it will be open for visitors until December 20, 2017.

Personal – Portraits of War Victims” of Bosnian-Herzegovinian by Velija Hasanbegović

Velija Hasanbegović is Bosnian-Herzegovinian photographer from Eastern Bosnia. He is the author of several exhibitions, such as: “Drina / Perućac Lake”, “And My White Ribbon”, “Potočari shadows”, “Athletes of Heart”, and others. He had exhibitions all over the world, including Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade, Budapest and New York, whilst his works were published by renowned periodicals Theather der Zite, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times and others.

He is the official photographer of The International Theater Festival MESS and Sarajevo War Theater SARTR.

Personal – Portraits of War Victims” of Bosnian-Herzegovinian by Velija Hasanbegović

Photo Credits

Photos by Velija Hasanbegović – All Rights Reserved

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Guest Author Bio
Osman Gursoy

Founded by the Foundation for Education Development Sarajevo, IUS was inaugurated in the academic year of 2004/2005. It is located in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The University comprises of the following faculties:

Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences (FENS),
Faculty of Business and Administration (FBA),
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS),
Faculty of Law (FLW),
Faculty of Education (FEDU).

International University of Sarajevo (IUS) is open to students from all over the world, and the language of instruction and communication is English. Students without English proficiency will attend a one-year intensive English Language Program organized by English Language School (ELS).

Website: International University of Sarajevo

The Dark Hedges, Antrim, Northern Ireland, 2011 © Bret Culp

Among the first to believe in the eternal nature of the human spirit they constructed monuments to death, rebirth and the cycles of the seasons and stars. These vestiges of the past continue to resonate through the countryside today.

Temporal And Eternal, Poulnabrone Dolmen, The Burren, Clare, Ireland, 2009 © Bret Culp

Castles, fortresses and ruins are evidence of untold invasions and conflicts throughout a tumultuous history. Beautifully poignant in the process of decay they tell their own story and possess their own mortality. Nothing that belongs to the earth is ever free from it. The sacred connection between the landscape of Ireland and its people has not disappeared over the centuries.

Dunluce Castle, Antrim, Northern Ireland, 2012 © Bret Culp

Image Credits

All Images Are © Bret Culp

Bret Culp Artist Bio

Bret Culp’s haunting black and white photographs convey the beauty of impermanence, the central theme of his work. Through his diverse travels Bret seeks scenes of a transitory nature. From the ruins of Ireland, to a 9000-year-old cave town in southern Italy, to the mist-covered hills of Tuscany during the harvest – his poetic vision is akin to scenes from a film. It should then not be a surprise that Bret is also a Director and award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor, recently acting as second unit director and Visual Effects Supervisor on The Tudors, for which he has received two Best Visual Effects Gemini Awards and two more nominations over the four year run of the show.

The recipient of numerous awards and honours, Bret’s photographs have been shown in solo, juried and special event exhibitions in galleries and museums in Canada, the United States and abroad. His work has been internationally published in magazines such as LensWork, USA, and Photographers’ Companion, China, and is held in public and private collections around the world.

Bret was born in Dunnville, Ontario, Canada. He studied Film and Photography at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

Blog / Website: Bret Culp Photography – The Beauty Of Impermanence

Follow Bret Culp on:  Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

Electric Tulips © Leah Dockrill

Luminous Tulips © Leah Dockrill

Magic Tulips © Leah Dockrill

Image Credits

All Images Are © Leah Dockrill

Leah Dockrill Artist Bio

I have been engaged in the visual arts for over three decades. My areas of practice are painting (acrylics on canvas), and photography-based digital art. My subject matter is diverse – high realism to abstract – landscape to botanical art.

I am an elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists, and the Colour and Form Society. I am also a member of the Artists’ Network of Riverdale, the Women’s Art Association of Canada, and Botanical Artists of Canada. I reside in Toronto.

