Yellowknife (Apr 15/05) - A man whose daughter works in Fort Simpson dropped by the Toxic Gallery of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa to see a photo exhibit by Tim Atherton, because he was curious to see what the NWT looked like.

"When he first started looking around, he thought it was Ottawa," said Atherton.

Tim Atherton stands beside his 8 by 10 camera in the backyard of his suburban townhouse in August 2003. - NNSL file photo

The man turned out to be the curator emeritus of the National Gallery of Canada's photography collection, someone very astute about reading photographs.

But the man's confusion is understandable.

The Yellowknife photographer's exhibit "Peripheral Vision" is made up of photos of the city's urban landscape.

The fact is, suburban shopping strips, whether in Yellowknife or southern Ontario, tend to look alike.

Gallery director Patrick Mikhail said they changed the name of the show from "The Yellowknife Project" to encourage people to spend some time investigating the photos to discover where they were taken.

"Down here you have this image of what the North looks like," said Mikhail.

"This has a fresh perspective. It's something that we're not used to seeing or even imagining."

During his 11 years in Yellowknife, Atherton sold the usual photos of Yellowknife seen in guides and brochures.

He took photos of Old Town landmarks such as the Wildcat Cafe and places like the legislative assembly and the museum that Atherton dubs the "tourist quarter."

So one aim of his project was to record the Yellowknife cityscape outside of Old Town where most of us live, work and shop.

He spent the last three years hauling his huge camera around town creating massive prints of what some might call blights on the landscape, functional places that we tend not to think of as particularly artistic.

"The whole point of photographing it at ground level and using the large format camera is that it forces you to slow down and pay more attention to detail," he said.

All of the photos were taken in summer, for practical reasons. Take a picture outdoors in Yk in winter and "all you see is the snow," Atherton said.

In summer, he could take the time to walk around and look at the neighbourhoods and decide what to photograph.

Despite the fact that most of the images are "tinged with a sense of fondness," Atherton admits there's implied criticism in his photos of bland suburban construction parachuted into the wilderness.

"There's a seeming lack of planning, or lack of consideration for social and environmental aspects in planning in Yellowknife," he said.

"We never build to the environment with these beautiful billion-year-old Precambrian rocks.

"We blast them, put gravel down and then build a rectangular block on top of it as cheaply and as fast as possible."

The size of the prints and their clarity justify the difficulties and expense of the large format camera.

"That's the payoff for all the hassle of lugging it around," said Atherton.

"Even at 20 by 24, the prints just jump out at you. It's not that they're ultrasharp, although they are very sharp, it's that depth of detail. You feel like you can get drawn into them."

Four of the prints in the show are 40 by 50 inches, and the other 12 are 20 by 24 inches. Mikhail said one of the most popular prints in the show is Atherton's take on the Yellowknife golf course.

"People are going crazy over it," he said.

Atherton thinks its popularity is due to its subject matter - golf courses being the epitome of a human-managed environment.

"And yet the one is Yellowknife is totally unmanaged," said Atherton.

"They have to put down artificial grass and the whole boreal forest looks like it's taking over. It's a very un-golf-course-like golf course."

Atherton and his family moved to Edmonton last week and he may continue his study of urban landscapes in Alberta's capital.

Meanwhile, the Yellowknife exhibit is attracting a lot of attention in Ottawa. Aside from the curious public, people from the National Gallery, and art historians and curators have dropped by for a look. "They were the ones who were reacting the strongest," said Mikhail.