Freeman Patterson: Having the Time of His Life

Anyone who reads INSPIRED Magazine already knows there are an infinite number of inspiring Canadians over 55 embracing life. However, New Brunswick photographer, teacher of visual design and writer, Freeman Patterson, takes it one step further. 

“I’ve said this to dozens of people, old age is absolutely the best time of my life – and the last two years, 81 and 82, have hands-down been the best,” he says. “There’s just a richness and fullness to aging. When I was young, I always thought that after 65, I had nothing to look forward to except rheumatism and rocking chairs and was I ever wrong.”

Now there can be as many reasons as people as to what makes older age rewarding enough to declare it life’s highlight, but for Freeman, almost dying twice had something to do with it. Twenty years ago, he underwent not one, but two, liver transplants. When the call came from the Halifax transplant clinic that they’d found a donor, Freeman was near death. 

The first liver did not “take” and Freeman went into rejection almost immediately. The second transplant, five days later, was a success, but it was followed by a long period of rehabilitation.

“When my transplant surgeon came by to tell me I’d actually undergone two surgeries, he said to me, ‘Freeman you have just won the 649 five weeks in a row. You should not be here – you had a less than one per cent chance of surviving.’”

At 82, Freeman says he feels healthier than he did at 40.

“I was given this incredible life again, two times, so I make darn sure that I do what I have to do to stay healthy. I get lots of physical exercise, and I really, really look after my diet. I think it deepens my appreciation for all the good things, even though it is the sort of experience you would not wish on your worst enemy,” he says. “I was forced to go places within myself that I would never have chosen to go. Looking back from this perspective, I bless it.”

Freeman grew up in New Brunswick and after completing an undergrad degree in philosophy at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, went on to do a post-grad Master of Divinity at Columbia University in New York. While there, he studied photography and visual design privately, which helped shape the topic of his master’s thesis – “Still Photography as a Medium of Religious Expression.”
 
After that, even though Freeman became dean of religious studies at Alberta College, he was still actively working in photography and soon realized it was his passion. In 1966, he moved to Toronto to pursue a photography career with clients like the United Church of Canada’s still-photography and production house and the National Film Board of Canada. 
In 1973, Freeman decided to move back to New Brunswick to build a house and photography studio at Shamper’s Bluff, on a farm near his family homestead (about 1.5 hours southeast of Fredericton). Almost immediately, he started offering visual design workshops, and local classes quickly turned into workshops and seminars around the world, which, to this day, sell out so fast participants must be quick to register. The first of Freeman’s instructional books on photography and visual design, a direct outgrowth of the workshops, appeared in 1977 and was followed by five more instructional books, plus 10 larger, coffee-table books.

In his classes, Freeman starts with the basic elements of design – line, shape, texture and perspective. But knowing the building blocks of visual design is one thing, learning how to arrange (or compose) them effectively in picture space is another, so he also teaches the role of balance, rhythm, proportion and dominance. It’s for this reason that Freeman prefers to call his classes “visual design” rather than “photography” classes.

“For example,” he says, “let’s look at the balance of a painting. Sometimes you want a lot of balance, but if you’re painting a picture of your two grandsons having a fight and one is sort of winning, well, maybe you want imbalance to show who is winning. And then I talk about rhythm in the same terms of life experiences, and so on, to integrate all of those things.”

Something else Freeman teaches his students is that the camera looks both ways. Even if you’re a person who’s not into deep self-examination, your photos may be more revealing than you’re aware.

“What you choose to photograph and how you go about it, both say something about you,” says Freeman, “so unless you’re competing in a contest, or doing work for a client, the photograph you make can’t help but tell your life story.”

When he’s at home, Freeman leaves his cameras hanging on a chair in his kitchen and when anything moves him, he starts taking pictures.

“If I haven’t done something in a while, one of the things I do – and I do this in my visual design workshops, as well – is to go outside, pick a random number of steps and a direction, and set my tripod down.”

“Then I make 30 images without moving the tripod, 30 thoughtfully composed shots,” he continues. “The premise is the best place in the entire world to see well is wherever you are. Then, wherever you go – sailing down the Danube, or viewing the cherry blossoms in DC – you can see well there, too.”

Like anyone who takes visual art seriously, Freeman has noticed his approach has evolved throughout the years.

“When you see this change in style, it can be enormously revealing. Some years ago, I was working on a project for which I had to go back through all my images from the beginning of my picture-making,” he says. “I decided instead of starting with the first, I would start with the present and work my way backwards. As I did that, I began to see things.”

For example, Freeman had taken several photos of the texture of the field behind his house without a point of interest. In mid-December, there was some white snow and mid-tone brown grass and little black pin pricks of shadows amongst everything else.

“There was a full tonal range of brightness, everything was incredibly integrated, and nothing stood out,” says Freeman. “As I sat there with my cup of coffee, I said ‘why were you making these pictures?’ And that’s when I realized that’s what I want my life to be like, I want that integration.”

