In the world of digital photography, everybody’s an Ansel Adams. But Toronto-based photographer Adam Makarenko isn’t your run of the mill point and shooter. Makarenko handcrafts dioramas of uncanny worlds, which he then photographs.
Carlin Nicholson of Toronto indie band Zeus was romanced by Makarenko’s photos and asked him (along with co-director Alan Poon) to lend a hand with the music video for “Marching Through Your Head.” Even Broken Social Scene is on the Makarenko bandwagon: they had him co-direct their Juno-nominated video “Forced to Love.”
You’re currently wrapping up a show at Bau-Xi Photo entitled Green Refuges. Can you tell us about what inspired this series?
It started with the idea of greenhouses and then it turned into a series about preservation. I wanted to focus on idyllic places that had been taken over by natural environments. Places that had been abandoned by people — we’re trying to control nature, but nature really is controlling us.


What do you do with your dioramas after you photograph them?
I don’t like showing them because they’re very unrefined. They’re all for the picture. In this last show at Bau-Xi they really wanted me to show one, so I did… the front part of the greenhouse is finished but the back part isn’t. I usually just recycle the dioramas. I recycle trees and foliage into new dioramas.


Tell us about your evolution as an artist. When did you start making dioramas?
I moved to Toronto in 2003 to work in film — I was basically a delivery boy. I really hated it, and I guess that drove me into other things like photography. In 2006, I was taking pictures of real bees and apiaries. When winter came, I had nothing to do, so I decided to make images of bees and apiaries and take pictures of that, and that became my Langstroth Range series. I won American Photo of the Year and the Magenta Bright Spark awards for that series. So, I guess I got off to a good start.
Are there any photographers who influenced your style?
My biggest influence when I started doing the bees was X Files’ director of photography, Bill Roe. I’ve never been influenced by photographers. My influences either come from being out in the natural environment or they come from filmmaking.


You’ve made several music videos. Which was your favourite to work on?
The Zeus video, “Marching Through Your Head,” was the most insane video because we rented and took up an entire east-end house. The band came to me and said, “We want to make a music video where four pairs of boots wake up and climb a mountain.” That’s what they had, so I just filled in all the blanks.


What are you working on currently?
I’m trying to make a documentary about my home town, Atikokan. There are these old iron mines that have been abandoned for about thirty years. The whole town was built around them. Back in the 1940s, some lakes were diverted into the mines. Now the mines are filling with water, but the pits are polluted with sulfur. Over the next 20 years the water is going to spill out and pollute the river systems with mercury. What I want to do is tell the story in the traditional documentary way, with interviews, but I also want to build a 20 by 20 foot miniature of the town and the mines, and use the miniature to tell the story of the town’s past, present and future.
Green Refuges, Bau-Xi Photo. The show closes July 23.
