I recently created this digital short which begins with a genuine awe of the surrounding Nature. Here in the East Kootenay, and with a bit of luck, I was able to capture a rare encounter with a Great White! Heron that is, or possibly a snowy egret. I started shooting black and white film when I was a young lad, sometime in the late 90’s. My brother-in-law introduced the new medium by offering me my his first film camera. Most recently I have found myself reconnecting with the monochromatic look, this time using digital video technology. The book presented in my short is called, ‘the khaki lodge book’, a drawing book I worked on for about a year and a half during the height of the pandemic, while care giving for my elders. I get my ideas in spurts, day dreams and moments of inspiration that come into form as free flowing drawings. I go back and forth between each drawing as the book evolves, and continue to work the lines, while finding ways to link each drawing to the next. After completion I sent the book to New York to be part of the world’s largest drawing book collection at the Brooklyn Art Library. The book unfortunately was ‘possibly’ destroyed when the collection was being moved in transport to another location. The truck carrying the collection went up in flames. I am waiting to hear the fate of the book, whether or not it was saved. Thankfully I documented my work before sending it, and it is the main feature in this short. The soundscape is called ‘east koot birds’. All footage was shot on a Fuji XT-4 and a Z Cam. The soundscape was made with collected wild sounds and samples using GarageBand. Copyright 2022. Hälts Art.

Black and White

And now a collection of digital black and white images of the East Kootenay region, which in my opinion takes on a nearly timeless look. These scenes do not show the effects of human interaction. In fact this ecosystem is under serious threat from human recreational habits, which if not put in check will ensure its inevitable demise.