Freeman realized that because he was on such a high, the appearance of the field had a symbolic value for him.

“The father of depth psychology, Carl Jung, more than once remarked ‘you don’t go looking for symbols, they find you.’ When I started to go back through my images, I realized I was already investigating this integration, I just didn’t know it. It went back three years before it stopped altogether,” he says.

Freeman says the fields and woodlands around his house, where he’s now wandered for nearly half a century, are still his favourite place to make pictures. 

“There are still parts of Shamper’s Bluff I haven’t seen yet,” he says. “Nothing gives me more pleasure than just walking out of my house into the woods. In 30 seconds, I’m into a fully functioning community.”

“An example: a yucky day last January, I had to get out of the house and about a minute into the forest, I left the trail and there was this gigantic spruce tree that had been blown down. I could see new seedlings coming out of it. And then as I leaned against the tree and looked around more, there were six kinds of lichen – all thriving and doing their thing. There were a few snowflakes. The winter birds were around, I could see hare tracks. I’m thinking it just works perfectly, and that, for me, is as wholesome as you can get. It’s submersing myself in good health.”

It’s thanks to Freeman’s actions, however, that those wild fields and woodlands remain. Initially, when he returned to Shamper’s Bluff in 1973, the 40 hectares of land between the two parcels of land that he owns were up for development. So, he approached The Nature Conservancy of Canada and said that if they could acquire the intervening 40 hectares, he would donate his property in return for a life lease.

“It took them some time,” says Freeman, “but they got it. The land met their requirements for different plant and animal species that use the space. So, in effect, I gave away my wealth, but I’m not sorry, because on the day the three pieces of property became a single unit, I really felt I’d gained another 100 acres.”

This country living has also made it possible for Freeman to pursue another of his passions: gardening. In fact, in a cleared space in the woodlands, he has made the largest azalea and rhododendron garden in Canada.

“I’ve always gardened,” he says. “I grew up on a dairy farm down the road, and from the age of eight, I was called every morning at five to help with the livestock. I also helped in the huge vegetable gardens, but I always had a tiny flower plot because I loved flowers. My father, however, was only interested in whether a plant could produce food or something to wear. So, really, what I’m doing now with this gardening – especially since my transplant – is what I always wanted to do. A person is never too old to have a happy childhood!”

Clearly, Freeman is having the time of his life.

To learn more, visit www.freemanpatterson.com

If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give him?

“Move to South Island, New Zealand, and base your life there. Why? Because it has the world’s most equitable climate, yet with varied weather, because it is topographically and ecologically magnificent, because the entire country is rich in its artistic and cultural heritage and contemporary practice, because it is politically stable, and because the people are great! To me, the severity of the Canadian winter is as much to be feared as the possibility of earthquakes. Furthermore, unlike in most of Canada, there I can motorcycle all year long.”

What or who has influenced you the most and why?
“To speak first of persons who influenced me positively, my mother, above everybody else. She was a nurse, a city girl who became a farm wife; she had an aesthetic bent that she never had the time to indulge, but she drew my attention to important things like the whistle of the wind blowing through tall, beautifully curving grasses and light flashing off the wings of birds when they made a sudden turn in unison. I am so happy and proud to say, these many decades later, that in drawing my attention to these things, my mother gave me the life I’ve had.
Dr. Helen Manzer who taught me evening classes in photography and visual design at the Brooklyn YWCA in New York City was also a great influence. She not only clarified the basic building blocks of design for me but insisted on discipline and real care in arranging them to communicate effectively.
As for places of influence, the fields, forests, rivers and streams of New Brunswick and all their inhabitants – plant and animal. They became my closest childhood friends, and I have always felt utterly at home among them. I love New Zealand for its similar topography and natural vegetative covering. However, in the northwest corner of South Africa, I have another home, Namaqualand, especially the section known as the Richtersveld. It is the southern part of the Namib, the great desert that occupies most of Namibia and spills across the Orange River into South Africa. Here, I can see the bones of Earth and I feel utterly at home here, too. It’s as though I lived in this mountainous moonscape long, long ago because I was familiar with it on my very first visit. I’ve returned more than 40 times in this life.”

What are you most grateful for?
“Three things: friends who tell me the truth about myself and, even when they have to be critical, never withhold their care and love; being able to live on Shamper’s Bluff, which is mostly wilderness and always will be; and excellent physical and mental health.”

What does success mean to you?
“It means realizing that my ego is only a tiny part of my total self, like the tip of an iceberg, that the bigger part of me is my unconscious, where most of the work of being human goes on. The challenge is to become more and more aware or, to put it another way, try to ensure that the two aspects of myself pull together in a healthy direction. Real success is not a material achievement, but rather an emotional/spiritual one.”

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