By ADELLE LARMOUR
Passion and experience has placed professional photographer Graeme Oxby at the top of the list in the world of freelance corporate photography.
Native to Timmins, Oxby is probably the Northern city’s best-kept secret. More widely known in the corporate mining circuit, he has traveled the globe capturing stunning photos for international mining companies.
Although Oxby always had an interest in drawing shapes and forms during his school-aged years, his initial career direction belied his hidden zeal. He spent his summers working underground in the local mines while attending post-secondary school. After graduating from sthe Faculty of Education at Lakehead University, Oxby taught for four years in the elementary school system.
A desire to specialize in Industrial Arts led him indirectly into photography during a summer course at the University of Toronto.
“It was an alternative for children who wanted to do something other than woodworking and plastics,” Oxby explains.
Soon afterward, a job opportunity to teach photography at Northern College in South Porcupine became available.
Recognizing Oxby’s natural talent resulted in a teaching career at the college for 12 years full-time and eight years part-time combined with freelance work.
“It was the best of both worlds because it allowed me to practice the craft and get paid to teach,” Oxby says.
A growing interest in freelance work eventually lured him away from the teaching profession into full-time corporate photography for annual reports.
“The jobs kept taking me further away for longer periods of time, so I gave up on the teaching and went into full-time freelance work,” he says.
Oxby views his profession as a matter of experience. It is about knowing where to go, how to get the images and what questions to ask.
“I don’t think there is any one school, instructor, or set of books that make one a photographer,” he says. “It has to be a passion and from there it grows.”
Just as a journalist must find the story, Oxby finds the story with his camera; something he says develops over time by talking with people and doing the work. His past underground mining experience has been beneficial too.
“Having done it (underground mining) has helped me to know where the story is,” he says.
“I have to find the angles.”
Timing plays an important role in the profession, as does patience.
“Know where you are going and be there for first light in the morning,” Oxby says. “First light and last light is absolutely the best.”
Consequently, patience is a necessary trait in the profession. In the 9,000-foot depths of Falconbridge’s Kidd Mine site, he spent four-and-a-half hours setting up lighting for one set of shots.
When he is taking nature, or stock, pictures between corporate assignments, Oxby is accompanied by his dog, Cody. Together, they will wait to capture that single moment in time where the male osprey releases the fish into the nest for mother and her young, or when the loon flutters its wings above the water before it lifts off for flight.
Oxby views every experience as a new opportunity to learn. Whether it is the behaviour of a mother osprey protecting her young, or an astronomy lesson from a guide on the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, Boliva, it is all part of the passion, he says.
“That is the beauty of it; you don’t want it to end.”
With 30 years of accumulated work experience, Oxby has photographed mines and its processes for international mining companies from as far away as Mongolia, China, and the Kyrgyz Republic near Russia, to Central and South America’s lush rainforests or soaring elevations of the powerful Andes Mountains. As well, he has followed mining processes in some parts of the United States and across Canada.
Oxby is quick to point out that his photography is not only limited to mines. He follows the circuit of the mined material to the end product.
“It is not just the mining, but the use of metals and how they are used.”
In addition, he recently completed an annual report package for Atomic Energy of Canada.
“The reactor in Chalk River produces 70 per cent of the world’s isotopes for cancer research,” he says.
His global exposure has allowed him to photograph many of the social benefits of mining, experienced by people in outlying communities.
Oxby uses both digital and film cameras, because some clients prefer to archive the film. Although he doesn’t have a preference, he says certain films bring out richer, exaggerated colours.
“The digital is maybe too true in a lot of cases,” he says.
Aerial photography is another one of his specialties.
Whether Oxby is hanging out of a helicopter in a harness shooting the installation of a massive hydro tower, or fighting the bitter cold at 5,000 feet in Argentina, he understands it is about producing quality work.
“It is all about the relationships you build over the years and keeping those avenues open.”
