Denis Savoie, Photographer 2009

I was born in The Hague, Netherlands to a Canadian Foreign Affairs family in 1965. My early years were spent traveling and living throughout western Europe.

My family believed that the best way to understand people was to experience their culture and traditions, and so we immersed ourselves in local customs, food and culture wherever we went. This influenced how I look at the world around me.

Always creative, my interest in photography started back in Canada at the age of 12, when my parents gave me an antique Kodak Brownie 620 camera. A photographer-neighbour introduced me to black & white printing, and it wasn't long before I was experimenting on my own, building pinhole cameras.

In 1979 we returned to Switzerland for a four year stint in Geneva. I switched to a Pentax K-1000 and took advantage of the great opportunities to photograph Switzerland’s landscape and architecture. A perceptive art teacher gave me the space and opportunities to experiment in various media and was instrumental in opening my eyes a little wider, to see things in new ways, and I applied that to my art and photography.

Upon my return to Canada, I studied Fine Art and subsequently professional photography at Dawson Institute of Photography in Montreal, before moving to Ottawa. At this time, I put down my camera and went to work as a graphic designer

In 1998, on a whim, I borrowed a primitive digital camera from my employer, and shot some art nudes. My interest was rekindled, and I haven’t looked back.

My photographs are influenced by renaissance art, my experience as a visual artist, a graphic designer and the simplicity of Swiss design.