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Photography plays a major role in our coverage of projects around the globe, made possible by our team of dedicated City Ambassadors. To recognize the hard work of these contributors, we will be sharing regular Q and A segments on SRC City Ambassadors. For our first Ambassador Profile, we talked with Edmonton photographer Dave Sutherland, known on the SRC Forum as Daveography.
SRC: How did you get started tracking development and taking pictures of construction sites?
DS: I've been interested in urban development for as long as I’ve been allowed to wander the city on my own. I’ve been active in various forums and sites that track development projects since about 2007, but it’s only been in the last couple of years that I began documenting projects in photos. That started when I changed jobs and my new office was just half a block from the Kelly Ramsey project, just as demolition and excavation began.
Since I joined SkyriseCities last year, though, I’ve become much more active in the development world, networking, interviewing, reaching out for information, requesting renderings, and lining up tours.
What’s your favourite local project in the pipeline right now?
Edmonton has some amazing projects under construction and proposed right now, but I’m definitely the most excited for Stantec Tower. At over 250 metres tall, it blows away our current tallest by over 100 metres, and when completed will be the tallest tower in Canada outside of Toronto. I’m extremely excited to watch it rise into and well above the skyline.
What are you up to when you aren’t tracking local development?
Spinning a lot of proverbial plates these days. In my day job I’m a software developer, and I am also currently working on a personal software project on the side. I’m a semi-professional photographer, mostly landscape and fine-art, but I also do a little of a lot of other genres. I’m a meadmaker along with my wife, who got me into that hobby, which just recently led me to also try my hand at beer brewing.
I’m a bike commuter and trail rider, urban gardener, and love a good craft beer. I’m also a proud papa to three chinchillas, a corn snake, and an Australian Blue-Tongue lizard.
Is there anything about your local development scene that would surprise people from other cities?
It was really the small changes that have had the biggest impact on the transformation of downtown Edmonton. To me it began with a per-unit subsidy to convert old warehouses and underused office buildings into residential apartments, condos, and lofts. With a burgeoning community came more shops and restaurants, and events like the weekly outdoor City Market farmer’s market in the summer started to bring in people on weekends as well.
People became invested in downtown again, pride in their community grew, and it has snowballed into more and larger residential developments, offices consolidating and relocating into the core, still more shops and top-notch restaurants opening, spawned an amazing startup culture, drawn new attractions like the Neon Museum, and more.
So while we talk about big ticket developments like the ICE District revitalizing downtown, that type and scale of development really is just the culmination and continuation of two decades of community building that has already been taking place here, and I think that can serve as a lesson to the many other cities in North America looking to revitalize their own downtowns: it all starts with people.
What gear do you shoot with?
I'm usually out with a Canon 6D and one of a 28mm, 50mm, or 100mm prime lens, and I keep a 50D for when I need a second body. I’ve been known to shoot a bit of film with a Canon AE-1 on occasion, and I also have a ton of studio and lighting gear that I don’t use nearly enough.
What’s your favourite thing about life in Edmonton?
There is so much I love about this place, but if I had to pick a favourite, it would be that this is a city where I feel I can make something of myself, while also contributing to the city as a whole. I understand the appeal that larger cities have to people, but I love the feeling of living someplace that’s “unfinished” over a place that already has everything you could want. I like watching it grow and transform and mature into its own identity, and it’s hard not to think I’ve had at least some small hand in that.
And of course I have to mention the river valley. It’s so beautiful and unique. So two favourites it is.
You can see more of Dave Sutherland's work by visiting the associated links included below:
