Barbara Cole

Barbara Cole (b. 1953) is a Toronto-based photographer celebrated for her painterly, ethereal approach to the photographic medium. Working without formal training, Cole has built a distinctive and highly respected career rooted in instinct, experimentation, and a deep reverence for photographic history. Over the past four decades, she has pushed the boundaries of camera-based art by fusing traditional techniques with conceptual storytelling and imaginative set design.

Cole began exploring photography seriously in the early 1980s, favoring a hands-on, analog process that embraces imperfection and unpredictability. Rejecting the automation of modern cameras, she uses photography as a medium of transformation—often manipulating figurative imagery to question notions of time, place, identity, and perception. Her work asks poetic questions like, “How do you paint a picture of timelessness?” or “How do you capture the feeling of being weightless in an image?” Through these inquiries, Cole has developed a visual language that is simultaneously timeless and contemporary.

A recurring theme in Cole’s work is the transformation of the figure, particularly in dreamlike, often underwater environments. Drawing from her background in fashion and editorial photography, she integrates costume, atmosphere, and controlled staging to craft powerful visual narratives. Her series often focus on the female form, not as an object, but as a shifting symbol of identity, vulnerability, and strength. The resulting images blur the lines between photography and painting, reality and abstraction.

Cole frequently works with water as a motif and medium, using it to create optical distortions and a sense of suspended reality. Her underwater studio allows her to explore themes of rebirth, isolation, and serenity, adding emotional and aesthetic depth to her compositions. In contrast to this fluid approach, she also embraces historical techniques such as the 19th-century wet collodion tintype process, which she combines with modern digital methods to create haunting, layered portraits that appear both ancient and futuristic.

For Cole, the darkroom remains a sacred space, second only to her underwater studio. It is there that she merges past and present—using age-old photographic chemistry alongside digital layering—to produce luminous images marked by their tactile beauty and atmospheric resonance.

Despite having no formal training, Barbara Cole has become one of Canada’s most innovative contemporary photographers. Her work continues to challenge the conventions of photography while honoring its rich, tactile history—crafting a body of work that is both intimate and visually transcendent.