Blog / Website:  Leah Dockrill.com

My young self gets full marks for enthusiasm and knowing what I wanted. As to practicality, not so much. However—-fast forward about six decades, and my days are spent in the company of the current dog in residence and in my art studio, with afternoons at the stables with my horse. All in all, things have worked out pretty well according to my original interests, largely due to my good fortune in meeting and marrying a very supportive man.

I’ve stayed true to form with my early dog-type imprinting as well. The first family dog I recall was a Boston Terrier, followed by a brief stint with a transient English Bulldog. We got our first Boxer when I was fourteen, and I’ve now logged over fifty years of having at least one Boxer in my life at all times. As I like to say, “I’ve never had a dog with a nose, a tail, or a coat”. My other less happy saying is “If you get a Boxer, be prepared to have your heart broken”. That observation springs from the breed propensity for heart problems and high rates of cancer, which reduce the average lifespan to a relatively low eight years. Despite the heartache, for those of us who are Boxer “lifers”, not having a Boxer isn’t really an option. Dedicated Boxer lovers are a breed unto themselves, and being among their numbers is like belonging to an obscure cult to which the initiated are fully devoted, much to the mystification of non-cult members.

Boxers being what they are (high energy, strong physically and mentally, paradoxically “soft” emotionally, sensitive to heat and to cold, needing a fair amount of management, and fun-loving “people” dogs) as the years passed I realized that a day would come when I wouldn’t have the physical or mental strength for another Boxer puppy. A couple of years ago I was nursing my two aging littermate brothers, both with serious and ultimately fatal illnesses, and was in poor shape myself with a badly deteriorated hip that limited my mobility and gave chronic pain. I thought maybe this was the lead-up to the “time without Boxers” that I had anticipated with dread.

I lost both my boys within a few months of each other and the house seemed empty without a canine presence. My husband had retired so he was around more, and we still had the ancient tottery cat, but nevertheless there was a void. I was in line for hip replacement surgery which would resolve my mobility and pain concerns, so it was time to think about getting another dog to share our home. I knew about breed rescue, and having succumbed to the lure of Facebook, I found there a whole new and supportive community of cult members on the Boxer Rescue Canada page. Here was a solution to my problem. I didn’t have it in me to raise another puppy until it hit the “sensible” years, but taking on a mature dog could work.

By definition, most rescue dogs are adults, so I would be ahead of the game there. With a mature dog there is no guesswork about what you are getting in the way of size and temperament. The life history may be unknown, but a responsible rescue group will provide as much information as possible. All reputable rescues assess their intake dogs carefully for health and mental stability.
Their goal is not just to move the dog along, but to make the right match for both the dog and the new owner. The dogs are fostered for as long as necessary before adoption by experienced volunteers who work with any issues that are evident, and who can give an accurate assessment of the type of home they would be best suited for. Basic health care, neutering, and immunization are dealt with, and post-adoption support is usually available as well.

I was lucky to find my match quite quickly, a lovely calm and low energy (for the breed) adult male who had been pulled from a high-kill shelter in southern California by Boxer Rescue Canada. He was on death row with no local interest in him or his plight. When there are financial and foster resources available, and no western Canadian Boxers in need, BRC will bring such dogs into their system as the situation in many other locales is dire. Rony travelled to northern Alberta in the summer of 2012 to be fostered by the head of BRC, and came to us in February of 2013, where to date we have all lived happily ever after.

But wait, there’s more!

The story of what Rony has done for me doesn’t end with my house once more having a Boxer in residence. I have been a working artist in various media all my adult life. Much of my work in past years was horse themed, although nature and other species of animals have always been a constant.  However, until Rony came into my life, I never did dog-themed artwork. Knowing of the good work BRC does for “my” breed, I wanted to find a way to assist the rescue. Providing an interim foster home wasn’t in the cards for me. I don’t have the right emotional make-up for taking dogs in and then seeing them leave, no matter how wonderful their future, and I’m realistic enough to understand this.

