I don't want to come across as pretentious, whiny or self important, flat out I don't like describing myself... I haven't had a particularly hard life, I grew up in an small town in the canadian middle class. The world doesn't owe me anything if anything I feel like I should be a better Global citizen because I've had it so good... but at the same time sometime I feel like I'm making things up as you go along, somewhat directionless, without a compass so to speak...

I feel like a good person, but am I satisfied with the life I'm leading... I'm not sure... don't get me wrong, I've been wasting time or have spent too much time working and not enough taking in whats arround me..... I guess I mean I'm not focused what should matter... lately I lack challenge and worse yet , lately am too lazy to actually do anything about it.

I find photography a fascinating hobby, it's taking up more and more of my time, I love the ability to create whilst still conveying a message.... I'm jealous of the photographers who do it professionally. I've not had any formal photography training. I'm considering pursuing it in the future, because the message I seem most often to convey is, isn't nature beautiful, or this is where I've been, I'd really like to shoot people but willing models in a small town are somwhat hard to come by...

I'm a Registered Nurse working in the Arctic. The schooling and experiences I've had as a result of being a nurse have been shaping me into the person I am today. Working with people is such a humbling job, I really do enjoy it, despite what I may say sometimes.

Ideally, I'd like to have more time and energy to do the things I really enjoy, such as travel, whitewater kayak, walk with my dog, have campfires at night...(warm night that is)... work with animals.

In life theres compromises... I'm a pretty lucky in that mine are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, my current work/living situation makes achieving my ideal activities somewhat difficult, the far north is somewhat prohibitive as travel is exceptionally expensive, there is no whitewater close by, there is no night in the summer (the whole living above the arctic circle thing...) so campfires in the dark only happen when it's amazingly cold, but it's not all bad though...

As part of the compromise I get to live in the Arctic, how many people will ever get that experience, and I generally enjoy what life hands me. The inuvik community greenhouse eats up lots of my time in the summer, the northern lights in the winter (although 9 times out of 10 I look south to see them) continually amaze me, and I work with great people, the plan was to stay here for 5 years and hopefully we'll reap the rewards of weathering out the recession in the cold... but a marital split has fueled the fire to really do what I want and I hope to be going to school in September of 2013. for Pre Vet studies.

I'm aspiring to become a veterinarian, maybe perhaphs professional photographer some day, the need for a profesional photographer in Inuvik is akin to the need for an ice machine in January. Not that I won't try though to get better and shoot everything I can while I'm up here.. the message of "isn't Nature beautiful" I think can be told over and over and over...

please enjoy the photostream, and leave comments I love knowing that people can see my pictures.

All photos are property of Matthew Hamilton, please contact for prints or requests to use.

thanks for reading this and stopping by