Photography vet Paul Wright has showcased his talents both nationally and internationally over a 25-plus-year career, but it’s his connection to home that has this Burlington native showcasing the city in his own way.
Wright has been featuring his home in videos that range from the history of early residents and buildings to local musicians just wanting to get their names out there.
Born in Brampton and raised in Burlington, Wright wanted to be a photographer from the time he was 11 years old, taking pictures at Jays games with his 110 film camera.
“I should have been born with a camera in my hand, but I don’t think they could get it out of the uterus,” Wright said jokingly. “So I had to drop it.”
Wright got his first taste of working in the media while still in high school when he started interning at the Burlington Post, processing film.
Even though Loyalist College in Belleville was suggested to him, going to school was not financially feasible for Wright, so he decided to get a start on his photography career.
Life eventually took him out west to British Columbia, where he spent 1994 as team photographer for the B.C. Lions, giving Wright the opportunity to photograph the 1994 Grey Cup between the Lions and Baltimore Stallions. It was the first Grey Cup to feature an American-based franchise.
Wright would go on to shoot fashion, concerts, celebrities, corporate events, and more than 50 magazine covers during his incredible career.
It was while working for a magazine that he got his start in videography. The publication told him that he needed to know video, which was something he always had a passion for but just didn’t know anything about.
The same week that the magazine approached him, Wright’s nephew did the same and requested that his uncle film his wedding.
So Wright took to YouTube for a couple of weeks and taught himself how to properly shoot and edit videos, which he said he picked up very quickly.
“The rules of photography still apply in video. You got to know your exposures, you got to know your shutter speeds, your rule of thirds, your lighting,” said Wright. “So fundamentals of photography from doing it for 30 years helped with the crossover.”
After the onset of the pandemic, Wright started a YouTube channel called A Thousand Words. He was talking to a magazine editor on his lunch break one day when he mentioned to this editor that he wanted to produce a video about COVID.
Wright wanted to highlight how he felt people had lost their ability to express themselves through smiling because of having to wear masks everywhere.
The two of them wandered the lower end of Burlington and simply asked people to pull their masks down and smile for the camera, before asking them questions about how the pandemic had affected them so far.
“We’ve lost the capability of expression through a smile, how much joy we used to give someone or how we could lift someone’s day up, just by giving them a smile,” Wright said.
“Bring Back the Smile” ended up being the debut video on his channel.
He’ll Google companies in Burlington and watch Facebook groups to try and get ideas for his videos and approach the ones he wants to feature.
Wright came upon a post in the Downtown Burlington Community Forum Facebook page from a local history buff named Nicola Thomson, who was going around town finding out about Burlington’s founding families and posting about it regularly.
“I’m a walker and a runner,” Thomson said. “And I used to wander around Burlington, looking at the homes and some of the plaques on the outside of the houses and began a great interest in the history of Burlington. It’s got a rich, rich history, and I enjoy it thoroughly.”
Wright and his team interviewed her for the “Untold Stories” video and Thomson has now become the narrator for all of Wright’s history videos.
Thomson is a former director of human resources for several Four Seasons Hotels and moved to Burlington in retirement to be closer to a son in St. Catharines.
During her years in HR, her job required a lot of research and asking questions, which is why she likes looking into these early settlers of Burlington and their backgrounds.
“I have a huge interest in people and people’s welfare and what happens to people in their families,” said Thomson. “Everybody has a story.”
She uses a mix of public records, the Burlington Historical Society, where she is a member, and heritage websites like ancestry.com to gather her information and make sure it’s accurate.
Thomson kept calling Wright with more ideas for videos and they filmed some over the summer and have more planned for 2022. Already on the agenda are videos featuring the last of Burlington’s gingerbread houses; the original owners of The Dickens Pub; how the original Burlington hospital used to be a hotel in the 1800s; and the Paletta Mansion.
“Burlington is so rich with history that people don’t know about. People just think this is just another city,” Wright said. “They just live here and go to work. But lower Burlington, the historic homes actually belong to some very interesting families.”
Wright’s videos are already gaining notoriety, with the Burlington Historical Society wanting him and Thomson to produce some videos for them this year. However, he doesn’t do this for notoriety, he just wants to showcase his city.
“I’m doing it for the passion and to share history.”
