Slow Seconds : The Photography of George Thomas Taylor

Finalist, New Brunswick Book Award (Non-Fiction)

The photographs of George Taylor (1838-1913) offer viewers a fascinating glimpse into nineteenth-century New Brunswick. Taylor's career coincided with a period when photographers began to provide Canadians with images of the "wilderness." Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of Indigenous guides, Taylor travelled not only through settled parts of New Brunswick, but also into the wilderness of the north, providing views of hitherto unfamiliar and unknown terrain and helping to popularize the outdoors as a venue for canoeing, hunting and fishing.

Taylor's work is also a record of rural and farm life on the rich floodplains and intervals of the Saint John River valley, of daily life in Fredericton, and of the large-scale expansion of railways in the province. Captured in the "slow seconds" of his camera, George Taylor's photographs illumined landscapes, people, and the seismic changes taking place at the cusp of the new century.

The first book of Taylor's photographs, Slow Seconds presents a curated selection of one hundred photographs together with an account of the beginnings of photography and Taylor's life and work.

Ronald Rees is the author of numerous books on Canadian history, including New Brunswick: An Illustrated History and New Brunswick Was His Country: The Life of William Francis Ganong. He has taught at the University of Saskatchewan and Mount Allison University.