gallery<\/a> where Richard Beland\u2019s first book, a hardcover with the same name and more than 200 images, also is being sold. A book launch and reception is taking place on Saturday, Oct. 25,, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the gallery in Toronto\u2019s Yorkville district.<\/p>\nArticle content<\/p>\n
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Beland, who is coordinator of Lambton College\u2019s photography program, grew up along Lake Huron near Sarnia a fan of music and music photographers. He began working as a photographer in Toronto after graduating from Fanshawe College in 1994.<\/p>\n
Since then, he has photographed more than 3,000 live performances from The Tragically Hip to Bruce Springsteen and his work has been published in Rolling Stone, SPIN, People and Maclean\u2019s and other publications.<\/p>\n
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![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1024-so-beland2.so_.jpg\")
The late Gord Downie, singer with The Tragically Hip, in a photograph by Richard Beland. (Handout) Handout<\/p>\n
More than a decade ago, Lambton College approached Beland about building a photography program for the Sarnia school and, in 2012, he was hired as an instructor and program co-ordinator.<\/p>\n
Our Immortal Stars, Vol. 1 is his first book.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a long time coming,\u201d Beland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a huge stock of photographs\u201d having photographed live music events even before he began working professionally, he said. \u201cI wanted to get them into a book.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opportunity came with the show at the Liss Gallery, with which he has worked for a few years, when the gallery owner suggested preparing a book to go along with the exhibition, Beland said.<\/p>\n
Beland signed with Liss before the pandemic after visiting the gallery for years because it represents music photographers he had followed and admired, as well as musicians who are also visual artists.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m going to start at the top,\u2019\u201d Beland said. Fortunately, after a meeting at which Beland presented a portfolio of his work, the gallery signed on to represent him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt put me in a league that is well respected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The gallery held an initial exhibition of Beland\u2019s work in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a huge deal for me and it was an honour to be on the same walls\u201d as photographers Beland has admired since he was buying music magazines as a teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018What a cool job. How do you get to do that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Beland had completed a mechanical engineering program after finishing high school in Sarnia and then decided to go on to Fanshawe and take a run at photography.<\/p>\n
The exhibition includes images back to 1986 and through to more recent times.<\/p>\n
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Selecting just 60 images for the show was a challenge but adding \u201cVol. 1\u2033 to the book title helped, Beland said. \u201cI anticipate a Vol. 2 and hopefully a Vol. 3 down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Designing and assembling the book, which Beland and the gallery arranged to have published, took about two years.<\/p>\n
The 250-page volume has more than 200 images of 178 different bands or musicians, as well as 27 short stories Beland wrote about his experiences as a photographer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 25 bands that have had some sort of personal or professional impact on me,\u201d he said. The Tragically Hip and Nickelback, bands Beland photographed often, each have two stories.<\/p>\n
He also wrote an introduction, \u201cand here\u2019s the really cool part, Mike Stevens wrote the forward,\u201d Beland said.<\/p>\n
Beland has photographed Stevens and directed a music video for the Sarnia musician who recently was named to the Order of Canada.<\/p>\n
Only 200 copies of the signed and numbered book have been printed to be sold through the gallery.<\/p>\n
Along with teaching at Lambton College, Beland photographed 84 concerts last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still busy with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breadcrumb Trail Links EntertainmentBooksLocal Entertainment A new exhibition at the Liss Gallery in Toronto, and a limited-edition book,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-93708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1024-so-beland5.so_.jpg\")
Richard Beland, a Sarnia music photographer and coordinator of Lambton College’s photographer program, is shown in his file photo. Photo by Tyler Kula \/The ObserverArticle content<\/p>\n