© Naomi Harris. Sikh Motorcycle Club – Vancouver BC

On a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, photographer Naomi Harris took a road trip in the summer of 2011 to photograph Canadians coast to coast. Harris, who is Canadian, has lived in the US for the last 14 years and says that before receiving the grant, she had seen more of America and Europe than her own country. “Growing up in Toronto my comprehension of Canada barely extended past Montreal and Ottawa,” she says. “This journey [in 2011] opened my eyes to my country and how special Canadians are.” Harris plans to continue the project in regions of the country where natural resource extraction is helping the Canadian economy. She is also planning a road trip to photograph around the US, in celebration of her recent decision to apply for US citizenship. Harris says she welcomes suggestion of places of significance and beauty that she should visit. (naomi@naomiharris.com)

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© Donald Weber/VII Network

Gravedigger Arkady Timofeev takes a break after a day of digging graves in Vorkuta, a coal mining town in the Komi Rebublic in Russia. Founded by prisoners, the region is populated by descendants of former zeks (Gulag prisoners) and prison authorities. Vorkuta had one of the largest concentrations of Gulag camps in the USSR. They bury about 5 people a day there, which is high above the Russian average for such a small town, and the only guaranteed form of employment in this quickly dying town.

Photographer Donald Weber recently won the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography for 2009. This prize is awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. The exhibition of Donald Weber: Russian Archive is on view until December 31 at the Alice Austen House, 2 Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island.