I guess you could say I’m a semi-pro photographer in Ottawa, Canada.
I actually 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. At one time or another, I’ve used a little of everything from the minuscule film of the short-lived Kodak Disc cameras, all the way up to a 4×5 Speed Graphic. These days, I can do almost any kind of photography to a reasonable degree, including on location portraiture. If you can pose it, I can take it. For my own pictures though, I like hard light and the snapshot aesthetic, and after all these years, I’m still particularly fond of both traditional and instant film toy cameras.
In the real world of making a living and supporting a family, if I was a professional at anything, the closest I came was being an officer in the military. In dire need of funds and having a bit of a longing for adventure, I had applied for the Canadian Forces Regular Officer Training Plan (ROTP) while already attending university, and I was eventually accepted during my second year. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 1974, I subsequently served my four year commitment in the regular navy. After my release, I joined the federal public service, and after a time, I became acting head of a Secretary of State section embedded at National Defence Headquarters. As such, I was involved in the NATO Standardization Agreement 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, among other places. 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 various other aspects of naval technical and operational documentation. I also did work for IMP Group, Marine Atlantic, Via Rail and COOP Atlantic.
During that freelance period, I served 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 resign my commission in 1998. Not counting the ten year break in service as a civilian at National Defence Headquarters, 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 junior officer aboard a destroyer escort in the western Pacific preparing to assist in the evacuation of Saigon in the spring of 1975, I was never in harm’s way as a regular outside the course of training and normal duties, nor 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, planned reserve division summer concentrations, 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 was being called-up as military liaison officer embedded with a united counties Emergency Measures Organization in the aftermath of the great 1998 Eastern Ontario ice storm.
I don’t operate a photography business as such, but I do occasionally accept local pro gigs and I can certainly make photos available as downloads or prints should the need arise. Please use the contact form for information.
Pierre Lachaine