The Week That Was #27

May 17th to May 23rd, 2026

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Week That Was, a collection of images that I’ve taken the previous week.

You may find that this post is too long for you to read in your email. So, to see it in all of its glory, you might have to view it in your browser or via the Substack app.

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This past week I’ve visited four galleries, each one showing photography exhibits. The first three were in Toronto and the exhibits were all part of the annual CONTACT Photography Festival which is held in the city each May. The fourth gallery was in Niagara Falls.

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The first visit was to the Olga Korper Gallery which was showing a collection of images by the late, great Robert Mapplethorpe. All the images on display (click here to see them) were provided by the Mapplethorpe Foundation (the gallery is the sole representative of the Mapplethorpe Estate in Canada) and the quality of the photos and the printing was sublime/exquisite/stunning/freakin’ amazing. Also, rather expensive. Certainly outside my meagre budget. The silver gelatine prints on display ran from $11,000 to over $80,000. The very lovely $21,000 print of the equally lovely Debbie Harry (my teenage crush, or at least one of them) will have to wait until I win the lottery. However, the exhibit was excellent, very well put together and displayed and it honoured Mapplethorpe’s legacy. What more could you want?

Outside the Korpa Gallery

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The second visit was to the Stephen Bulger Gallery, one of Canada’s top commercial galleries with a collection of over 30,000 Canadian photographs in its inventory. On display here was the work of two Canadian artists, Spring Hurlbut and Arnaud Maggs. Hurlbut’s exhibit (called Dyadic Circles) consisted of photos of cremated ashes formed into circles divided vertically. Not really my cup of tea to be honest. Here’s the artist statement:

Maggs’ work was a selection from his archive. There were some interesting portrait images but the majority of his work didn’t resonate with me either. However, what does interest me though is a documentary about the two of them called, not surprisingly, “Spring and Arnaud”. They met when she was 35 and he was 60 and they were together for 26 years until his death in 2012. From the start of their relationship, she knew that she would probably survive him so I wouldn’t be surprised if that awareness and his eventual death played into her fascination with the ashes of the dead.

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The final Toronto gallery was Paul Petro Contemporary Art. This was also showing the work of two photographers, Marlene Creates, who lives in Newfoundland, and Ho Tam, born in Hong Kong but now residing in Vancouver. Marlene Creates had selected pieces from a project called “24 Years in a Patch of Old-Growth Boreal Forest on Blast Hole Road, Newfoundland 2002-2026”. Wow! That’s a bit of a mouthful. There were a number of interesting pieces though, including a collection of nine diptychs of a hand on a tree, where the first image was taken in 2007 in black and white and the second in 2026 in colour. They show how the tree and its environs have changed over the 19 year timeframe which was quite interesting to see. Ho Tam’s exhibit was called Lessons, and it was another long term project. Ho was born in Hong Kong and went to elementary school there. Two decades later, just after the former British colony had been returned to China, he revisited the school and was granted permission to film there with a video camera. The images on display are stills taken from the video footage which gives them a bit of a creepy CCTV vibe. It was an interesting exhibit though, especially once you know the backstory.

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The fourth gallery I visited was in Niagara Falls and the exhibit was not part of the CONTACT festival. The photographer behind this exhibit is someone who is probably familiar to many in the Substack photographic community. Her name is Carrie Lee although you might know her as Clee Images. Carrie’s exhibit, Woman, has been on display at the Niagara Falls Museum since January 31st and will run until July 19th.

Clee’s artist statement

This was my favourite exhibit of all the ones I saw during the week. Mapplethorpe was amazing, the others “interesting” but this one hit differently. I think partly it was because of my Substack connection with Carrie but more than that, this collection of images and the stories behind them were very powerful, very emotional and very inspiring. It was an experience that stayed with me for far longer than any of the other exhibits that I saw this week. Here’s just a few images that I took with my phone (apologies to Carrie for the crappy rendition, her photos are much better in person):

It’s amazing to think that she completed the preparations for this exhibition while she was recovering from a broken hip. As my wife, who was with me at the exhibit, said when she saw Carrie’s photo by the entrance, “she’s a very cool kick ass!”. I have to agree.

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And finally………The Week That Was will be going on a hiatus for a little while. Life is starting to get busier now that the summer is getting closer and I also have a head full of ideas for Substack posts that I want to get completed. I’ve also decided to dabble in film photography again which is something I’ve been thinking of doing for a while but not managed to get around to. With all of that going on, I’m not going to have the time to also put out these weekly posts. However, I won’t be disappearing completely so stay tuned…….

Thanks for your ongoing support, it’s truly appreciated.