A caring photographer with a pile of enthusiasm
Sun lensman, who suffered stroke in 2014, dies at age 55
Ward Perrin was an old-school news photographer.
He loved to talk to people. He loved the wide range of subjects he’d have to shoot. And he loved capturing the story in his shot.
Nick Didlick called him “a caring photographer.”
“There’s basically two types of photographers,” said Didlick, who worked with Perrin at The Vancouver Sun. “The ones who go to an assignment and don’t care about the assignment or care about the people they’re photographing, (or people like) Ward who cared about both. He always showed up to work with a pile of enthusiasm.”
“He was one of those misfits in life that this job is perfect for,” said another former colleague, Jason Payne.
Sadly, Perrin had a stroke in 2014 and had ongoing health problems.
On Tuesday, he was found dead in his apartment. He was 55 years old, but anyone who knew him will always think of him as eternally young, an energetic guy with an infectious smile and crazy laugh.
He was born Ward Leighton Perrin on April 29, 1964, in Saint John, N.B. “He was kind of named for Leighton Ford, the evangelist,” said his elder sister Linda Garwood. “Mom just switched it around to Ward Leighton.”
Garwood said that Ward — everybody called him Ward, never Perrin — was infatuated with photography from childhood. He landed a job at Gem Photo in Saint John and Fredericton, and in 1987 decided to come across the country to study at the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria.
His friend Lorne Green said Ward found a mentor in legendary photojournalist Ted Grant, who taught there. After graduation, Ward landed a job at the Brandon Sun. But he soon came back to the West Coast to work for the Now community newspaper chain.
He started freelancing at the Sun in 1991, and in 1994 was hired full time. He shot everything from concerts to sports to hard news, food to houses and infrastructure.
He could make most anything look cool. In 2013 he took an amazing picture of a tunnel boring machine for the Evergreen line being lowered underground, giving it perspective by photographing a worker in the middle of the machine. He loved animals, and they responded by giving him some great poses — in 2013 he took a wicked shot of a horse from the show Cavalia smiling for the camera, giant gums and teeth on full display.
For years he doted on his two dogs, Penny and Murtle.
“He rescued Murtle, the German shepherd,” said Garwood.
“He saw a man beating her on the back of a truck, and he went up and said ‘I will buy your dog.’ The guy just looked at him, and he said ‘No no, I will buy your dog.’ And he bought the dog.”
He taught photojournalism classes at UBC, and gave photography lessons on an Alaskan cruise hosted by The Vancouver Sun to celebrate the newspaper’s 100th anniversary in 2012. But everything changed after his stroke. He was left with aphasia, which made it impossible for him to work.
“It’s basically the portion of the brain that interprets what you hear,” said Garwood.
“When he first came out of the hospital he couldn’t hear anything behind him. A couple of times somebody would come by on a bike or a plane would go overhead and he’d hit the ground because he thought they were going to run him over.”
“It’s not like a physically crippling disease, but it affected him so he couldn’t do what he wanted,” said his friend Gord Bruce.
“He couldn’t get on his bike, he couldn’t drive, he had a hard time just walking down the street. He couldn’t talk on the phone. It affected his ability to process stuff.”
He still took photos after his stroke, but really missed working.
“Newspapers are a grind,” said Didlick.
“(But) it didn’t matter if you gave him a good assignment or a bad assignment, he went at it with the same amount of enthusiasm. Ward took the good and the bad with the same amount of exuberance. And he always delivered.”