About
My first love will always be travel, photography comes a close second, and aviation is third. When I get the chance to combine all three, it is heaven.
My interest in photography began when I became interested in people and the world, long before I owned a camera or a computer. At the tender age of 18 I left home and began a solo journey that started in the Canadian Rocky Mountains of Alberta in 1990 and took me around the world from 1991 to 1995. After returning to Canada, I made Vancouver my home base and made shorter trips, eventually deciding to study Linguistics and then Anthropology at Simon Fraser University. I appreciated photography, but didn’t own any equipment.
In July 2002, I bought my first digital point-and-shoot and began a digital archive of life around me in pictures, words, and video on my personal website, gailatlarge.com. Photography became a way to share in my exploration of the world and chart my evolution as an image enthusiast.
I cut my SLR teeth with a fully-manual film camera in 2005 and bought my first DSLR in 2007. By this time my photo catalogue was growing exponentially, so I created gailatlarge.net (largely a travelogue) to display the landscape photos and found a new home for my portraits and quirky shots in a separate gallery on gailedwinfielding.com. I shoot in both digital and film, but my medium of choice is digital, purely for practical reasons. I still love the look of film.
Accompanying a wedding photography client in 2008 on a dress-fitting appointment, I learned of The Brides’ Project, a non-profit bridal salon in Toronto that operates as a third-party fundraiser for cancer agencies. I donated my wedding dress shortly after and offered up my services as the volunteer webmaster, in-house photographer, and also shop volunteer when I’m not shooting weddings or travelling. I do this primarily to support cancer research, and secondarily to make wedding dresses more affordable, which in turn makes it possible to afford wedding photography. I lost my husband to cancer 11 weeks after our wedding in October 2005. Our story is here.
In 2010, I discovered that the Canadian Cancer Society has a driving service for cancer patients. I am now a volunteer driver for the Society 2-3 mornings a week, taking patients to their treatments. If you are in a position to be a volunteer driver, please get in touch with the CCS — they are always in need of drivers, and it is very rewarding to help patients directly!
My work has been published online and in print, for companies in the U.S., Canada, and Iceland, from aviation to sports to architecture and self-portraits. More samples of my photography can be found on my Flickr site (currently 20,000+ images), but it is only a fraction of my photo catalogue. Aside from commissioned work, I typically shoot about 1,000 photos per month for enjoyment, to experiment, and become a better photographer.
self-portrait at Niagara-on-the-lake, February 2011
If you’d like to reach me directly, the best way is by sending me an email. You can also find me on Twitter, tweeting about food, aviation, pop culture, and maybe even photography.
I look forward to hearing from you!
–Gail Edwin-Fielding