First, a round of introductions...
I'll admit, I was so excited to hit the publish button that I forgot to introduce myself and tell you a bit about me,
Lucy Sager... A travel and culture photographer calling Victoria, British Columbia home these days.
My friends were quick to ask, "Is this your website"?... Yes it is and these are my photographs from my wandering around the world. It's a bit wild to think that photography is the medium that found it's way into my heart and if I'm being honest it didn't happen all at once. It was like the slow drip of your favourite roast of coffee on a Sunday morning while you wait patiently to read a chapter of your favourite book. You know, those Sunday mornings...
Slow and steady... one image at a time. Some of them I loved and some were deleted without telling a soul what they looked like as horizons were crooked and there might have been the edge of a fingerprint in there too. Years previous, I wandered around with my iPhone taking in colours and light during the days of COVID, it reminded me of painting. I didn't know what day it was or the time and honestly I didn't really care. For real, when was the last time I laid down in a bed of daisies to stare at the clouds? This time it wasn't so much about the clouds as it was about the composition of the petals. Does he love me... Does he not... Remember that place where you could drift away and daydream?
Like a return to sender, art came rushing back as though (and it had been) neglected all of these years. Like an old friend who embraces you in the tightest squeeze, thankfully there were no hard feelings and we could pick up where we left off. Norah Jones on the radio, messy hair in a bun and this time instead of paint everywhere, I would find myself in chest waders waiting for the Camargue horses to (ALMOST) run me over, laughing, covered in salty water from the sea.
From the portfolio you see you may think travel has always been a part of my. game. Only in my heart until recently my reality... becoming a mom at a young age left no time for worldly walks and a hustle that led me down a path and into rooms where I'm sure folks thought to themselves, how did she get in here? Trust me when I say the feeling is mutual... Corporate boardrooms and the blueprints of industrial projects hanging on the walls... I would commute from Calgary to the coast wondering how folks would get to work, writing reports, advising men in suits on how to be mindful of the land...
One day in another meeting with the Tsimshian Nation in Prince Rupert, a powerful question was asked...
What do your people need to go to work? The answer would be echoed over the next 5 years by Chiefs throughout the Territory.... a drivers license, but who would help with this? I slowly raised my hand.
For the past 7 years my day job had consisted of driving across highways and logging roads, backroads and boats to teach remote Indigenous Communities how to drive. The stories that filled my truck and my heart were riveting, heart wrenching and full of truth. Aside from the trauma of missing women and families stuck on remote reserves who couldn't drive, in community after community I sat with artists, carvers, painters, jewelry makers... "Lucy why don't you give in to being an artist? You can make a living being an artist... Look at us."
As I looked up at their Totem Poles, their Masks and Regalia... I thought, what a thing to be challenged by my students. Maybe they in fact. are my teacher?
The stories you will find here will weave in and out of my days on the road. A present tribute to the experience in front of me and a remembering of how I got here. The intention is not to be political but to lay down my truth for you to see and feel deeply. The shared experiences that influence the way I see, the way I feel... to be vulnerable with you that this didn't just happen. I think in many of the instances where an image has been created there is a mutual understanding that this moment was co-created. It would not have happened without Nature, or the people who came before me.
I am so incredibly grateful that I trusted my gut and listened to my heart, that I called up that old friend art... Do you think we could see each other again?
Like a love story from the universe... It's lovely to walk with you again.
