Author Description

For over thirty years, photographer Freeman Patterson has explored the creative process and shared his insights with others through his remarkable images and his brilliant writing and teaching. ShadowLight traces an extraordinary personal and professional journey that has taken him across Canada, around the world, and deep into his own sources of creativity. Whether it is the soft spring colours near his home in rural New Brunswick where he first learned to love nature, the dramatic light and shadow of dunes in the Namibian desert, or the splendour of an evening sky in Patagonia, Patterson has an unerring instinct for the perfect photograph that speaks to us all. ShadowLight is an intriguing blend of recollection, observation and stunning photography that forms an indelible portrait of the creative imagination. Patterson combines 100 of his favourite images, selected from thousands of pictures he has made over the years, with an informative text which takes readers behind his photographs to a deeper appreciation of his craft. He traces his developing style and changing subject matter, considering the interplay of experience and imagination and the importance of dreams and symbols to visualization. By revealing the ways in which his own visual sense works, Patterson expands our understanding of "the art of seeing."