Interview with photographer Martin Chamberland

The 34-year old found his calling as a photographer when on a trip to Europe at age 20. Studying film in Canada at the time, this journey brought Martin to realise that it was through the photographic lens rather than a movie camera, that he could best express himself.

Photography is now constantly on his mind. “When I'm doing the groceries, shopping, even mowing the lawn – it's always there. I want to take compelling images, be they of important events or not.”

Martin works for a major daily newspaper in Canada. While most of his work is based in Montreal, he has had assignments in the remote Canadian Arctic, where he photographed threatened Canadian Geese, and India’s Kashmiri province.  

It was with one of his images taken in Kashmir that he scooped fourth place in this year’s photo competition. As a young girl peers out between the threads of a carpet she is weaving she looks directly at the lens, capturing the onlooker in her gaze. Martin sees the expression as one containing “an ounce of doubt … fear maybe” and it was precisely this feeling that he had been aiming to capture to portray the current situation in Kashmir.  

He puts great faith in the power of photography, stating, “Photography is powerful in bringing about change. It has always done so and it will always continue to do so. There will always be the need for a good picture and a good photographer.”

Photographic competitions like the annual FoEI one can act as a forum in which photographs, and their subjects, can be aired. Of his win in this year’s competition, Martin states:

“This has boosted my morale and enhanced my desire to participate in many other contests. It makes me even more aware while working that I should go that extra mile and try taking the best images possible. That's why it's important to win once in a while.”