Robert Fisher
Staff Reporter
BARRY’S BAY – Weathered, lined, wrinkled, faces tell a story. Ottawa Valley photographer Alfred LeBlanc wants to help tell those stories.
LeBlanc is working on a project to capture the character of the Ottawa Valley through his portraiture.
LeBlanc got his first camera in his teens growing up on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and has been an avid hobbyist photographer for several decades. During his time working with the federal government, as an aide to Deputy Prime Minister Alan MacEachan, he documented many of MacEachan’s trips to the riding on Cape Breton. He continued to capture landscapes and scenics of the Cape Breton area. His portraits garnered the most interest from viewers. A publisher eventually convinced him to produce a book titled Portraits of Cape Breton. He’s now working on a similar project in the Ottawa Valley.
LeBlanc got his start with portraiture when two priests asked him to accompany them to capture photos of some of their parishioners. He then began working with MacEachan. “He tried to bring me as much as possible because I would like to get good pictures of him with his constituents.” LeBlanc kept visiting people and taking pictures. He retired from the public service three years ago, thinking, “What do I do with all this?” If he were going to exhibit the work, would it be the scenic or the portraits? Opinions of people he asked were clear: “All those scenery pictures are nice. But there’s something about your people pictures.”
The more he thought about it, the more he realized, “There’s something beautiful about an old face. An authentic encounter with a person in an authentic setting. It’s just magical. It’s poetry.” He ended up showing the work in seven exhibits and completing the book.
He still travels to Cape Breton three or four times a year from his adopted home in Ottawa. Several people, he said, have told him he should do a similar project in the Ottawa Valley, so he is. He’s coming to learn the immigrant history with the Scottish, Irish, Polish, German along with the native history of Indigenous groups.
He ended up getting connected to a fellow named Lewis MacDonald. MacDonald, it turns out, was his former childhood parish priest in Cape Breton. MacDonald left the priesthood, moved to Renfrew, married and became a teacher. MacDonald has been shepherding LeBlanc around the Renfrew area, making introductions and getting him started on meeting valley people. He then got in contact with David Shulist, mayor of Madawaska Valley, who has introduced LeBlanc to some people in the Wilno area. He has managed to capture some, “wonderful faces,” so far.
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