Through the Lens Returns to The Whyte

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By Kate Riordon, Reference Archivist

Photo by Josie Twoyoungmen. Canmore Collegiate High School, Grade 11.

Through the Lens began in 1997 as a one-week project that included nine students and Craig Richards, the Curator of Photography at The Whyte. Over the following two decades, this innovative program introduced more than 600 students from Banff, Canmore, Mînî Thnî, and around the world to the art and technique of 35 mm film photography.

In 1998, the program transitioned into a structured five-month experience, bringing together students from across the Bow Valley. This initiative equipped them with the creative tools to explore new perspectives of their environments, relationships, and personal identities through a medium rapidly being replaced by the emerging digital age. With support and guidance, students embraced this challenge and flourished, culminating their experience with a professional exhibition of their work at The Whyte, complete with a public opening reception where the students were recognized and celebrated by their communities.

The program soon expanded beyond the Bow Valley. First to Calgary, where local photographers began mentoring high school students, and the darkrooms at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (now AUArts) became available to print the exhibition photos. Through the Lens began to take on an international dimension when exchange students from countries such as Mexico, France, and Japan, who attended school in Banff and Canmore, shared their experiences in the program with their home countries. Richards, along with Calgary photographers Diane Bos and Karen McDiarmond, as well as program alumni, carried the project with them as they travelled and worked in countries like Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Tibet, and Ukraine. Wherever the program went, the resulting photographs returned to the walls of The Whyte to be displayed alongside those of local participants.

Over the years, Through the Lens became an eagerly anticipated opportunity for students. For many, it provided a powerful platform of self-expression that continued to shape their worldview long after the program had ended. Richards’ version of Through the Lens concluded when he retired from The Whyte in 2017, but its legacy would continue in 2024 thanks to a pair of Through the Lens alumni, Nic Latulippe and Soloman Chiniquay.

Nic Latulippe and Soloman Chiniquay participated in the program while attending school in Canmore and Mînî Thnî, respectively. Years later, while pursuing careers in photography in Vancouver, they met and discovered their shared experience as participants in Through the Lens. Inspired by this, they developed an idea to revive the program and proposed it to The Whyte. They found that many of the cameras and developing equipment from the old program had survived in storage and were ready to be used again. With funding from the Wim and Nancy Pauw Foundation and another generation of high school students eager to take up film photography, a vibrant new iteration of the program was launched.   

The tactile and intimate nature of film photography continues to resonate strongly, even among youth who’ve grown up in the digital-centric era. The art form transcends nostalgia; it promotes an intentional and patient perspective of the world. When exploring the world one film reel at a time, every photo counts.

View the Through the Lens exhibtion in the Founders Gallery at The Whyte.

This exhbiition is generously supported by:

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