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Destination
Nova Scotia: Its Culture and Landscapes
Photographs by Albert Lee
Text by Alexa Thompson
Nimbus Publishing - 64 pages
Cost: $14.95
Softcover
ISBN-551109-282-4
reviewed by Ronnie Scullion
Albert Lee's mastery with the camera
is evident in the richly textured
and inspired images he has gathered together for us in "Destination Nova Scotia: Its
Culture and Landscapes". His photographic essay of the province draws on the
diversity of the people and the colourful, changing vistas.  As Lee comments in the Preface, "Destination
Nova Scotia is a very brief (and subjective) summary of only a few of my favourite sites
across the province. Nova Scotia continues to be a destination for my camera and my
heart."
Light and shadow dance across the pages. Patterns in the landscapes are evoked, suggestive
of exotic fabrics, mosaic tiles or painted canvases.
Near the Scott paper mill in Pictou bright sunlight is reflected off the
waters forming a luminescent background against which the silhouettes of cormorants
sitting atop pylons are set. Water and light are sharply contrasted, the resulting effect
is a veined pattern suggestive of a decorative batik cloth. In another picture, the muted
light and soft amber tones of sunset over a Musquodoboit lake become background to the
long grasses and reeds in the shallow waters. The photograph has the distinct appearance
of a pen and ink drawing.
Moments are frozen in time challenging our perspective - a house in
historic Sherbrooke Village is dwarfed by the brightly painted petunias and geraniums of a
neighbouring lawn. A row of houses on South Park Street in Halifax becomes an assembly of
vertical columns.
Lee has carefully chosen and arranged the photographs. While grouped according to region
of the province, the pictures on facing pages often are paired with attention to
composition and style. Facing the photograph of the South Park Street houses is a view of
the Macdonald Bridge at night, coloured lights reflected in vertical bands across the
harbour, mirroring the vertical columns of the houses.
The filigree wrought iron gates leading into the Public Gardens in
Halifax cast a curly-queued patterned shadow on the sidewalk. On the facing page is a view
of the train station in Halifax as seen through a stand of silhouetted trees, the branches
of the trees forming an interlaced patterned 'gateway'.
Reflections are further exploited in coastal water scenes where mirror
images of small colourful, small fishing boats or dissolving images of tall sailing masts
challenge and excite the viewer's imagination.
The accompanying text by Alexa Thompson chronicles the rich cultural history that has
shaped Nova Scotia from the early nomadic populations of Paleo-Indians through the
settlement of the peninsula in 1500BC by the Mi'kmaq,  the later tug-of-war between French and English settlers, and
the more recent influx of immigrants and refugees from around the world.
The history of each region is recounted with particular attention to cultural and
industrial development. The importance of the geography: coastal or wilderness and how it
related to the development of either fishing, farming, boat building or other occupations
is investigated. The evolving cultural and historical landscape is as richly textured as
the
visual vistas.
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