Thanks for taking the time to visit. If you’re a “Too long didn’t read” type of person, I’m a 71 year old eleven year military veteran but not an actual war vet, and I’m a somewhat pro-level but not an actual pro photographer. Consequently, I’m of little interest to anybody. In the unlikely event that you want the whole story, please read on.
I started taking pictures with some level of serious intent in the late 1960’s, armed with a big Polaroid Model 160 that used the original black and white peel-apart roll film. By the mid-70’s, I had taught myself to develop 35mm film, and I was burning and dodging black and white prints during late night sessions in my studio apartment, on weekends when not at sea with the navy. After a while, I moved on to slide film, developing my own Ektachromes and mailing out the Kodachromes. Unfortunately, most of that early experimentation was lost a long time ago, except for a few fading prints without the negatives, some vintage Polaroids, as well as a few Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides. I’ve had some photos published or used commercially by non-profits and such, and I’ve actually turned down a few offers of paid work, but I never aspired to do this professionally, and I’m happy to be an amateur at whatever level I am.
These days, I can do almost any kind of photography, including studio work, but for my own pictures, I like the snapshot aesthetic, and after all these years, I’m still particularly fond of instant film snapshot cameras. I might be slowing down a little though. I mean, I’ve so far survived not only renal failure, dialysis and a kidney transplant, but also several skin cancer radiation treatments and surgeries, including major head and neck surgery for squamous cell carcinoma, a brush with COVID-19, a massive heart attack and an aortic heart valve replacement. For better or worse though, I just can’t stop taking pictures.
In the real world of making a living and supporting a family, I graduated from the University of Ottawa in 1974. I was also an officer cadet in the civilian university division of the Canadian Forces Regular Officer Training Plan (ROTP), and so I was trained as a naval officer in the Maritime Surface & Sub-surface Operations classification, and I subsequently served my four year commitment in the regular navy. After my release, I joined the federal public service, and I eventually became head of a Secretary of State division embedded at National Defence Headquarters. As such, I was involved in the NATO Standardization Program, and I travelled as a civilian with naval Commander administrative status to NATO HQ in Brussels, the École Militaire in Paris and the old War Office in London. I also did work for the Canadian Coast Guard and for the Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster. I left the government for the private sector a decade later, and I worked on defence projects such as the Canadian Patrol Frigate and the Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel programmes. and on the bilingual republishing of naval technical documentation and training films. I also did work for IMP Group, Marine Atlantic, Via Rail and COOP Atlantic.
During that freelance period, I supplemented my income by serving both part-time and on full-time call-out in the Army Reserves, having fully retrained as a Logistics Officer (Transport). I was qualified up to and including Lieutenant Colonel level when chronic kidney disease finally forced to me to “retire” from that activity in 1998. Not including the ten year break in service as a civilian in the defence sector, I had served four years in the regular navy and seven in the army reserves. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up one year short of the 12 years required to earn the Canada Decoration (CD). Instead, I spent four years on dialysis, until I received a kidney transplant from the waiting list.
Other than being a Sub-Lieutenant (Navy) aboard a destroyer escort in the western Pacific armed and preparing to assist in the evacuation of Saigon in the spring of 1975, I was never in an actual war zone in my later reserve years due to my medical category, but I certainly had extensive experience both in garrison and in the field, having been a battalion adjutant, a company commander, a staff officer in brigade and division headquarters, as well as a logistics operations officer in regular force field exercises with 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and 1st Canadian Division Headquarters. I even wore aiguillettes on the right shoulder as an aide-de-camp to a provincial Lieutenant Governor, served on a Reserve Officer Selection Board, organized and taught on junior officer staff courses, acted as a military spokesman on TV, and I was president of an officers mess committee. My final act in the military was being called-up to be the senior operations duty officer in a brigade HQ that was coordinating Operation Recuperation in the counties most affected by the great Eastern Ontario ice storm of 1998. Once there, I was quickly re-assigned as the regimental liaison officer embedded with a united counties Emergency Measures Organization headquarters. This level of variety in a relatively short period of service is unusual, and only really possible as a reservist who didn’t have to follow a managed career path. Ok, so that’s just a nice way to say I became what we used to call a Militia bum. I plugged in holes when nobody else was available, and I usually got things done.
Pierre Lachaine