Jack Hodgins looks worried. Gary Geddes looks thoughtful. Sheri-D Wilson looks middle-aged. Doug Coupland looks sideways. Robert Kroetsch looks stern. Marilyn Bowering looks professorial. The lack of animation in the 50 faces of Don Denton's second collection of author pix, Second Chapter (Banff Centre $22.99), makes for a glum-looking crew. Is seriousness supposed to equate with art? Or perhaps Denton finds the stare has documentary resonance? Either way, the word cheese was apparently verboten. Raised in Maple Ridge, Denton of Sooke gathered about one-third B.C. writers for Second Chapter including Genni Gunn, Maria Coffey, Kevin Chong, Brian Brett, bill bissett, Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, Bill Richardson and John Gould. His first volume included Michael Turner, Karen Connelly, George Bowering and many others.

Born in Burnaby on June 7, 1957, freelance photographer Don Denton has worked for newspapers as a photographer and picture editor throughout western Canada as well as for the British wire service Reuters based in Brussels, Belgium. Publisher of a photo magazine called Deadline, he began photographing Canadian writers in the mid-1990s and has taught photography at Mount Royal College in Calgary and the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria.

BOOKS:

Second Chapter: The Canadian Writers Photography Project (Banff Centre Press, 2004) 1-894773-11-X

First Chapter: The Canadian Writers Photography Project (Banff Centre Press, 2001)

[BCBW 2004] "Photography"