John J Penner 's photography practice spans the gamut from film to digital and to historic processes such as salt printing and carbon printing. In 2006, he left behind a career as an award-winning urban designer, including 15 years as Urban Design coordinator for the City of Saskatoon, to focus on photography. Since then, his experiments with various methods and materials has helped him expand his technical expertise and open new paths of artistic exploration.

 

John's interest in photography dates back to a university classmate's darkroom tour. He then studied photography in earnest with Hans Dommasch, becoming one of the first students to complete the three-year University of Saskatchewan off-campus program in Prince Albert. As an active member of the arts community, he participated in a number of local group shows and touring exhibitions.

 

After moving to Saskatoon, John joined the Board of The Photographers Gallery, where he took his first alternative photo processing workshops. He was a founding member of Video Verite (now PAVED) and was an active member of the Saskatchewan Craft Council. While his urban design career precluded an active exhibition schedule, he always had his cameras at hand both as a research tool and as a means of exploring his environment.

 

In recent years John has pursued his passion for photography full-time, producing of number of photographic exhibitions. The images of the salt prints in the Exhibition Menu are the result of techniques acquired in workshops taken at the Eastman House in Rochester, New York and Gallery 44 in Toronto. He is currently working on a Carbon Transfer printing project featuring landscape photographs of Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

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Photographs in the Exhibitions section are available for purchase by contacting the photographer through email. The sepia coloured photographs are "salt"prints and the full colour prints are  pigment (K3) inkjet prints on cotton rag paper. The black and white images are available as "piezography prints. The "salt prints" may also be purchased through the Grasslands Gallery Online: www.grasslandsgallery.com

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