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Allan De La Plante

Shutter Speed: Motorcycles, Racing and a New Camera

February 25, 2010
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1972 had it’s ups and downs for me. The emotional effect of my marriage falling apart had taken me to a serious low. I decided to move back to Toronto to be near my son. Suddenly one day my wife appears and wants to give it another go. I was delighted! [...]

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Shutter Speed: Dewar, Cooke, and Jackie

February 2, 2010

My new position as the chief and only photographer for the Canadian Baby Photographers in the Ottawa area was going well, but it had some serious challenges. Since I worked on a commission basis of my work sold, I needed to have good images and a great salesman to sell my work. The problem was the [...]

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Shutter Speed: More racing, new friends, better images and more death

January 7, 2010

I was encouraged by Harvey Hudes to show my images around to anyone that would look at them. I decided I’d blow up my favourites and build a portfolio. Naturally any mistakes never saw the light of day and there were many mistakes mostly in the exposure department. I decided to continue the poster business [...]

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Shutter Speed: Posters, dash plaques and a new mentor

December 18, 2009

In the spring of 1968 my wife and son and I moved to the real world away from the mountains and skiing. We chose Toronto. Jobs as now are often found through family and friends. This again proved to be true. Through the same man who got me the Dunlop job I applied for a [...]

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Shutter Speed: Going Detroit and more racing!

November 30, 2009

Being without wheels after the loss of the ‘Mod-Healey’ presented a problem for most of the fall, but I’d changed jobs and had moved in with Jane in Thornhill. We’d decided we were going to flee to Europe to ski for the winter. I took a bartenders course and got a certificate while Jane waited [...]

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Shutter Speed: A new start, a new car and more racing!

November 21, 2009

I struggled through until spring and realized I needed to get either back to North Bay or head for Toronto where my parents now lived. My Father had been offered a senior position with the Globe and Mail. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse so they moved to the big city. I decided to [...]

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Shutter Speed: My art takes me away from all I know

November 13, 2009

The summer came and went with more parties and another trip south to Mosport and the exciting world of racing cars. Around this time a quick phone call from my brother Jim presented a new chapter in my young life. Jim, as I mentioned before, was a photographer. He was the principal photographer at the [...]

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Shutter Speed: Tragedy strikes again and again!

November 3, 2009

During the next two summers we hit the race tracks when we could afford it, but mostly we just hung out and partied. There were three events that hit us all very hard over this period of time. The first involved one of my co-conspirators in the ‘blue movie’ caper in high school. Of the [...]

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Shutter Speed: The new gang and the good times

October 27, 2009

Work was now a lot of fun! I’d get some neat assignment like shooting a football game or covering a fire or accident for the sports and the news departments. Best of all I got to drive my Healey and got paid five cents a mile to do so! The television station was set high [...]

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Shutter Speed: Love at first sight

October 20, 2009

Before my old man got rid of his Biscayne during his mid-life crisis, I got something I had longed for from the time I first drove his Buick…my driver’s license! It wasn’t a simple task for me to get that special piece of paper. When I went for the 90-day learner’s permit, which was what [...]

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