Posted at 1:00 p.m.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
August 2005, Baffin Island. On an expedition on the CCGS science vessel Amundsen for two weeks in 2005, I had the great fortune to take a helicopter ride over the glaciers of Baffin Island. It was while returning to the ship that the pilot saw this superb polar bear in Clyde River, in Inuit territory. He got close enough to allow me to take this picture. I still have shivers.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
November 2011, Guatemala. I had just got up and was having a peaceful lunch when I saw a funeral procession through the window. I got out of the house with my cameras and followed this procession for two hours. The people of the small town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, near Antigua, Guatemala, were honored by my presence and urged me to approach the procession, to my delight. I really like reporting abroad and I had the chance to visit around twenty countries as part of my work.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
January 2010, Port-au-Prince. I was sent to Haiti after the terrible earthquake of January 2010, which notably destroyed the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption cathedral in Port-au-Prince. I was there when a musical quartet walked through the rubble after playing for a funeral. For me it’s the album Abbey Road of the Beatles reversed.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
June 2019, Brossard. After a busy evening at work, thunderstorms made the drive home spectacular. I stopped at the side of the road and took out the tripod. It was with photos of five seconds of exposure for more than an hour that I managed to capture these flashes above the new Samuel-De Champlain bridge.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
February 2022, Beijing. In an emotional game, Canadian hockey players beat the Americans at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, China. The Olympics are logistically complex to cover in normal times, but these Games have brought their share of additional inconvenience due to COVID-19, which has notably forced their presentation without spectators in the stands. But the game was worth it for a sports enthusiast like me.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
March 2011, Montreal. We followed for a year two girls with degenerative kidney disease who had to receive a transplant to survive. We see here little Camille in the recovery room in intensive care, following her kidney transplant. Her father Marc embraces her. This risky operation, carried out successfully, will allow him to live for many years.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
September 2016, Montreal. I also really like the arts. In a somewhat crazy burst of creativity, I wanted to create images of ballet dancers with jets of water. Eight dancers from the Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal agreed to play the game. The project took a month to materialize. Pictured: demi-solo dancer Vera Kvarcakova from the Czech Republic and demi-solo dancer Célestin Boutin from France.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
November 2019, Montreal. I have greatly developed my eye to capture the unusual since the beginning of my career at The Press in 1997. This is how I was able to capture this image on the morning of Remembrance Day 2019. Arriving too early for the ceremony, I was about to return empty-handed to my vehicle when I saw this cyclist in the distance. I arrived just in time, on the run, to properly align the wheels of the bike and the funeral wreaths.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
July 2020, Gaspésie. We don’t always think about it, but some photos are more complex to take than others. This one was made as part of a report I also wrote about the talented wildlife photographer Éric Deschamps. Two months earlier, Eric had asked me to meet him precisely on July 18th. Why ? Well, because of the Milky Way, come on! It was after an hour of kayaking that I was able to capture it like this, thanks to two flashes and a 30-second exposure without moving.