Headline News

‘In a Land Where Time Stands Still’ comes to AGB in November

November 9, 2026

By Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Photographer Daryl Phillips is bringing his latest exhibit to the Art Gallery of Bancroft for the month of November. The opening ceremony for the exhibit “In a Land Where Time Stands Still” is happening on Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. and is going to be sponsored by the Town of Bancroft. There is also a companion film to the exhibit called “Full Circle: 10 Days Circumnavigating Killarney Provincial Park” that can be found on his website www.darylphillips.ca. Phillips comments to The Bancroft Times on his forthcoming exhibit. 

Phillips has always been inspired by the natural world, with its beauty, complexity and its life sustaining qualities and constantly explores the connections between nature and our lives as humans. He is inspired primarily by the elemental and the sculptural aspects of nature while he explores it and his photographs express that total visual and emotional experience. 

Phillips reveals that photography is one of the technical arts that always fascinated him. 

“One of the technical arts that has always fascinated me. The concept of a creative mind using a machine to construct images has been up for debate since the ‘camera obscura’ was first invented. For us photographers, the challenge is not to copy scenery but interpret elements of a scene and convey meaning and emotion to the viewer, interpretations achieved by the camera’s unique and inherent mechanical qualities,” he says. 

Phillips’ artistic style has been and continues to be a journey of discovery and experimentation, and as a young artist, he was originally influenced by the Group f/64, who promoted a style of sharply detailed, purist photography. His artistic style has been and continues to be a journey of discovery and experimentation. Originally influenced by the Group f/64, who promoted a style of sharply detailed, purist photography, as well as the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, Phillips has over the years built and operated with pinhole cameras, experimented with photographic collage, and almost became a black-and-white purist. He still maintains a love/hate relationship with digital photography and recently was drawn back into the analog processes of the 1840s. 

In his artist statement regarding “In a Land Where Time Stands Still,” Phillips recounts how for the past 30 years, he’s been canoeing and photographing the Killarney landscape. He says that apart from a few relics from the days before the Park was established, it hasn’t changed all that much over the centuries. 

“There has been some deforestation, acid rain and fire, but those ancient hills remain. The shape of those lakes has mostly stayed the same; beaver dams and one human dam have altered some lakes. This environment provides a quiet spot to reflect on the vastness of the land, sky and water. Here we can contemplate the intricate structures of glittering white quartzite rock, undulating patterns of reflections on water, pink granite rising up out of the lakes or waterways finding their path of least resistance as they flow downstream and over rocks. Through these photographs, I hope to inspire viewers to appreciate and admire the intrinsic beauty of this landscape that has been left on its own for so many years. Here is one of the few places left that our children, and their children, are able to have the same enjoyment and experience as we did. I’ve already seen the photos and heard the stories. We are still fishing on these lakes, walking the same portage trails, gazing out across the lake at uninterrupted views and sitting around fires on the shores of these majestic lakes. Some of the equipment has changed (lighter & more efficient) and our fashion will identify which decade we were in the park, but the experiences will have been, for us all, much the same, a place of beauty and restoration. This portfolio of images reflects the joy and excitement I felt each time (over the past 30 years) I canoed the lakes of Killarney and hiked the La Cloche Mountains. The images explore this unique and diverse landscape on both a grand and closeup scale—the big sky views, expanses of crystal-clear lakes and rolling mountains, juxtaposed with images that focus on smaller, more intimate details in the amazing rock formations and water reflections,” he says. 

Phillips says these photographs, though originally captured in digital format, are printed using a traditional mid-19th century monochromatic printing process called salted paper printing. He reveals the key ingredients in this printing process are light, salt and silver. 

“This darkroom process is very labour intensive, requiring much time and effort, akin to the time and effort of the canoe trip to reach my subject matter. This printing technique produces images that last a long time, second only to platinum/palladium prints,” he says. 

Phillips says his favourite piece in the exhibit is “Twilight, Great Mountain Lake” for personal reasons.

“The subject matter is 30-plus years of friendship and canoeing experience and because of how well the printing process is suited to the photograph,” he says. 

Phillips says this exhibit has been the most challenging because it’s been the biggest and most expensive to produce. He hopes that attendees to his show develop an appreciation of wild places and original analog photographic processes, which he calls photography’s roots.

“[And I hope it] inspires them to travel to and appreciate wild places.”