Over the past 25 years photographer Chris Harris has been documenting and publishing books about the Cariboo-Chilcotin-Coast region.
Thursday, Nov. 3 Harris, will launch his 13th and final book about the region with a multi-media slideshow at the Central Cariboo Arts Centre. The show starts at 6:30 p.m.
Titled British Columbia’s Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, A Photographer’s Journey, Harris says this book represents 25 years of exploring and documenting the region with photographs and stories.
“It’s my best book ever,” Harris says. “The most comprehensive.”
The book includes photographs showing the beauty and biodiversity of the entire Cariboo Chilcotin Coast region and includes more than 20 short stories, Harris says.
One of the stories he will talk about is the Chilcotin Ark.
This story could very well be the most significant story of the 21st century during this time of global climate change, Harris says.
With 10 of B.C.’s 14 bio-geoclimatic zones situated in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, he says the region is the world’s largest, contiguous, and most diverse wilderness complex in the temperate world.
The ark is the heart of the region, the book, and his presentation, Harris says.
The slideshow depicting images from the book, will be accompanied by commentary by Harris, and a musical track specifically composed for the presentation by Ken Marshall.
“It’s an audio visual extravaganza like never before seen,” Harris quips.
Harris says he met Marshall last Christmas Eve when he and his wife Mary came into his gallery at 108 Mile looking for a print as a Christmas gift.
In conversation Harris learned that Marshall had recently moved to the 108 Mile Ranch from Los Angeles where he worked as a composer and music producer on films, advertisements, video games and with musical bands.
From there the collaboration on putting music to the slideshow began.
Harris says this is his last photography book about the region as he is now moving into the realm of abstract artistic photography.
“I’m moving into photography as an art form,” Harris says. “I just feel the creative urge to move on to more artistic work.”
People who know his work might find this a contradiction in terms as some of the amazing photographs he has taken over the years can truly carry the label artistic.
“With a vitality for life, and a remembrance of the sacred in beauty, photography is my way of inspiring an ethic of respect for the generous planet that is our sustenance and our first beauty,” Harris says in his biography.
Harris began his wilderness adventures as a guide wanting to share with others the incredible beauty of the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast region.
He also puts out a monthly newsletter and offers photography workshops at his gallery at 108 Mile Ranch.
Books will be available for purchase and Harris will be available to sign them following the presentation.
Many of the photographs in Harris’s books are also available in print form.