After what happened to me in the last year, I am starting to think that if you believe hard enough in something, you better watch out because it may just happen…RESPECT is the living proof it can. RESPECT is the story of a few guys and a strange women who embarked on an even stranger mission: to fly over the boreal forest rain or shine to come back with images to tell the world about that far far away land…

Part I: FALL 2006
ONCE UPON A TIME….

What some of you can see at the Montreal Biosphere, or at The Forks in Winnipeg, is the result of a crazy idea I had just over a year ago, as a Montreal based company named Sajo asked me to come up with a concept leading to a large size photographic show presented outside. All this to promote the Boreal Forest of Canada. I remember listening to the CEO and saying to myself: no way, it will not be a glorified brochure on nice trees, mountains, lakes and rivers. Need some dirt under the finger nails here…Need some grip. Need the cement to hold it together. Need…a story. I love stories. Walking out of his office, I didn’t have a clue. A few nights and mornings later “my” aviator was born. The story was: an aviator one day decides to cross the country, taking his small aircraft…on wheels (hell did I know nothing about aviation then…) over thousands of miles of forests, lakes and BIG open spaces (trees and water are the two worse enemies of a plane…with wheels; my big romantic idea led poor “Douglas” – to fly without a net at times…). Of course, the story needed to include photographers, key players in RESPECT. So, as “Douglas” flew over the northern regions of Canada, he was to meet one photographer per province and up they would go, to reach the clear (and not so clear) skies of Canada. A woman would fly with him, meet people and write stories (and do many many other things…).

Little did I know then how hard it would get but at the same time, how badly this project was needed. One year later there are close to 200 pictures hanging in two main Canadian cities. But let us go back a little.

RESPECT was a title most did not quite fully understand at first and that is now catching on…lucky for me…Wanna know how the name came about ? I always was an unconditional fan of Aretha Franklin (so now you can figure out my age ); one day I heard on the radio - swear this is true - her singing R.E.S.PE.C.T…and that was enough for me to get the whole thing swinging !

I danced my way through the preliminary phase: got my old friend and photographer Allen McInnis coming with me for an improvised week-end in Charlevoix, together with a guy who I just met the day before, the happy owner of a Cessna and crazy enough to accept the challenge. So we took off Thanks Giving week-end. Weather was perfect until we hit turbulence over the park (I will always remember this poor young park woman puking until grey in the face as Douglas was maneuvering in between the cliffs of the Haute-Gorges Park). Allen took no notice of the bumps and managed to get some nice shots. Awesome moments never to be forgotten…don’t know if our friendly park attendant entertains same thought, but the issue was to come back with something to show eventual sponsors and we did.

Later that same month, our “Canadian Robert Redford” - this is how French novelist Marc Levy named Douglas after seeing his picture (I was corresponding with Mr. Levy all the way to Yukon – more later) - took off again this time with Kazuyoshi Ehara “Kaz”, a new comer and a great shooter. They flew over gorgeous Georgian Bay in Ontario and Kaz who was air sick, had Douglas to fly seven hours with the window opened. I met red-eyed Douglas and livid looking Kaz at an airport close to Toronto. Winter was getting close, and the project momentarily stopped. But we had managed to get enough pictures to go now on another adventure: seducing financial partners…

Fear of flying? Try fund raising instead, it will cure you…OR…You think environment is a magic word to raise funds? Think again.

Tell me your thoughts (vous pouvez m’écrire en français aussi).

MORE LATER AS I DISCOVER THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE FOREST WIZZARDS STRUGGLING OVER ONE SINGLE POT OF GOLD!

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Source :
Louise Larivière, directrice, Reporters Communication
Tél. : 514.294-8794
louisel@reporters.qc.ca