A jogger is pictured running through a leafy park in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Olsen Imaging
December 04, 2024 - 7:00 AM
If you’ve spent time in Kamloops, you’ve likely seen Peter Olsen’s commercial photography work on the walls of businesses or viewed his work on social media where he shares urban and landscape shots of the area.
Now 70, Olsen is also widely known for his role as a morning radio host for NL Radio where he was known as the Morning Mayor before retiring in 2018.
Still busy carrying his cameras to professional shoots and community events, he has made endless connections in the community of Kamloops.
“Photography is wonderful in that I’ve met so many business people, people I’d never have met otherwise,” he said. “Clients hire me to take photos of their premises or staff or an event they’re holding, there are wonderful connections, that’s a real bonus for me.”
On Dec. 3, iNFOnews.ca sat down with Olsen for tea in a busy downtown shop to learn more about the renowned photographer and how camera technology has changed over the decades.
A rail bridge in Kamloops is photographed in fall.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Olsen Imaging
Olsen first started dabbling with photography in a high school class in the early 1970s, when the process of creating photos was much different.
“Everything was black and white, we did our own developing,” he said. “I still remember the fixture, the stop bath and the developer and working in this broom closet with one little red light. At least it was better than colour processing, you had to do that in complete darkness.”
It was there Olsen started learning about the process of photography, exposure and how to meter things properly.
“These days it's shotgun photography, you basically take lots of photos and can keep adjusting the light, it's instantaneous feedback. I’m not saying it doesn’t take skill, but with the digital age you rely too much on the monitor.
“In the film age, you didn’t know what you got until you got the film developed, and maybe one or two turned out. When it hits you in the pocket book, you learn very quickly.”
With an affinity for math and physics, Olsen went into an engineering program at UBC after high school, but quickly got the radio bug and began working at a station in Vancouver.
The Lac Du Bois grasslands look frosty in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Olsen Imaging
It would be a few years before Olsen really got into his passion of photography, but said he always had a camera in his hand. He remembers using flash photography.
“Old flash bulbs were like a lightbulb you put into a reflector and it's poof, you get one photo,” he said. “You had to let it cool down then take the bulb out and put a new one in, it wasn’t quick-fire photography.
“When actual camera flashes came along, that was a godsend, we could get the photos we wanted and it was a lot cheaper.”
Digital cameras were in the development stage in the early 1980s, and Olsen didn’t see his first digital camera until a decade later.
“They were very rudimentary because the processing was so slow,” he said.
As digital technology improved, Olsen fell in love with it.
“Digital photography for me is the best of both worlds,” he said. “There is the artistic side but then there is the highly technical side, so it really hugs both sides of my brain and it's wonderful.”
This photograph was taken near the former Tranquille Sanitarium in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Peter Olsen
In more recent years, the use of cell phones for taking photographs has skyrocketed. Olsen never uses a cell phone for his photography but said in many ways, cell phone cameras are rivalling digital ones.
“It’s basically all automatic,” he said. “It adjusts the exposure and can be set to highlight human faces for example, whatever settings you want.”
He said cell phones are limited in that they can’t tell the user how to understand light or where to stand for good composition, or what to include in a photo and what to leave out.
“I want to concisely and clearly tell my story with my photo,” he said. “I can do that by moving around a subject and getting rid of as many distractions as possible. The secret is in what to leave out or how to isolate the elements.
“Before you push the shutter, know what you’re taking a photo of and the point you’re trying to make with your camera, otherwise it’s just a snapshot.”
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Even after all these years, Olsen still gets duds.
“I tell myself, you weren’t focussed, you weren’t in the moment with what you were trying to say with your photograph. Photography has taught me, everyone can look, but very few people see and there’s a difference. It’s learning how to see.”
A horse is blanketed in snow on a farm in the Thompson Region.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Olsen Imaging
Olsen moved to Kamloops from Vancouver 43 years ago and became a commercial photographer in the area two decades ago. Through his ramblings around the city and backcountry, he has accumulated thousands of stock images of the region he loves exploring all year round.
No longer a spring chicken, he isn’t sure how long he’ll be hauling backdrops around for commercial photography.
The work has taken him to interesting places, including doing underground mining photography. He is a member of WorkSafe BC so can issue clearance letters to do the jobs and arrives on sites donning personal protective equipment.
“There are very few people that are stupid enough at my age to go two miles underground in a tunnel,” he said.
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Apart from commercial photography, Olsen specializes in architectural, lifestyle/sports, industrial and aerial photography. He does professional headshots and covers special events.
His clients include website developers, tourism partners, companies, individuals and not-for-profits, and he has worked with clients worldwide.
Kamloops resident Peter Olsen is a professional commercial photographer.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Facebook/ Peter Olsen
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