Timothy Allan Johnston
  • Home
  • Photographs
    • H/W 80's Dance Party
    • Cambridge
    • Calgary Rally in Support of Schools
    • 2022 Calendar Images
    • Etta's Album
    • 2021 Calendar Photographs
    • Wardair's Boeing 727
    • Grumman Goose CF-UAZ
    • Mitchell Bombers
    • Warbirds at Calgary
    • Okotoks Photo Walk
    • African Girl Children Exhibition
    • Theatre of the Gods
    • What Once Was
    • Spring Coulee to Vauxhall
    • No Whistle: An Abandoned Rail Line in Calgary
    • Trains and More Trains
    • At the Airdrie Rodeo
    • At the Arrowwood Rodeo, 2019
    • Mossleigh, Rockyford, Rosebud, Chancellor
    • Hand Hills Stampede
    • Millarville Rodeo 2017
    • Barrel Racers for Britney
    • Switching the Highfield Spur
    • Photo Cards Objects
    • Photo Cards Landscapes
    • Photo Cards Railroads
    • Southern Alberta Sweep
    • Southwest Saskatchewan
    • Osprey Family
    • Photo Walk 2015
    • Calgary Stampede 101
    • Gleichen Rodeo 2015
    • Tees Rodeo 2015
    • Millarville Rodeo 2015
    • Tsuu T'inna Rodeo 2015
    • Arrowwood Rodeo 2015
    • Calgary Stampede Rodeo 2015
    • Water Valley Rodeo 2015
    • Millarville Rodeo 2014
    • Longview Rodeo 2014
    • Arrowwood Rodeo 2014
    • Rockyford Rodeo 2014
    • Millarville Rodeo 2013
    • Pick Up Men at the Millarville Rodeo
    • Bar U Rodeo
    • Grace Under Pressure at the Water Valley Rodeo
    • Saturday at the Cochrane Rodeo
    • SBA Remains
    • Chestermere Barn
    • Landscape Print Sale
    • Recent Photographs
    • Pierce Estate Park and Southwest of Calgary
    • Turner Valley Refinery
    • Saturday in Inglewood
    • Within Twenty Miles
    • Saturday Downtown
    • In and Around Calgary
    • Canadian Images
    • Around Alberta
    • Around Alberta II
    • Bow River Ranch
    • Ottawa-Toronto Road Trip
    • Bridges
    • Egypt
    • Athens
    • Mykonos
    • Mozambique
    • Nature
    • Alberta Ballet "Mozart's Requiem"
    • Alberta Ballet "Pomp Without Circumstance"
    • Alberta Ballet "Up Close" new choreography
    • Alberta Ballet "Seven Deadly Sins"
    • Alberta Ballet "Fumbling Toward Ecstasy"
    • Alberta Ballet "Sleeping Beauty"
    • Alberta Ballet "Love Lies Bleeding"
  • Travel Journals
    • India 1986
    • Swaziland 1989
    • Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe 1993
    • Mozambique 1996
    • Honduras and Nicaragua 2000
    • Togo and Ghana 2001
    • Lome, Togo 2002
    • Mozambique 2003
    • Togo and Ghana 2004
    • Barbados, 2004
    • Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, 2006
    • Ghana 2009
    • Mozambique 2010
    • Tim's Canada Road Trip
  • Published Stories
    • Calgary Urban Sketchers
    • Doug Lansdell's Farm Tractors of the Past
    • Threshing Bee a nod to farm life of old
    • Westword Magazine
    • Calgary's Rail Line to the Past
    • A Carmen Red Jaguar
    • Alberta's Bessonneau Hangar
    • A barrel of fun in retirement for Maureen Marston
    • Clark Seaborn's Airplanes
    • 2442: Calgary Transit's Newest C-Train Car
    • No. 31 EFTS De Winton Celebration
    • Dave Richards at Heritage Park
    • Off the beaten path with Charley
    • You Oughta Be In Pictures
    • In the War Skies of Calgary
    • Calgary's National Music Centre
    • The Polar Express
    • Sirens' Song Silenced
    • Nick's Barbershop
    • A Visit to the Calgary Stampede Ranch
    • A Pony Named Midget
    • Bert Jackson, Bow Maker
    • Down Highway 12 and Home
    • A Field Trip to Lake Nyasa
    • "Remembering the Air Base that Time Forgot"
    • A "Daily Diary" History of RCAF Station Pearce, Alberta
    • Constructing the Aerodrome of Democracy: Civil Engineering and the Development of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
    • Stubb Ross
  • Editor's Notebooks
    • Humor in the Classroom (and, sometimes, late at night, on the playground)New Page
    • Experiencing the World of Real Work
    • 100 Years of Renewal
    • An African Opportunity
    • "Flying Right"
    • The Canadian Teachers' federation
    • At the Edge of Learning
    • Distant Shorelines
    • Computer Renovations
    • 75 Years
    • Where Were You When the Blue Jays Won?
    • Deadwood, Wild Horse, Paddle Prairie, Big Stone
    • Gone Flyin'
    • Birthday Gifts from Delhi
    • Stories from the Veld
    • Travelling the Border Country
    • Teachers Teaching
    • Last of the First Days
    • Principal
    • No "Snags" in these School Councils
    • Finding History in my Own "Backyard"
    • Humour In the Classroom
    • A "Learningful" Experience
    • Riding the Muskeg Special
    • The Big Picture
    • A Decade of Faces
  • Contact
  • Cambridge

