The Flying Photographer

On a December morning, 89-year-old Lou Wise was soaring through the air in his Piper Cherokee, taking pictures of new tree growth in the York region from 1,000 feet above.

Wise, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and earned his pilot’s wings during the Second World War, has dedicated much of his life to his dual loves of flying and photography. He earned a master’s degree in educational media in 1975 at OISE, and subsequently took photos for several conservation groups.

Wise has been retired for more than 25 years from the Toronto Board of Education, where he worked in the media resources department. Most of his work now involves snapping images of rivers and wetlands (and their states of disrepair, thanks to human intrusion) for Southern Ontario conservation authorities. He has also taken aerial pictures of St. George Campus, to showcase the story of Taddle Creek (which ran through campus until it was buried in the late 1800s). DVD s of his work are available through University of Toronto libraries.