I decided to put my art to work in support of the rescue, which meant doing dog/Boxer themed images. I began by donating greeting cards for the group to sell at their fund-raisers. Then my dog-themed work started to evolve beyond greeting card images and more into art images. I set up a website with Fine Art America ( http://1-judy-wood.artistwebsites.com/ ) so that customers in any
geographic area could order my work in a variety of sizes and formats. The “Dogs” gallery sales income is passed on to BRC. In less than a year I have been able to contribute a considerable amount of sales earnings to the rescue, thanks to the support of the buying public and their purchases. The majority of these images are Boxer themed, but there are other breeds as well, and I plan to expand my breed repertoire in future work. As I was topping up the “Dogs” gallery on my site recently, I realized that I have gone from having no dog artwork at all to over fifty dog art images on my website, considerably more than any of my other subject matter categories. What started as a quest to keep Boxers in my life has grown encompass a new direction for my art and the satisfaction of being able to contribute to the ongoing work of breed rescue.

As a final note, I would like to point out that for dog lovers whose hearts have been taken by a specific breed, there are dedicated breed rescue groups for virtually all breeds. For those who just want a good friend and companion and are open-minded as to type, local rescues and shelters are a good option. Unfortunately, not all “rescues” are reputable, so doing some research ahead of time is important if you are following this route. For me, breed rescue has worked well. Maybe it will for you too.

Photo Credits
Artwork © Judy Wood
Bio Photo © Mark Symons

Judy Wood Photographer Bio

I am a Saskatoon (Saskatchewan, Canada) based working artist who has been involved with a variety of media over the course of my art career. For the past decade, I have worked primarily with photography and digitally altered photo images. New directions include mixed media collage and encaustic, usually with photo elements.

As a Saskatchewan artist, my imagery is strongly rooted in the prairie landscape and its history, with an emphasis on horses, native birds, and other animals. I find resonance and inspiration in the landscape and our historic pioneer heritage. With reference to my business tag-line that “reality is only a starting point”, I also have a series of “alternate reality/fantasy” and art images derived from my photographs. My dog-themed artwork supports breed rescue (Boxer) with sales proceeds going to Boxer Rescue Canada.

I have a Fine Arts major degree from the University of Saskatchewan as my formal training, and have actively pursued continued learning in various media throughout my artistic work-life. My work (glass mosaic, photography) has been published in books and magazines in North America and in Britain, and I actively show and sell in the Saskatoon area.

Blog / Website: Judy Wood art/photography

Follow Judy Wood on:   Fine Art America

Nevertheless, one persists, largely because I am adherent of Joseph Campbell’s dictum to “follow your bliss.” So I do that, with surprisingly gratifying results. Particularly surprising since I am working with a very limited set of tools, almost exclusively provided by Photoshop.

Most artists love to play, make a mess, and bring order out of the resulting chaos. I do, too; but I have zero manual dexterity. I used to marvel at my sister’s ability to color inside the lines; it was a talent I never acquired, even as an adult. So when I attempt to physically do artists play, the resulting mess remains a mess, because I have no facility for ordering it. But the mess I make that goes up on the screen is another matter entirely, and here I don’t so much impose order on it as allow the order to emerge on its own, to allow the image to take me where it wants to go. For what it’s worth, this process can take weeks or months. To maintain my momentum, then, I usually have several images on the go at once.

I should probably take a moment to explain how I arrived at this parlous state. I have been in love with photography since I first discovered it in my 20s. At one point I even quit my job and tried to become a freelance, ending up working in a commercial studio for a year, before acquiring my penultimate vocation as a marketing communications writer, which I continue to pursue to this day. When I first moved to Salt Spring Island, B.C., 40 years ago, I found myself with no place to put a darkroom, and no prospects of ever having one. So I shelved my Nikons and busied myself with property development and environmental politics, while my bliss took me kayak camping all over the B.C. coast.

In the early days of the personal computer, we all bought all the software that emerged; it was like gaming today. You had to have the latest and greatest, and that’s how I got into Photoshop and Pagemaker (does anybody remember Pagemaker?) and all the rest of it. Becoming proficient in those two packages as well as others led me into graphic design, and I maintained and enhanced my proficiency with Photoshop right up till I decided to retire, at 70.

