Originally from Western Canada and currently based in Vancouver, photographer Thomas Gardiner (previously featured here) relocated to New York City for college, where he earned a BFA from The Cooper Union, and an MFA in Photography from Yale in 2012. It wasn’t until living in New York City that Gardiner turned the lens of his 4×5 camera back toward the small towns and communities of his childhood.

Describing the images in his “Western Canada” series, Gardiner explains: “In a sense, they’re partly biographical insofar as they represent places where I lived as a child and into my teens. However, having transplanted myself into such a sharply contrasting environment also made me view the place (largely responsible for having shaped me as an individual) in a radically new light. Not only did I begin reflecting on its influence upon me simply for having lived there, but I also began to consider, more generally, the geographic relationships of hinterland regions to major metropolitan centers and how the camera could interpret them visually.”

See more from “Western Canada” below!