winnipeg

Plane Jane: A Walk to the Airport (the virtual, pandemic version)

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It’s a crazy idea, something you’re not supposed to do. But walking to YWG, whether for pleasure or to catch a plane, is entirely possible. Your hosts, Gail Perry and David Firman, have done it for the adventure of exploring places off most pedestrian road maps and, on many occasions, to catch flights to far off places.

Want to try it? Then join us on our virtual tour, a 3 hour, 11.5 km round trip, starting in the Wolseley neighbourhood and winding through residential, commercial and industrial areas on our way to Winnipeg’s new airport. And then return by way of Omand’s Creek as it takes us by strip malls, big box stores—all those place you usually drive to—as well as surprising stretches of restored prairie. 

Along the way, we’ll explore architectural gems, such as St. James Church, find hidden vest-pocket parks, investigate austere industrial parks, reflect on airports lost and new. But, most importantly, we will take ownership of places in our city where no pedestrian was meant to tread. And, who knows, maybe your next trip to Hawaii will start with a walk to the airport.

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First Snow in Black and White and Polaroid

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My Polaroid work of late has been entirely in colour, using the latest iteration of Polaroid SX-70 colour film. However, for some time I have coveted the opportunity to play with Polaroid’s Black and White SX-70 film. After all, I was a black and white film photographer for twenty-plus years leading up to my introduction to digital photography—and colour— at the turn of this century.

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Beyond Our Windows: Fall Polaroids

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While I work to get the planned book for my From Our Windows project completed—and you will be hearing more about that progress soon—I have ventured outside with my SX-70 Polaroid camera in-hand. To start, here is a selection of instant photos taken a mere 100 metres from my front door along the banks of Omand’s Creek. It was already late fall and the leaves, for the most part, had changed colour and fallen. A few weeks later, I returned to the site where I had taken the photos and rephotographed the scene, this time capturing the original SX-70 photos as they fell from my limb to the forest floor. I hope you enjoy the photos and the short film at the end!

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Just Published: On Omand’s Creek by David Firman

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Ordinarily, I would recommend a walk down the frozen surface of Omand’s Creek, the perfect antidote for these COVID-19 days of uncertainty and social-distancing. At its mid-winter best, this is a walk with some risk—crawling on ice through a steel conduit, for example—but spring is closing in, temperatures are rising and water can already be seen flowing over deteriorating ice.  A walk is all but impossible till next winter.

In its place, I offer a self-isolating, fireside-and-scotch alternative: my just-published On Omand’s Creek, the eighth in the Ways To Walk series of small softcover books.

Winnipeg is blessed with frigid winters. Its rivers and creeks freeze over every year, without fail, becoming seasonal sidewalks, opportunities to revisit the city from unique perspectives. Of all those frozen waterways, Omand’s Creek is arguably the most tortured, most compromised. Yet there is an aching beauty to be seen from its white banks. On Omand’s Creek is the story in words and pictures of my trek up this iced-over creek, from its mouth at the Assiniboine River and stretching north to Brookside Cemetery.   

On Omand’s Creek and the other Ways To Walk books can be previewed (in full) and/or purchased at my Blurb Bookstore. Continue reading →

Just Published: Navigating Hope by David Firman and Gail Perry

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I’m proud to announce the publication of Navigating Hope. This is the seventh in my Ways To Walk series of small softcover books documenting—through photography, prose and map graphics— a number of my short, mostly Winnipeg walks in search of nothing in particular other than some vague understanding of where I am at any particular moment.

Navigating Hope and the other Ways To Walk books can be previewed and purchased at my Blurb Bookstore.

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