MANITOWANING—A stunning image, taken at night in Baie Fine of Ezra Jones spinning flaming steel wool graces the cover of the winter issue of PHOTONews, Canada’s premier quarterly photography magazine. That image was taken by Manitoulin’s own Peter Baumgarten and heralds his featured portfolio within, ‘Magnificent Manitoulin.’
Photography has provided Mr. Baumgarten quite a ride lately—literally—as an ambassador for photographic equipment giant Olympus, a gig which has taken him across the continent to provide lectures and photography walks from coast to coast and which led, in part, to his work being featured in PHOTONews.
“It was exciting to be asked,” said Mr. Baumgarten, who received the call asking him to participate about two months ago. That call embarked the Wikwemikong High School teacher and photography enthusiast on a voyage of a different kind.
“I had no idea how much was involved,” he said. First came a request for 50 of his “best” images for the magazine to consider. “Luckily, I am pretty organized,” laughed Mr. Baumgarten. “I have to be for my website.” Mr. Baumgarten’s work is featured on his own website, where requests will often come in from customers for images. “You can’t be spending two hours looking for an image, so I have them organized pretty well on my computer.”
Even so, cruising through several years of images looking for a self-declared sheave of “bests” is in itself a daunting exercise. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult that was,” he admitted. But his choices turned out to be solid. “They liked all of the first set.”
“Then, after they had looked over those images, they sent me a request for another dozen or so for the cover,” he said. “So back I had to go.”
Even though his work has been featured in magazines such as Canadian Geographic and, most lately, as the photographer for quilter Jackie White’s feature in American Craft Magazine, this would be the first time his work would be the focus of a feature.
Most of the images Mr. Baumgarten had sent in the initial batch were winter scenes. “I knew it was for their winter issue, so I selected them with that in mind,” he said. “The last two winters have been stunningly beautiful, if not bitterly cold.”
But when it came to the cover shot, the outstanding image of his nephew spinning burning steel wool while standing on a wide expanse of flat rock (don’t try this near the forest kids) at the family camp in Baie Fine came up a winner.
“I am not much of a travel photographer or photojournalist,” said Mr. Baumgarten, “so Manitoulin Island is my palette.” He expressed great satisfaction that the title of his portfolio on the front cover of PHOTONews is ‘Magnificent Manitoulin.’
The cover image provided another challenge. “For the cover they want a portrait image (rather than one in landscape format).” Being primarily a landscape photographer there were fewer images to go through. “I don’t crop my photographs,” he noted, so trimming an image to fit was quite out of the question.
Once the magazine had selected the images it wanted for the portfolio, Mr. Baumgarten was asked to provide a brief write up for each of those images, including technical information such as the lens type, f-stop and ISO settings for each of the shots. “There are a lot of photographers who are keenly interested in those settings,” he said. Since the magazine caters to the serious amateur and professional photographer, those settings play are a very important piece of information.
Mr. Baumgarten admits that, while he is very aware of the technical aspects of taking images, “you have to be, really,” his own focus with his craft tends more to the artistic side of storytelling with a lens.
Mr. Baumgarten said that the experience of being featured in PHOTONews was both exciting and very rewarding. His medium term plan is to build a portrait studio in his home. “We have a nice large room that will be very suitable,” he said.
In the meantime, for those wishing to explore Mr. Baumgarten’s 11-image portfolio PHOTONews can be found gracing the shelves of specialty photography shops or in electronic format online at photonews.ca and his own website is www.creativeislandphoto.com.
