Geoffrey James

Geoffrey James (born 1942 in St. Asaph, Wales) is a Canadian photographer, living in Toronto. His black-and-white panoramic landscapes of the built landscape explore the relationship between human society and its surroundings.

James began his working career as a journalist. He moved to Canada in 1966, working for Time magazine in Montreal. He moved into arts administration in 1975, working for the Canada Council in Ottawa. In the mid 1970s, he began to take photography more seriously and by 1982, when he left the Canada Council, he was exhibiting his photography regularly.

James works in series and much of his photography is available as books.

• La Campagna Romana, 1991
• The Italian Garden, 1991
• Viewing Olmsted: Photographs by Robert Burley, Lee Friedlander, and Geoffrey James, 1997
• Geoffrey James: Running Fence, 1999
• Paris: Photographs by Geoffrey James, 2001
• Geoffrey James; Parks and Walkways of Oshawa, 2001
• Place, 2002
• Geoffrey James: Past/Present/Future, 2003
• Une Mort Très Digne: L'Histoire Du Cimetière Mont-Royal, 2003
• Toronto, 2006
• Utopia Dystopia, 2008
• Geoffrey James: Field Notes, 2008

A retrospective of his work, Utopia/Dystopia: The Photographs of Geoffrey James was mounted by the National Gallery of Canada in 2008. Between 1987 and 2002, he used large-format and panoramic film cameras to record landscape that has felt the impact of human activity. The earlier work examined idealized landscapes of pleasure gardens followed by an exploration of asbestos mining sites and the US/Mexico border fence in southern California.

• Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts, 2012
• Fellow of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago
• Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, New York
• Victor Lynch Staunton Prize, Canada Council
• Roloff Beny Foundation Photography Book Award
• Gershon Iskowitz Foundation Prize
• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts