When Allison Bos was a kid, her paternal grandfather Eric Goodman instilled in her a knack for photography.
Goodman was a professional nature photographer in Osoyoos, and although Allison was born and raised in Kamloops, she often accompanied him out in the field and into the dark room.
“From him I learned to always have your camera with you, and to look for the unordinary in the ordinary,” Allison recalls.
Her first solo forays into photography were typical of most children.
With a point-and-shoot film camera she’d received for her eighth birthday from her parents, she ran around photographing things inside the house.
“My dad was an amazing photographer too,” she says.
Chuckling, she remembers those early attempts mostly featured blurry pictures of her cat.
“I was probably in motion chasing the cat, trying to get a picture.”
It was during high school that her love for photography really blossomed. There she worked in the dark room, doing things for the yearbook. From there she minored in photography while studying at UBC for her education degree.
A member of the Professional Photographer’s Association of British Columbia and National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Bos continues to take classes and says there are always new things to learn.
When at home, most of her photography centres on people — babies, weddings, children and families.
Baby photography is one of her favourite activities because clients will hand her a five-day old baby and let her go to work.
“There’s so much innocence with a newborn — they sleep and don’t move. I love cuddling with them.”
One of the photographs in the exhibit features a pregnant tummy at month intervals.
Allison also offers a beginner photography class called “I want to shoot my kids.”
In the three-to-five hour workshop, she shows people how to use their cameras and what all the buttons and dials mean.
“I give tips and ideas on how to get better pictures and how to get away from using the auto setting. If there’s time we’ll go outside and take photographs to practice right away what you’ve just learned.”
The other half of her photography emerges whenever she travels.
“That’s when I get what my husband calls my urban artistic art, where you’re not quite sure what it is.”
Following in her grandfather’s footsteps, she continues looking for the unusual. Her 2012 artwork exhibit features several architectural subjects she’s gleaned while travelling.
Aside from professional photography Bos is also a teacher at Glendale Elementary School. She arrived in Williams Lake in 2001 to do her teaching practicum.
During her last weekend in Williams Lake, she met her future husband, chiropractor Mike Bos, who was home in Williams Lake doing a preceptor or internship.
The couple have a four-year-old daughter Peyton.
Allison loves architecture and the lines and says one of her favourite photographs in the exhibit was taken in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
It’s called “Wright Spiral” because the spiral shaped museum was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. When Allison walked into the museum and looked up she knew exactly what she wanted with that photograph.
Next March she hopes to go to another big city, she says.
Learning how to use Photoshop has been an exciting learning curve for Allison because it is such a “massive, massive” program.
“When we built our house, we built a dark room in it, but before getting my dark room set up, I went digital.”
She soon discovered she could do things in Photoshop that she would have done in the dark room but without chemicals. “Using Photoshop has actually made my life easier and faster.”
Allison’s work is shown at the Cariboo Chiropractic and Medical Centre on Cameron Street.
Allison is participating in Artwalk for the second time; however, says she hasn’t had any other exhibits since university.