PHOTOGRAPHS

My earliest recollection of making photographs was with my childhood friend Curtis Enerson at the summer home of his parents in Waterton Lakes National Park. We photographed Cameron Falls, scenes along the lake shore and the good ship "International". I had a hand-me-down Clix DeLuxe camera, a little plastic box, shaped to resemble a rangefinder camera. The first camera I purchased new was a Kodak Brownie Six-20 Model D and its Kodak flash bulb unit. Both of these cameras are still in my possession.

I became quite involved in photography in high school, being appointed president of the Lethbridge Collegiate Institute photography club, and helped provide photographs of school events to the yearbook and newspaper. At age 16, I was hired for the summer by John and Helen Porter to take photographs at the top of Banff's Mount Norquay chairlift. The chairlift ran all summer in those days, carrying untold numbers of tourists to the top of the lift where they could enjoy the wonderful panorama. The photographs we made showed a person suspended in their chair below the chairlift cable with Mount Rundle and the town of Banff in the background. As an enterprise, this was a highly lucrative venture for the Porters. As an immersion experience in volume hand-processing of black and white photographs, this was unsurpassed for me.

As often happens, "one thing led to another". Returning to school in the fall, I was hired for a part-time job at the Lethbridge Herald to print glossy photographs of pictures that had appeared in the pages of the paper. On reporting for my first afternoon of work, Orville Brunelle, the Herald's Chief Photographer, thrust a camera into my hands and told me to be at the Elks Club at 3:00 p.m. to photograph a cheque presentation. From that moment, I became an official newspaper photographer, trying my best to finish high school while enjoying the "key to the city" that being a Herald photographer provided.

In my second year of full-time employment with the Herald, I decided to enrol in the Photographic Technology program being offered by the brand-new Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). This was an intensely creative experience for me and I greatly enjoyed the instruction I received under the leadership of Robert Alexander, the director of the program, and his highly experienced teaching colleagues. At the end of the two-year program, Alexander asked me to join the photography program teaching staff. I would gladly have done so but, as it turned out, I didn't have enough education. My days of neglecting school studies to enjoy being "Tim from the Herald" had caught up with me.

I returned to the Herald for a year and then enrolled at the brand-new University of Lethbridge to pursue a career as a teacher. In three years, I earned a four-year Bachelor of Education degree and set out teaching with the Lethbridge Public School District. I have Bob Alexander to thank because, without his belief that I could be a teacher, I can't predict what path my life would have taken.

My teaching career in Lethbridge lasted ten years and then I was appointed to the executive staff of the Alberta Teachers' Association. For 30 years, I travelled the province, Canada and a good many places overseas working with teachers. Photography was an important facet throughout my career, especially in my role as editor of the ATA Magazine.

My cameras have changed considerably over the years and with each one I experienced new capabilities and growing enjoyment of the craft. The current camera is a high-end digital Nikon with high-end lenses, quite a stretch from the Clix DeLuxe.

Computers made all of my hard-earned experience with film and chemicals essentially obsolete. My "darkroom" is now a combination of a wonderful Mac desktop computer and a fine Epson printer. 

I invite you to take a look at some of my photographs from the last few years. More can be found before the travel journals and published stories elsewhere on this site.

I trust there are some that will please.