Windsor, Ont., born photographer Brandon Broderick drives tens of thousands of kilometres each year, crisscrossing the backwoods of British Columbia capturing photos of beautiful, but elusive, wild animals.  

All of that hard work paid off this week when Broderick was named the Canadian Geographic Photographer of the Year for 2023. 

“My knees buckled. I almost fell to the floor. It was quite an email to receive,” Broderick said. “When I got that email that said I won the whole thing, that was that was surreal. It still doesn’t feel real. It’s a really weird situation to be in. I’m not used to this.”

Broderick has spent the last 14 years living and working in B.C. and is currently based in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., though he often spends time travelling in search of the perfect shot.

In last year’s Canadian Geographic photography competition, he was a runner-up in the landscapes category. 

He says he knew he was a finalist this year about a week before he got the news he’d won — but given the photos they had picked were wildlife shots, he thought he had won in the “wildlife in action” category. 

“Every year, our team is blown away by the talent and passion of our photography community,” said Alexandra Pope, editor-in-chief of Canadian Geographic. “Although they all portray different locations and subjects, these images have one thing in common: they made us stop and say ‘Wow.'”

Broderick says he started taking photos in 2007, and he and a few friends began using them as computer backgrounds as he honed in on wildlife photography. 

“It’s a great way to spend time and, you know, do as a living now,” he said. 

Wildlife photography can take plenty of patience, he says: depending on the kind of photo he’s hoping to capture, he can sit in the same spot all day. For others, he’ll drive — at least 40,000 kilometres a year — looking for animals. 

“That allows me to cover lots of ground because these animals can move quick, their job is to just feed. If I’m just sitting somewhere and hoping for the best, I need to know that my time is spent well in that spot,” he said. 

“So I like to just keep moving and and cover ground, especially now that there’s finally snow on the ground. I can track animals better … that’s how I do it.”

Broderick says he practises ethical wildlife photography, which means making sure his presence and behaviour doesn’t impact animals. When it does, he says it’s time to leave. 

Of the photos that won him the award, Broderick looks back on the photo of the lynx — one of the times, he says, when he knew “there’s something really good coming.” He said he had about five or 10 minutes with the animal, which seems quick — but for a lynx is a lot of time. 

“I pulled over and sat in my truck for a bit, just kind of watching what it did, it had moved into the forest and kind of started paralleling the highway,” he said. “It was really thick, thick forest, but eventually it came to this little … snowy, mossy covered piece of dirt and just sat there and stared at me for a bit.

“Every once in a while, one you know, in the moment, you know you’re getting something good.”

He says he’d love to photograph wolverines and polar bears — in fact, he says last weekend he missed wolverines by about six hours. 

“I know I have a zero per cent chance of seeing anything if I’m sitting at home, so I just try to put the time in,” he said. “A lot of people ask me how to find stuff and you just have to go out and spend time out there.”

Broderick’s Photographer of the Year feature will be in the March/April issue of Canadian Geographic, available later this week.

Cristina Mittermeier

Topic: “Putting a Human Face on Climate Change: A Photographic Journey”

Speaker: Marine biologist and photographer Cristina Mittermeier

“Mitty” was born in Mexico City in 1966 and grew up in nearby Cuernavaca. She graduated from the ITESM University in Mexico with a degree in Biochemical Engineering in Marine Sciences and attended the Fine Art Photography program at the Corcoran College for the Arts in Washington, D.C.

In 2005, Mittermeier founded the International League of Conservation Photographers to provide a platform for photographers working on environmental issues and coined the phrase “conservation photography.”

In 2014, she co-founded SeaLegacy, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and re-wilding the ocean to benefit biodiversity, humanity, and the earth’s climate.

Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson get a surfeit of coverage as the founders of Magnum Photos. They’re also two of the earliest. Ernst Scheidegger isn’t heard or talked about anywhere as much — yet he’s one of the first the agency brought on. But starting on February 18th, photographers can see his work at the MASI Lugano in Switzerland until July 21st. The event explores the many photographs that he’s done in his early work and those he’s taken of several artists. Most importantly, they dive into a very fascinating time in history that most Americans perhaps never gave much thought to.

All images by Ernst Scheidegger. Provided with permission on behalf of MASI Lugano. Be sure to check out the exhibit and read more about it here.

Here’s a quote on what people should expect at the exhibit:

The exhibition traces Scheidegger’s photographic oeuvre, exploring two groups of works: a selection of early shots from 1945-1955, most of which have not been exhibited before, and his famous artist portraits, done on commission from the mid-1950s. In this second section of the exhibition, the photographic portraits are presented alongside a selection of works by the artists themselves.

The exhibition is accompanied by the publication “Ernst Scheidegger. Fotograf” with texts by Tobia Bezzola, Philippe Büttner, Helen Grob and Alessa Widmer. The German and English edition is published by Scheidegger & Spiess, the Italian edition by Edizioni Casagrande Bellinzona.

Analyzing the Early Work of Ernst Scheidegger

The exhibit dedicates a portion of the space of Ernst’s early imagery. These photographs focus on the people of Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. During this time, Europe was still reeling from war and eager to get back to some sense of normalcy. That’s something that should be kept in mind throughout the viewing as some of these images are from before his days at Magnum, if we’re reading his biography correctly. In fact, if you didn’t necessarily know any better, you probably would’ve thought that these were just normal images of normal people shot on a Rolleiflex. From that perspective, they do a terrific job. But we don’t see any real evidence of cultures torn apart by war in the images.

As an American, I’d personally wonder about the people who society forgot about. There are people who were disabled, suffering economic hardships, and more. However, that answer possibly won’t be provided at the exhibit despite his interest in various social issues. Instead, we can see this as a study in mental health. People often complain about the monotony of their days, but they don’t truly know what they have until it’s gone.

This is a lesson that echoes into today. We’ve recently seen this with the war in Ukraine, Gaza, and even as recent as the COVID era in Trump’s America.

His Work With Artists

Beyond the documentary of every day life, there is also another part of the exhibit dedicated to artists that he’s photographed. This is something that many portrait photographers should find truly fascinating. Ernst Scheidegger makes some of the earliest photographs that would eventually be known as environmental portraits. It includes telling images of people in their spaces channeling what defines them. These photographs are a stark contrast to the images of every day life that we see in the rest of the exhibit.

If you’re curious about a completely different type of Magnum photographer, we recommend that you check out Ernst Scheidegger and give a visit to the exhibit at MASI Lugano.