About Darrell Noakes

Writing and photography

Bicycle outside the Apple Tree Sandwich Shop, New Denver, British Columbia Image 1060-3272-4363-0045

I began writing in the 1970s, working as a radio news reporter. Magazine assignments followed, usually requiring photography. My photographic style continues to be influenced by instruction at an early age in journalism and photojournalism. Photos should tell their own story.

I quit my last full-time job in 1991, ending a 10-year career in public relations to start a bicycle touring and education business. You meet great people while riding a bike, and you learn a lot about a place when you visit at a slower pace. The tour company and travelling by bicycle have given me more opportunity to pursue new directions in freelance writing and photography.

Clients generally prefer to send me on the following types of assignments:

• travel and tourism.
• small business and home business.
• health promotion and injury prevention.
• education.
• special event coverage.

Clients like to hire me for editing assignments or to re-write technical publications. I'm very much a curmudgeon when it comes to editing, but my clients know that I won't stop until their material can be understood clearly.

Take a look at a list of some of my recent clients.

I also provide consulting services in public relations and communications on behalf of Gnyp Communications in Saskatoon.

E-mail me: borealis@sasktel.net

This is the City of Saskatoon, where we have lived since 1990. The city's name is derived from 'mis-sask-quah-toomina', the Cree Indian name for a local indigenous berry.

Some people wonder about the images in the banner at the top of this web site. The skyline is our home town of Saskatoon, shortly after sunset during harvest season. Alpenglow from the setting sun, filtered through grain dust in the atmosphere, created a deep red sky just before dark. The mountain peak is in Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park. A thunderstorm rolling through at sunset created very dramatic lighting. I learned to type on a Remington Standard No. 10 manual typewriter that I found at a garage sale, but the Underwood in the photo is typical of the machines we used in the newsroom. Of course, I use a state-of-the-art Pentium computer these days. I have fond memories of the manual typewriters, but I wouldn't want to have to use one again! The camera is a Canon FTb, a rugged and reliable workhorse based on the design of Canon's F1 professional model. Canon introduced the FTb in 1973, and many of them are still in use today. The FTb was one of my first "real" cameras. The tripod is, well, it's just a tripod.