Bio
Joel Robison is a creative storytelling photographer from British Columbia. His work is inspired by fantasy and whimsy and he uses these to help connect stories with visuals that reflect back to a youthful sense of wonder. He uses his desire for kindness, empathy and gentleness with others as an inspiration for his work and often reflects mental health in the images. Joel is a passionate educator, teaching photography and editing to thousands of students worldwide and encouraging community and positive connections through art.
“Being involved with World Photographic Cup has been an incredible experience, it’s helped to boost my own confidence in my art and has given me a sense of pride representing art within Canada and in the global community.”
2022 – Illustration / Digital Art
This image was inspired by climate change and how our quest for finding solutions always seems to keep us trapped in the same cycles. The image was born out of an idea that my own way out of feeling trapped is to be in nature and that it helps me to fix my own issues, so maybe if we can find that energy that nature has within it, it could break us out of our patterns.
2021 – Illustration / Digital Art
I created this image as a reflection of a creative community that I established called The Lightbulb Project. The image, created in January, is a message of hope and light for the year and was inspired by my idea that our good energy and positive light is a part of us always worth exploring.
2020 – Illustration / Digital Art
The image, “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s Gone” was created as a personal reflection and interpretation of climate change and deforestation. It was inspired by the lyrics of Joni Mitchell and was created after visiting a favourite part of a local forest and finding it had been logged, leaving it a stumped patch of barren land instead of the thick trees I remembered.
2019 – Illustration / Digital Art
I created this image with a friend during an afternoon of creative collaboration. The idea came from my own experience during that time with grief and overcoming personal loss of a family member. I wanted to create an image that explored the idea of the tricky balance grief has in our emotions, and that we need to release some of the light of the person we’re grieving back out into the world, even if it’s difficult to do.
2017 – Illustration / Digital Art
This image was inspired by the concept of long-distance relationships, the models in the photo are two artist friends who are in a long term, long distance relationship and it’s a situation I find myself in as well. I wanted to show the connection of two people, that love and understanding and feeling of home can exist even when we aren’t physically in the same space.