The Architectural Photography of Harry Upperton Knight
– opening February 27th –
Harry Upperton Knight (1873-1973) was one of Victoria’s most celebrated and prolific early twentieth century photographers. From the years following World War One to the transformations of the post-World War Two era, he recorded the city and its inhabitants over a period of almost five decades. This exhibit focuses on a remarkable selection of Knight’s architectural photography depicting some of Victoria’s buildings and the people who lived with them.
Knight’s Victoria
Born and trained as a photographer in England, Knight emigrated to Canada in 1910 where he eventually set up a studio in Victoria in 1917. For much of the twentieth century his name was synonymous with his craft as he photographed many of the Victoria’s residents in his studio, at their homes, and throughout the city’s streets and buildings.
Pictorialist Photography
As an active practitioner of the style of photography known as pictorialism, many of Knight’s images were produced in a way that focused on the potential of the photograph as a vehicle for personal expression. In this way, pictorialist photographers like Knight sought to expand the medium from one that simply recorded the world to a form of fine art that made a statement about it. Employing a wide variety of technology and formats to achieve this, pictorialst photographers often experimented with techniques such as soft focus and the use of negative space to create images that helped the viewer to feel, as well as see, something.
Architectural Record
Not only did Knight take thousands of photographs of Victoria’s buildings but he also depicted the ways that they related to each other, to the landscape, and to the people who lived and worked in and around them. The architectural focus of this exhibit is intended to give an idea of what it might have been like to live in early-mid twentieth century Victoria, and how the vision of one photographer was able to portray what he saw as the unique and important parts of his city both to his community, and for posterity.