Port Moody photographer documents the odd and funny in new book

For a moment, all you see is a police officer wielding a radar gun by the side of the road. However, you’re left with the distinct impression that something isn’t quite right.

Then the moment is over and you realize the police officer doesn’t have a head.

Those are the sorts of images Port Moody photographer David Carey captures in his new book Life is Strange.

A 70-page picture book of the amusing and absurd, the collection is divided between photos Carey has captures and the ones he created – in part to please his grandchildren.

In an effort to interest those grandchildren, Carey asked some critical questions, like: “What would happen if dinosaurs took over the urban environment?”

That question led to a fairly-realistic looking shot of a dinosaur cooling off at Rocky Point spray park.

However, creating those photos turned out to be a painstaking process, with Carey taking a hundred pictures of model dinosaurs and then feeding those pictures into a program that created a 3D image.

For other of the created shots, Carey needed a little artificial help, using AI to pop a submarine into Sasamat Lake after getting frustrated with Photoshop.

“I tried several times to put that submarine in there and was not successful at all,” he said, adding the AI program: “did way better than I could’ve ever done.”

However, the bulk of the book is a collection of real photos Carey has taken, including signs for a bathroom that doesn’t seem to exist, a horizontal tree branch stretching through a fence, and party balloons spilling out of a dumpster.

“I’m always attracted to things I think are unusual or funny,” he explained.

While he was a systems analyst by trade, he always did photography on the side.

Carey recalled his mother giving him a folding camera when he was a boy growing up in Winnipeg.

“I’ve been taking pictures ever since,” he said.