Tiger Williams, A Bear & Chris Dahl
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Sometime in 1994 I was dispatched by Equity Magazine to photograph ex Canucks player of note, Tiger Williams for the magazine's sports column. While there I spotted Williams's collection of bear skulls. There was a dramatic cloud formation outside his living room window. I quickly set up my lights to get it. By the time I switched from b+w to colour the sky darkened.
I went back with the pictures and art director Chris Dahl immediately promoted my sports column photograph to the cover. Dahl, the best magazine art director I ever worked with ( I would add to that short list Toronto's Barbara Solowan). Dahl is now the marketing director at West Vancuver's Collingwood School. Should the school decide to publish a school magazine I would not doubt that Dahl would make it our city's most handsome magazine.
Dahl pioneered in Vancouver in the middle 80s the four-colour reproduction of b+w photographs in magazines. He would impart on images, as seen here, a subtle colour cast. I don't know of any magazines or publications in Vancouver, who more than ever have the ability to change anything at the last moment, who would have gone the route that Dahl did here.