CAPTURING URBAN LIFE, DECAY
Photog’s new book an eye opener
Growing up on Canada’s West Coast irrevocably informed Ryan Koopmans’ eye for photography. Just maybe not in the way that one might initially imagine.
Between his time spent growing up on Vancouver Island, and other assorted travels throughout his youth, Koopmans gained an appreciation for capturing vast spaces.
“I was exposed to a wide variety of landscape, both natural and built, new and old,” Koopmans says.
But, when he decided to turn his attention to landscape and architecture photography full-time after a foray into fashion and photojournalism, it wasn’t dense forests or rocky coastlines that proved to attract his lens again and again.
Instead, it was what Koopmans refers to as the “built environment.”
“I am mostly drawn to the massive sense of scale that some urban development encompasses, as well as surreal architecture and its relationship with the natural world,” Koopmans says.
“Not only do these subjects make for interesting visuals, I think that they tell a story about a place: its history, people, socio-economic and political ambitions, and more.”
Through his lens, the award-winning photographer provides observers with a breathtaking perspective of man-made environments, primarily in urban centres and international megacities. The photos often come from a straighton or a top-down vantage point that serves to transport observers to dizzying heights.
Not to mention, it makes one imagine just what type of adventure Koopmans might have endured in order to capture them.
“I am always trying to gain access to tall buildings and high vantage points in different locations around the world,” Koopmans admits.
“Once, in Erbil, a city in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, I was lifted to the top of a massive tower by means of hanging onto a rope that was attached to the end of a construction crane. It lifted a worker and myself hundreds of feet into the air and dropped us on top of the building to shoot as there was no elevator constructed yet.”
The unique vantage point that Koopmans has become known for, coincidentally, also provided him with the perfect title for his first book, a monograph titled Vantage.
In the 256-page hardcover tome, Koopmans shares an interesting assemblage of images shot in locations around the world, including Brazil, Canada, China, Dubai, Georgia, Hong Kong, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine, and the U.S.
Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert all make appearances in the book.
The arresting collection of images are prefaced with a piece by curator/author Marvin Heiferman, and are further featured alongside a handful of 10 voices that soundoff on the topics of environmental impact and locational identity, included among them: T.J. Watt, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance; Petronel Nieuwoudt, founder of the Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary and a former Endangered Species Unit captain with the South African Police; Anastasiia Fedorova, a Russian writer; and Heidi Locher, architect and founder of Studio Locher.
Koopmans has spent the better part of a decade travelling the world and been to “a lot” of places in search of the perfect shot.
He admits the one destination that comes first-to-mind that he’d still like to visit is Iran — “There are many locations there that I have long been interested in photographing, from highrises in Tehran to villages in the mountains. My hope is to go there next spring.” — and he pointed toward the former Soviet countries as among his favourite to photograph so far.
“I’m very drawn to photographing Soviet modernism and brutalism,” he explains. The region was also the source of Koopmans’ favourite image to appear on the pages of Vantage: a photo of a dog standing in a derelict room that is filled with trash.
“Shot in the town of Tskaltubo, in the country of Georgia, this scene was in the basement of an old Soviet-era hotel abandoned during the collapse of the U.S.S.R.,” Koopmans explains. "A Georgian woman, with connections to the government, saw this photograph of mine on a TV station that was featuring my work and immediately mobilized local authorities to go and clean up the trash.
“The room is now empty, after having been filled with garbage and debris since 1992.”
In addition to sharing his images in a tangible form, Vantage offers Koopmans the chance to share a perspective of his photos that’s more aligned with the way he intended for them to be seen. Meaning, the images are viewed in person, in larger scale, rather than on a tiny screen.
“Instagram is a great tool to spread your work and have it seen by a wide audience, however it is limited in that the pictures shared are small, seen on very small screens,” Koopmans says of the platform, which sees him boast a following of more than 31,000 on his account @ryan.koopmans.
“That is why I am excited to release this book and limited-edition prints, as the book is large and the big prints give these images much more visual impact. Ultimately, that is how my photographs are meant to be viewed.”
The online sharing of his images has its upsides, though. As Koopmans’ following has grown, so too have his opportunities. Plus, he gets a kick out of hearing back from fans and followers from around the world who are moved by the way his images make them rethink a destination.
“It’s fun when people are surprised that a particular building or location that I’ve photographed exists in a city that they are familiar with,” Koopmans says. “When you show someone a place that they may have seen many times before, but are now looking at it in a new way, you know that you have created something of value.”