Saint John, New Brunswick
By Adam Graham
I grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, on the eastern coast of Canada. The Bay of Fundy, stretching between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is one of the foggiest areas in the world—and Saint John is one of the foggiest places on the bay. Being situated on the harbour where the St. John River runs into the bay turns Saint John into a natural fog machine. The city sees fog for at least some portion of the day on a full one-quarter of the days of the year. Throughout the year there are different types of fog: some hovers in an ironic bright gloom, some only hangs in wisps over in the water in the morning, and some switches back and forth all day with rain. My favorite fog, though, is the kind that rolls in thick and fast on summer nights. A blanket of gray quickly covers the city, quieting noises and muting colours. Although I do not live there now, spending my youth in Saint John left me with a few key photographic tools and a love for nature—now the subject area that interests me the most.
Photo by: Adam GrahamThe major impact growing up in Saint John has had on my camera work is a heightened appreciation for visual form. I love going for a walk in the foggy evening. Any sunlight that is left is filtered and softened, and the fog closes the world down into the small area just around me. Things I would normally overlook become more significant simply because they are close and I cannot see clearly beyond them. If I do look farther, objects are reduced to abstractions. I see office or apartment buildings that bustle in the sunlight transformed into lines and shapes, flattened into shades of gray. Tree branches become ominous shadows. I move in and out of pools of light cast immediately below street lights. I feel as if I am walking through a black and white photograph.
Photo by: Adam GrahamThe other aspect of Saint John that lends itself to an appreciation of form is its sweeping horizontal panoramas. The city has always had an abundance of space. If you need to expand a building you build out rather than up; church steeples are the highest points on the horizon. Geographically, Saint John's core is built on a peninsula that juts out into the large harbour. This creates visual panoramas that are visible from many vantage points. From the east side you look across a bay toward uptown (the way true Saint Johners refer to downtown). From uptown you can look east, south, or west for a similar view. Sea, city, and sky stretch across your vision, falling naturally into the compositional rule of thirds.
Living in Saint John also impressed on me a deep respect for nature. This may surprise visitors, since nature does not initially seem to be at the heart of the city. Saint John is a city built on industry. There are signs of it everywhere: it houses one of Canada's largest oil refineries, a pulp and paper mill, and massive cranes towering over docks stacked with shipping containers. Natural resources come in and finished products go out, and the consumer of the final product never has to think about what went into it. For me, though, Saint John is always a reminder of the transformative process that has to occur in order for our world to run the way it does. I disagree strongly with much of the industry that goes on and the demand that we as consumers create for such destructive products. I do, however, think that being a witness to so much industry has given me a much greater appreciation for the wealth of the natural world around us and how much we take from it. Industrial Saint John is a constant reminder of the relationship that we have with nature, for better or worse.
Photo by: Adam GrahamSaint John has a more classic relationship with nature as well. Due to the Bay of Fundy's world record tides, the coastline around the city is rugged and beautiful. As the tide recedes it exposes a variety of life that thrives on being covered by water for some of the day and exposed to the air for the rest. The beauty that is created by the tides has a counterbalance: the need to respect their power. Each day the tides rise with such great force that the flow of the St. John River is reversed as it meets the bay. There is a narrow channel where the advancing tide collides with the river to create deadly rapids, known as Reversing Falls. Because of the falls, boats can only pass through at slack tide when the river drains quietly into the bay. Saint John has taught me that we are inextricably linked to a natural world that is all at once vast, beautiful, and awe-inspiringly powerful.
Photo by: Adam GrahamI left Saint John with an artist’s way of seeing the world. The fog has taught me to compress objects into tones and outlines in order to more clearly see their fundamental shapes. The frequent panoramas have given me a sense of the long sweep of lines and visual categories. But beyond that, Saint John has also left me with an enduring appreciation for nature in its various facets; inexhaustible subject matter for my continued exploration as a photographer.
