Bad-boy celebrity, ex-convict, reclusive author? Everyone has a story, and telling those stories keeps Harry Zernike going.

"Wielding a camera is like having a license to enter worlds I might otherwise never see. I can be a fly on the wall, listening and looking, but when direction is called for I’m happy to accost strangers, or tell dignitaries to hug. The aim is always to make pictures with with candor and humanity, and sometimes a bit of humour."

Since starting out as a photojournalist with Gamma Press in 1999, it has been Harry's good fortune to be awarded the Johnson & Johnson/ICP travelling fellowship, to have his work exhibited at ICP and The Bicycle Film Festival, and to have been recognised in the PDN Photo Annual and The Magenta Foundation’s Compendium of the best Canadian Photographers (Yes, Harry is Canadian. And Dutch. But mostly American).

His approach to image-making is continually evolving, but at the end of the day he says, "I like to follow my curiosity, and feel lucky to be able to do so."