And that’s when I decided to follow my first bliss, and get back into photography. (As an aside, I should mention that the cost of photographic equipment and supplies was so high that I had to keep working to support my retirement project. My current retirement plan is Freedom 85.) I bought a Canon G6, and then a Nikon D80, and starting taking pictures again. (I have now graduated to a Nikon D800, a spectacularly fine instrument.)

It didn’t take long to become disenchanted with the results. Everything I saw through my viewfinder began to look like a cliché. And then I attended a Photoshop seminar, and came home energized and better equipped to explore the possibilities rattling around behind my eyes. Admittedly, these were the products of a lifetime of looking at art. In particular, I found I related to the Modernists, the Post-Modernists, and various contemporary artists of schools for which I know no names. After I began to develop a style of my own, a friend suggested I have a show. My wife, a PhD art historian, insisted I could not do a “best-of” show; artists, she said, present series. 

So I did that, and if you go to my web site – http://samlightman.com – and look at the portfolios starting with “Seascrapes” and working your way up, you will see what transpired. The last and most successful of these series was the Venice show, “Behind the Masque.”  Some of the images from that show are spotted around this article, and they provide you with a sense of what I am about. They are not quite as abstract as my earlier work, or the work I am about to present in April in my next show, previewed in the portfolio “The Shoreline Project.” But they have an edge, and they demonstrate my approach to what I see and how I work now. I no longer take pictures. I photograph potential elements, details, lots of close-ups, and then I bring them up in Photoshop and begin the messy pursuit of making them work together in a sort of pointed harmony. It’s my attempt to go beyond the lens, into the realm of imagination and creativity

Nevertheless, one grows or dies, and I am now experimenting at last with messy, non-pixelated techniques; I am fooling around with ink on lots of other substrates besides digital photo papers, messing the printed images about and otherwise disporting myself in a most unprofessional manner. I am also collaborating on creative projects with my wife, who has artistic talents of her own which nicely complement mine. One of my inspirations is “Digital Art Studio,” by Schminke, et al. I highly recommend this book to any artist who wants to integrate digital art with more traditional art-making techniques. I can’t do most of what they present in there, but I’m really good at doing what they tell you not to do.

Once people get over the idea that photo manipulation is somehow less legitimate than other art making techniques, it will simply become in the art-buying public’s mind what it really is – just another medium, like acrylic or watercolor or collage, for realizing the artist’s vision. I intend to live long enough to see that day, and with any luck at all, benefit from it.

Photo Credits

All Photographs Are © Sam Lightman

Sam Lightman Photographer Bio

I started adult life in the world of engineering and electronics, but the discovery of photography in my early 20’s changed my life forever. Upon returning from technical assignments abroad, I quit my job and wound up working as a studio assistant to a highly successful commercial photographer and then going to work in advertising before eventually embarking on a career as a freelance writer/designer. During this time I also attended the Philadelphia College of Art and subsequently the Instituto des Belles Artes in San Miguel Allende. While continuing my writing career, a deep and abiding love of the visual arts has led me to expand my own horizons into artistic expression via digital imaging. 


I have lived on Salt Spring Island for the last 40 years and take full advantage of the special nature of the place to expand my perception. As an avid kayaker, an occasional traveler, a keen birder and a lover of all things outdoors great and small, I am exposed to a wide variety of both natural and man-made influences, all of which eventually find their way into my work.

Website: Sam Lightman – Fine Art Photography for the 21st Century 

Follow Sam Lightman on:  The Shoreline Project

Image Credits

All Images Are © Klaus Bohn

Klaus Bohn Artist Bio

After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, I accepted various freelance photography assignments which led me to open my own studio in Moose Jaw in August of 1975. Happily the business became successful and I continued to take classes from esteemed photographers of my choice.

My mentor’s motto was: “If you want to learn more about photography, teach photography”. I took his advice and in 1984 started teaching photography skills and techniques to various studio owners and some of their staff members.

