Night and Day
Photographer Cody Angus, photo by Dark Forest Photographic
Cody Angus Captures TBay’s Lively Music Scene and Quiet Landscapes
Story by Bonnie Schiedel, Photos by Cody Angus
Cody Angus’s love of photography and love of live music means that there are plenty of sweaty, colourful, high-energy shots on his website and social media pages. “Someone on stage is giving it their all,” he says. “It’s such a multi-faceted performance, where they’re performing their instrument or with their voice, and then they’re also performing physically for an audience, and being able to kind of capture that and show that raw energy and the raw emotion: that’s really special.” Some of his favourite images come from new or little-known acts at small, local venues. “When you’re capturing someone who’s raw and young and just kind of trying to make it, those are the ones who put on the best shows and ultimately give you the best photos. […] They’re doing the same performance for 10 people that they would for 10,000 people.”
Angus started posting concert images on his @tbayalive feeds around 2018 to fill what he saw as an underserved niche in the local photography scene, but he’s been involved in photography for many years. In addition to lifestyle portraits and local events, he also shoots landscape and cityscape images, aiming to provide a twist on the familiar. “I’m basically trying to find the picture that I haven’t seen yet. We live in such a beautiful location where we have the Sleeping Giant, we have Kakabeka Falls, we have High Falls, everything’s right at our doorstep,” he says. “And I’ve seen a lot of these pictures a million times, [so] I’m really trying to capture these things, maybe in a light that someone hasn’t seen before.”
Wolf River Falls, June 2024
He appreciates that nature photography inspires him to slow down. “It’s not always about the easy shot. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes you really have to hunt for your shots. I don’t have that luxury during concerts,” Angus notes. “There’s definitely kind of a Zen aspect to nature photography that I really, really enjoy, that teaches me to slow down and maybe appreciate the little things a little bit more and look at things from a different lens.”
To see more of Cody Angus’s work, visit tbayalive.ca or @tbayalive on Facebook and Instagram.