Marc Bailey recognized for photographic storytelling
Local photographer takes home prizes for shots based at local landmarks
Marc Bailey slew the opposition at this year’s Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC) convention. Entering for the first time in the “artist” category of the competition, the master photographer not only won in his category, but brought home the prestigious Yousuf Karsh award, making him the first Quebecois photographer to receive the honor.
Running May 4 to 9, the 49th PPOC convention was held in Richmond, British Columbia. Bailey, who runs an expansive photography studio with his wife and daughter on Du Conseil Street in Sherbrooke, is a regular at the event. He had already brought home two awards in 2007 and 2014 as portrait photographer of the year.
“It takes a lot of perseverance and very little ego. You have to get used to rejection,” laughed Bailey. “I participate in competitions because it forces you out of your comfort zone. It makes you do different things instead of just sitting comfortably in your everyday work.”
The PPOC convention runs competitions every year. According to Bailey, you can submit photos in four different photography categories: portrait, wedding, commercial and artistic. The participant then selects four pictures to submit. All photos must pass before the jury in order to be eligible for the contest.
“All your photos must be accepted by the judges. When they say accepted what they really mean is that the photo is superior to the rest, and therefore eligible,” explained Bailey.
There are two other “grades” above accepted, according to him: merit and excellence, with the latter being the highest praise.
“I got two merits and two excellences, which I was extremely pleased about. Even if three of your photos get an “excellence”, if your fourth isn’t accepted, you’re not eligible for the contest,” he continued. “It’s not all about points, the system works that way to ensure diversity and stability in the photographer’s work.”
In the artist category, the types of submissions can be extremely vast, due to its creative nature. Anything can be submitted, not only photos. According to Bailey, even a computer-generated image is accepted, though he personally chose to stick to his medium of choice.
“There were four others competing for the title with me,” said Bailey. “They all submitted landscapes. Flowers. Mountains. Things we’ve all seen before.”
“Some photographers have let themselves go since digital happened, though for me it was the opposite,” he commented. “It makes the art form easy, and it’s easy to get lazy when things are easy, you know? For the first time in 35 years the PPOC hasn’t given an award for wedding photographers. There were no submissions. Neither were there any for portraits. Commercial photography only had one contestant.”
“I went in a different direction. The judges called my crazy, to my face!” continued Bailey, chuckling. “I sent my photos in and the judges said they had never seen anything like it in their lives. They were shocked, stupefied. They said to me: Marc, you have a twisted, twisted, mind.”
Bailey, a big fan of cinema, had worked on the Quebecois TV series Dossier Mystère, which aired on Canal D for a short while between 2005 and 2006. He was both a photographer and actor for the docu-series that explored Canadian paranormal manifestations. The macabre ghost stories are what inspired his submission to the PPOC competition.
“I re-did a lot of the shots I had taken for the show. I mixed some of them together to create something new,” he explained, adding that the settings of the photos, might be familiar. “One was taken at an abandoned loft above the Granada theater. That location was really creepy. We also did some at Uplands, which was less creepy, but great for photos, and the Winter prison.”
Another of the prize-winning photos, Evil, was taken at Bishop’s University’s St-mark’s Chapel. The shots are haunting, dark, sometimes violent, and seem filled with a mysterious narrative, an effect Bailey wishes to accomplish in all his photographs.
“Before photography went digital, I used to print all of my photos myself, in the dark room,” he said. “I always used to create a creased effect, like cracks in the photo, to make it look old. We call it storytelling, and that’s what I focus on. I want my pictures to tell a story.”
His audacity and style paid off, and twice rather than once, as he also brought home the prestigious Yousuf Karsh award.
“It’s an award named after the greatest portrait photographer of the 20th century. He posed the greatest celebrities in the world, and he lived right here in Sherbrooke, on rue Frontenac, near Town Hall,” said Bailey, lamenting the fact that though Karsh’s photos of Churchill, Einstein, and Dali (among others) are recognized by most, his name is only remembered by other photographers. “The prize is only eligible to those who have participated the most in PPOC contests.”
The Yousuf Karsh award is only given to those who have gathered over 4 million points at the PPOC, which are gained every time someone participates in contests. This means that participants are all seasoned photographers, as it takes a long time to rake up that amount. The award is bestowed only upon those who produce images of extraordinary quality, and those who are considered to have helped advance the art of photography.
Needless to say, this new award has been quite an honor for Bailey, who considers the digitalization of photography to have been the best thing to happen to his career.
“When digital happened, I immediately went to B.C. to learn to master it. I’m getting old, I wanted to be in the know,” he laughed. “It did wonders for me. I learned that nothing is impossible; you’re only restrained by the scope of your imagination. My career is a testament to that: I participated in contests at the PPOC for 15 years without wining anything. We went digital in 2002, and my creativity exploded. In 2007 I won photographer of the year. Then I did it again in 2014.”
Despite all of his success, photography was never the plan for Bailey, who began his career as a computer programmer for Bombardier.
“My mother always used to bring me to the movies. We’d watch James Dean, 50s cinema. I loved it, I always have. But a career like that wasn’t accessible back then,” he said. “When I left Bombardier, I ran a restaurant in East Angus with my wife for 7 years. When that one closed, we bought another in Weedon. After two years there, I started getting real tired of watching people eat.” Marc Bailey and his wife, Diane, accept the Yousuf Karsh award
His wife is the one who suggested he take a course in something, anything, to find a hobby. Bailey turned to his local community learning center’s night school to see if anything interested him.
“I took a class about refurbishing old furniture. That’s where I learned I have zero patience,” he laughed. “I quit after two classes. But then I saw that my childhood friend, Alain Coulombe, was giving a photography course. I fell in love with it because it reminded me of cinema. After two weeks, I sold the restaurant, built a darkroom in my home, and started taking endless pictures of my children. That’s how it started.”
Now, Bailey’s photography studio is one of the most sought after in Sherbrooke. His daughter, who focusses on digital painting, has also won multiple awards for her craft.
“You never know in what direction life will take you,” said Bailey. “I always told my kids: pay attention, listen to yourself. If you don’t enjoy something, don’t do it; leave. You’ll find what’s right for you.”