In 2000 I moved to Victoria B.C. and opened a photography studio with my two talented sons. In 2006 I began writing and, at present, have published 5 books.

I now work out of my home studio and have the opportunity of traveling to 3rd world countries. Photography is my profession. I love what I do and having the opportunity of meeting so many great photographers from around the world gives me a life full of joy that I enjoy sharing with others…

My brand is “feeling more deeply about photography”!

Blog / Website: Photographic Art by Klaus Bohn

Follow Klaus Bohn on: Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

I believe that what we feel and see in our imagination creates ART. Art is not just pretty photos or drawings but that which is revealed from within. I photograph and add to the image as I see it within my imagination or as it appeals to me. I add or take away things that are not part of my thinking or feelings to share unique photographical messages …

Image Credits

All Images Are © Klaus Bohn

Klaus Bohn Artist Bio

After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, I accepted various freelance photography assignments which led me to open my own studio in Moose Jaw in August of 1975. Happily the business became successful and I continued to take classes from esteemed photographers of my choice.

My mentor’s motto was: “If you want to learn more about photography, teach photography”. I took his advice and in 1984 started teaching photography skills and techniques to various studio owners and some of their staff members.

In 2000 I moved to Victoria B.C. and opened a photography studio with my two talented sons. In 2006 I began writing and, at present, have published 5 books.
I now work out of my home studio and have the opportunity of traveling to 3rd world countries. Photography is my profession. I love what I do and having the opportunity of meeting so many great photographers from around the world gives me a life full of joy that I enjoy sharing with others…

My brand is “feeling more deeply about photography”!

Blog / Website:  Photographic Art by Klaus Bohn

Follow Klaus Bohn on: Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

The image “Movement” expresses more than reality, is deeper than understanding and can reach deeply into our feelings and emotions.  This continuum of movement has no beginning or end.  This flow of time without end allows viewers to continually see and free their mind from attempting to use descriptive words on a so-called reality…

Abstract is a word we use to describe what we can’t really explain in terms that the mind can understand.  There is concepts in art that free us to not be bound to reality as we see reality. 

Let’s just use our eyes and let the brain do its work of comforting and allowing us to express our true feelings to set us free! 

Photo Credits

All Photographs Are © Klaus Bohn

Klaus Bohn Photographer Bio

After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, I accepted various freelance photography assignments which led me to open my own studio in Moose Jaw in August of 1975. Happily the business became successful and I continued to take classes from esteemed photographers of my choice.

My mentor’s motto was: “If you want to learn more about photography, teach photography”. I took his advice and in 1984 started teaching photography skills and techniques to various studio owners and some of their staff members.

In 2000 I moved to Victoria B.C. and opened a photography studio with my two talented sons. In 2006 I began writing and, at present, have published 5 books.

I now work out of my home studio and have the opportunity of traveling to 3rd world countries. Photography is my profession. I love what I do and having the opportunity of meeting so many great photographers from around the world gives me a life full of joy that I enjoy sharing with others…

My brand is “feeling more deeply about photography”!

Blog / Website: Photographic Art by Klaus Bohn

Follow Klaus Bohn on: Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin

Image Credits

All Images Are © Klaus Bohn

Klaus Bohn Artist Bio

After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, I accepted various freelance photography assignments which led me to open my own studio in Moose Jaw in August of 1975. Happily the business became successful and I continued to take classes from esteemed photographers of my choice.

My mentor’s motto was: “If you want to learn more about photography, teach photography”. I took his advice and in 1984 started teaching photography skills and techniques to various studio owners and some of their staff members.

In 2000 I moved to Victoria B.C. and opened a photography studio with my two talented sons. In 2006 I began writing and, at present, have published 5 books.

I now work out of my home studio and have the opportunity of traveling to 3rd world countries. Photography is my profession. I love what I do and having the opportunity of meeting so many great photographers from around the world gives me a life full of joy that I enjoy sharing with others…

My brand is “feeling more deeply about photography”!

Blog / Website: Photographic Art by Klaus Bohn

Follow Klaus Bohn on: Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin