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June 5, 2009
Seeing beauty everywhere
Wildlife and nature are captured by photographer Hallé's lens.
OLGA LIVSHIN
The new photography show by Jocelyne Hallé, which opened in the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCCGV) on May 21, is called Up Close and Personal. For Hallé, everything she photographs feels that way. When the fallen petals of a dead peony develop a pattern of beauty, when a rusted car wreck, overgrown with moss on a Sechelt roadside, turns into a sacred memorial, you know you have met a true artist.
Hallé has always loved photography. She started taking photos when she was 10 and she has never stopped, although she didn't consider herself an artist until a couple of years ago. And the credit for her artistic self-discovery falls to her co-workers and friends at the JCCGV, where she works.
"Why don't you display your photos or exhibit them?" her JCCGV friends pestered her, because she went everywhere with her camera. But it took a stronger push to convince the shy woman.
Hallé grew up in Montreal. After graduating from a local college, she worked at a travel agency in Quebec, but she wasn't happy there. She wanted to travel herself, not sell travel packages, so she went backpacking in Europe. After returning from abroad, she settled in Vancouver.
In 2005, as a part of a JCCGV delegation, she travelled to Israel for a staff seminar. Although she is not Jewish, she fell in love with the country and upon coming back to Vancouver, she brought home more than 800 photos. The artist in her had finally come out of its shell.
Her enlarged photo of the Western Wall hangs as a mural triptych at Beth Hamidrash Synagogue and several of her Israeli photos have been converted into tribute cards, used by the JCCGV to thank its donors. Since May 2008, a number of Hallé's Israeli photos have been on display at the JCCGV atrium. Many visitors admire them, but not many know that the photographer works a few metres away, behind the membership desk. "The best compliment I receive every day is that of people standing in front of the photos, silently lost in thoughts," she said.
A few of Hallé's Israeli photos are included in her current exhibition at the Zack Gallery. "Tel Aviv Beach" shows two red chairs side by side on a deserted beach, looking forlornly out at the Mediterranean, waiting for a loving couple to sit down and enjoy the sunset together. The picture is imbued with expectation and hope.
"Bougainvillea over Jerusalem Stone" is a peek into someone's garden, picturesque and tranquil in the hot, shimmering air. "Olives" glistens with briny moisture. The photo makes you salivate, just like "Strawberries" next to it, so juicy and sweet you want to stuff one into your mouth.
Another Israeli photo, "Entrance to Jerusalem Artist's House," is a half-open gate, beckoning into the mystery of a shady yard. "I love doors," Hallé said. "Your front door tells a lot about you. When I saw this one, I wanted to enter."
A later series of photos come from the artist's garden. Although she doesn't manipulate her images, except cropping them, the blinding colors and whimsical shapes of the flora seem abstract, almost surreal and reminiscent of a pixel dance of computer musical software.
"Patience is not one of my gifts," she said. "However, I can spend hours in my garden, waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect timing to snap a dragonfly on a flower or a bird in flight carrying twigs to its nest. It is the most relaxing thing in the world for me and seeing my pictures in albums makes me enjoy special times over and over, year after year."
"Friendly Dragonfly" is one of those pictures, with every miniscule detail in sharp relief. Purple petunia in the background is like a Turkish carpet, on which the pretty dragonfly unfurls her sparkling, crystalline wings. "It posed for me," Hallé said, laughing.
Birds and animals also seem to pose for her, trusting the artist implicitly. She found her bored, sleepy "Heron" in Stanley Park and her "Juvenile Bald Eagle" – proud and disheveled like many teenagers – on a bird-watching trip. "Chipmunk," showing the animal clutching a peanut, is one of the favorites in the exhibition. It is her mother's neighbor. "I visited my mom (she is still back home) one day," Halle recalled, "and she was feeding the little guy. He could count, she said; wouldn't go away until he got three peanuts: one behind each cheek and one in his front teeth."
Last year, Hallé's chipmunk photo was used by the Canadian Wildlife Federation in its newsletter caption contest. It inspired many responses. One of the best was: "One down, 999 to go."
Every picture the artist takes is a glimpse into the unknown, be it an Israeli private home, a cornflower in her garden or a timid wood duck. Everywhere she points her camera, she sees beauty.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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