Welcome to the site of Dick Groot, independent photographer in Wolfville (Nova Scotia, Canada) where, since 2002, he works from his LightThrough Studio. (portrait credit Hannah Minzloff)

My photographic interests are:

• people--in the streets, at work, portraits;
• defunct factories--monuments to the old economy
• the tidal landscape of the Bay of Fundy and Minas Basin where I live.

I use both black and white as well as coloured images depending upon purpose and aesthetics.


Significant exhibits and shows:

• Come from Away, Artists of Minas Basin. Portraits and anecdotes of 12 artists who have come to the Minas Basin region from the 1970s onward. Shown at ViewPoint Gallery in Halifax in 2004 and at ArtCan in Canning in 2005.
• Streets of Cuba, Street portraits taken during a visit to Cuba in 2006.Shown at the gallery Anderson in Lunenburg in 2007.
• Prosperidades Pasadas, Photographs of defunct industrial facilities presented together with Cuban photographer Ricardo Elias. Shown at the Fototeca de Cuba in Havana. (2007)
• Tidelines,  Multimedia installation of the tidal landscape of the Minas Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy famous for its extreme tides (8-16m). Shown at the Art Gallery of Acadia University in Wolfville, 2010.

Book publications

• Come from Away, Artists of Minas Basin - a documentary of a little known migration.                  Portraits of artists who migrated to this area from the 1970s onward from different countries and local regions in search of a new life, sometimes called "back-to-the-landers"  (self-published 2011).
• Anatomie van het Slik - Poetry by Onno Kosters and photography by Dick Groot. Published by Uitgeverij de Weideblik in Varik, Netherlands (2010).

• An Anatomy of Silt-  The English version of the Anatomie van het Slik, self-published in 2013.
• We Wanted it to Last Forever: Closing the Minas Basin Paperboard Mill. Text and photography Dick Groot, Essay "How it came to be" by George Bishop, published by South the River Publishing, Gaspereau Nova Scotia. Contents: An essay on the history of the mill, 23 interviews and portraits of people who were affected by the closure, contributions by Terry Gerhardt, Vice president Operations on the decommissioning of the mill and Janet Thomas on the laying off of 147 employees, a series go photographs of the still mill.The book is available from the publisher and from the Box of Delights Bookshop in Wolfville. 
  

Projects

• TIEdTogether

        I have been a Photosensitive photographer through my contribution to the
        TIEdtogether project; an exhibit raising awareness of prostate cancer.This show traveled
        Canada and the USA www.photosensitive.co

• Ribbon to the Future - a documentary in photographs, interviews and text of the evolution of the economy of the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. My component of this work is a set of photographs of "monuments to the old economy" while my colleague Hannah Minzloff addresses the "seeds of the new economy". Ultimately we intend to build an interactive website that allows the audience to add their own photography and stories, thus creating a public information utility. ribbon to the future

I live in a magnificent environment as you can see from these images:

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Ice on Minas Basin

View of the dyke lands

Tidal Marsh-Minas Basin