Out of Office features photos I took over the years on the east coast, in Toronto and in rural southwestern Ontario, where I grew up. I wanted to feature people out and about and relaxing, engaging in different forms of leisure. I like the end of summer—it’s not scorching hot, and the light is not as harsh and direct. There’s a bit of melancholy around that time of year, but there’s also a warmth. I wanted to capture the weather in my images: the colours in this collection shift between blues and warmer orange and yellow hues.

My day job is as the festival manager of Toronto’s CONTACT Photography Festival, so I’m steeped in images for most of the year. I remember attending a workshop where American photographer Jason Fulford talked about two types of photographers: according to him there are the collectors, who document what they see in front of them, and the sculptors, who make images that they don’t already see in the world. I’d put myself firmly in the former camp—I try to bring my camera everywhere with me, and amass photos as I go along.

It’s interesting to see what I’m subconsciously drawn to over the years, and to notice the connections between the images I create. I sift through my body of work with a keyword in mind, like “summer” or “vacation,” and then select images and play around with ordering. I try out different pairings and build longer sequences based on similarities in shape and colour. I think it’s important to be playful with the images, and to tease out humour through placement. Seeing how they live and breathe together, and sequencing and editing them in new ways, is more important to me than any single image.

Brian St. Denis is a photographer and arts administrator living and working in Toronto/Tkaronto. He is the festival manager of the CONTACT Photography Festival. A zine of this collection is available on his website.