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Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Jonathan Desmond of Jonathan Desmond Photography and I specialize in a unique documentary approach to my photographic work. I have been working on Vancouver’s Chinatown but have various other projects in the go and take on the occasional commission for specialized documentary weddings and family sessions as well. I’m a Certified Transport Canada Advanced Drone pilot but you’ll usually find me buzzing around with my little FPV drones usually.

I am located in and around Vancouver, BC in Canada.

Taken by Kirk Mastin

Taken by Kirk Mastin

How long have you been doing photography?

I didn’t start life as a photographer. Instead, I took up jazz music and an economics degree in order to figure out where I was going in life. It wasn’t until I bought a digital SLR camera for a trip to Singapore and Sydney, Australia that I found my passion to photograph things. This was in 2007 so I’ve been “doing photography” for 13 years now (2020).
I still enjoy both jazz music and social economics discussions. I like to think that those aspects as of my life play into how I photograph and how I understand the world as I document it.

When you’re not busy with photography, how do you love to spend your time?

I became a dad just recently and am spending my time writing dad jokes… just kidding (partly)! Fatherhood has changed my life and I have a new perspective on life, work and family as a result. I enjoy spending my time with my little one and my wife, even if it’s just going to a coffee shop and hanging out with them or even a trip to T&T or Walmart, browsing the aisles. I’m a particular fan of Kerrisdale Cameras for…. reasons….

I also enjoy watching certain anime series and cartoons (Teen Titans Go, Final Space (Netflix), The Disastrous Life of Saiki K). If I get a chance, I like to play hockey or go ice skating on the odd night out. I’m in the process of building a personal cheese journal as I really enjoy eating different kinds of cheese (Manchego being a personal favourite at the moment). Music has had a huge influence in my life and while I don’t play as much as I used to I still listen to various albums on vinyl or song remixes on Youtube.

I’m a Christian as well so spend my Sundays usually at church. I’ve been reading “God In My Everything” by Ken Shigematsu, who is the pastor my church. It’s been an intriguing read.

I love prints. You don’t have a real photograph until you have a print in your hands.

I love prints. You don’t have a real photograph until you have a print in your hands.

What makes your business stand out from other photographers?

A lot of the work I do is unposed and thus I have a certain mindset I approach when going into a photoshoot or project. Whereas photos these days tend to be setup or the photographer creates the situation and then photograph it (guiding posing, telling people to walk here and there), my approach is that of a silent documentarian who tries to embed themselves in the situation and take in real moments as they happen without my intervention.

As an example, many folks say they take a “journalistic” approach to weddings but most of the time they will request some posing in the moments or ask for fake laughs during getting ready times or something like that. I’m one of the few in the area that takes a hard documentary approach, in that I do little to no posing (except for group photos and some bridal shots). I love black and white and my clients do too, especially when they see these classic black and white documentary moments of their own wedding.

I frame it this way: If people see my photos I’ve taken of them, I want them to remember the moment and not remember that they were photographed.

Why do you still shoot film and print your photos in this day and age?

While I still use digital cameras often for certain work, my heart lies with using 35mm film and associated cameras. I could go into a long explanation on it but the short form is that I enjoy using some of the features of the older film systems and I also appreciate the longevity of a negative. I’ve had an experience where my own personal photos have been lost due to file corruption and they have not been recoverable. This made me think about the longevity of photographs in a whole that exist on our phones and our computers and think to myself: “If all my photos are on CD’s or on disk drives… how would I be able to load them up?” I recall finding some of my grandfather’s old negatives from the 1960s and scanned them digitally and now I have both a physical copy and a digital copy.

Printing came as a part of this as prints (if taken care of) can last for a long time… much longer than most iPhones. There is something to be said about the tangible nature of a photograph and, given how I see digital as a difficult long-term medium, I make every effort to print my own photos and those of most of my clients.

I think a lot of people feel that printing is useless but I think that may be in part due to receiving low quality prints. When you put a high quality paper print in your hands and take a look at it… well, it’s a life changing experience. And I’d much prefer to find someones prints in a shoebox decades from now than an old iphone that most likely won’t boot up.