After coming in second in the Epic Landscapes division in last year’s Canadian Geographic annual photography competition, Brandon Broderick has been named Photographer of the Year.
Broderick moved to Tumbler Ridge shortly before last year’s contest and has spent as much time as he can out getting photos.
It is, he admits, not nearly enough, but with his wife and a new puppy here in town, he can’t spend as much time as he would like out shooting. Still, he says, at least once a week he’ll go and prowl the local backroads, looking for creatures to shoot.
His passion is lynx.
For the glory of winning a national photographic contest in one of Canada’s most prestigious magazines, Broderick gets $5000.
“I need to upgrade one of my lenses, so that will cover…about a third of the cost of the lens,” Broderick jokes. “But that’s still another year or two away. The lens I have still works. My issue with it is the autofocus is slow. It’s old technology. That’s why there’s not many action shots in my portfolio. Because as soon as things start moving quick…”
That’s the problem with photography, he says. When he bought his current camera (a Canon 1Dx Mark II), and his 500 mm lens, he thought “What more could I need? It does everything. But then the new gear comes out…”
Despite living in Tumbler Ridge, he says he has a hard time photographing this area. “Wildlife wise, I don’t have great luck around here. My belief is that there’s so much hunting here and I just can’t get close to anything. I see lynx pretty frequently, but most of my lynx photos come from farther north where there’s not as many people. And there’s no traffic. There’s lots of wildlife here. It’s just really tricky to shoot. The other day I was tracking a fresh lynx, tracks were only six, eight hours old, something like that. And I followed them until they went across a valley. I can’t keep up with that. I saw wolverine tracks the other day, but I still haven’t seen a wolverine. I know they’re around here. It’s just a matter of time. It’s just different. Got to find the rhythm of the thing.”
He’ll be heading up the Alaska Highway near the end of the month for another five days of shooting, and he’s hoping to get some great winter portraits of animals and birds, like lynx and owls. (“I can’t find any owls anymore,” he says. “The only owls I see are at night. That’s hard shooting.”)
While he’s there, he wants to get some pictures of the bison. “I want some frosty bison pictures, you know where you can actually see the breath but to see the breath you need a proper background that’s darker. You also need sunlight on the breath. It can be hard to find the right conditions. Or even just find the bison. Sometimes you just keep driving and driving and driving. They can be right right up near the Yukon border, or they can be right close to Muncho Lake.”
This time, he’ll be bringing a new drone with him. He’s lined up permits from BC Parks to shoot at all the parks along the Alaska Highway. “The drone has three cameras built in. It’s got a wide angle lens, a regular lens and a zoom lens, so I can get close-up shots without animals hearing the drone. I haven’t actually had a chance to use it yet, but I’m still waiting for that perfect opportunity to try and get some drone wildlife shots.
For this season, he’s trying something new. “I just ordered some winter camouflage too to try to improve my luck around here. Change up my tactics. I use my vehicle to cover lots of ground. But I mean, if I can find an area that seems pretty active and it’s not -40 out, then I might just go sit for a day and just wait and hope for the best. But that’s hard to do because you’re just sitting there. I want action.
“When it happens, though? I love it. Birds start landing next to you. All of a sudden, you’re just a part of the forest. That’s pretty special. But it’s hard to feel productive just sitting there. Very few of my photos have come from just sitting and waiting. It’s a lot of going out and finding stuff. If I’m driving a chunk of the highway and I’ll start to see tonnes of snowshoe hare tracks. They’re easy enough to pick out as you’re driving by. And then I’ll see lynx tracks with them, so I’ll stay in that area. I’ll spend the day just in that one stretch of highway. Sometimes I just wait to give the animals a chance to get a break from traffic and then, you know, keep just seeing what’s out there. But there’s no guarantees.”
Locally, Broderick says he likes driving the Ojay and Hourglass Roads. “The trouble is, just as soon as you feel like you’re really out in the wilderness, suddenly there’s a big fuel tanker. We’re 80 kms off the highway!”
Broderick is considering maybe picking up a quad or a snowmobile to allow him access into some more remote spots. “They only plow so many roads.”
Broderick spends most of his time out exploring by himself, so he tries not to push his luck. He keeps a Garmin inReach with him to be able to send emergency texts, and he has the latest iPhone, which can also send emergency signals via satellite. “I’m not out there trying to put myself in danger. I don’t need Search and Rescue to have to come for me because I was trying to find a deer. I could get a little more reckless, but I have no interest in doing that. I have multiple redundant safety systems.”
He says his plan for this year was to win Photographer of the Year. “Last year when I got runner-up in the one landscape category, I decided I wanted to win the whole thing. So I focused this year trying to get as many different landscape photos, different wildlife photos as I could. I worked hard to have a bunch of images to submit to them. I found out that I had two photos that had made it to the finals and they were both wildlife photos. So I assumed I was in the running for the wildlife category. When I got the email and said I won Photographer of the Year, my knees almost buckled.”
Broderick found out last week that he had won. “It was really hard to keep that secret for a week. A couple days ago CBC Windsor (his home town in Ontario) reached out to talk to me about the runner-up thing from last year. I was like, ‘can you guys just hold on till Tuesday, because I have more news to share.’ So I wasn’t able to actually tell them what it was.”
But today, his messages have blown up with people congratulating him.
“It gets my name out there,” he says. “I mean it’d be cool to lead some Grizzly Bear or Polar Bear tours around the country. Maybe I’ll eventually branch out to other parts of the world. I’ve considered buying a four-wheel drive van that I can bring people up along the Alaska Highway with.”
When he’s not out photographing or winning national awards, Broderick can be found at local craft fairs. “For me the craft shows mean I get to meet people. I get to talk to the community, because not everyone’s on Instagram or Facebook. And that’s where most people would know me from. And it’s not like I’m above doing anything like that. I need to sell some of my artwork, too.”
For more details Broderick’s photography visit www.instagram.com/brandonbroderick/
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
