Ron Smid has always felt a strong connection to the natural world. As a young adult, he took solo canoe excursions into the rugged Canadian Shield, exploring and documenting the unaltered infinite forms of Northern Ontario. From there he continued his journeys across Canada for the next twenty years, chronicling the changing light on the land.
In 2012, Smid surrendered the use of colour to immerse himself in the simplicity and timeless expression of black-and-white photography. Working exclusively with an 8 x 10 large-format camera, he continued to photograph familiar terrain while also travelling abroad with his camera for the first time in search of other landscapes, finding that monochrome imparted a more elemental expression to his work. Certain images that had eluded him on colour film, no matter how many times he returned to them, translated their essence seamlessly into complete works in black and white.
As he explored further, and his visual awareness strengthened with the slow workings of the 8 x 10 camera, he began to see both animal and human forms materialize in his compositions, whether the subject was rock, wood, or water. Abstract patterns that lay hidden from coloured light and nestled in rock crevasses expressed their qualities through the monochrome lens.
