Photographer Ruth Kaplan is an Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the multimedia project ‘Some Kind of Divine’. To see Ruth’s body of work, click on any photograph.

Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, Toronto, Canada

Seventh Day Adventist Church, Toronto, Canada

Some Kind of Divine, a photo/video exploration created between 2000 and 2011, centers around participants in a variety of church services in Toronto and Halifax. I was drawn to the spiritual passion evident during these rituals, expressed through a compelling physicality. The photographs are intended to evoke the performance of religious faith, both extreme and tender, as a bonding, communal rite.

In counterpoint to this heightened interpretation, there is a video- interview component showcasing a wide range of people, from atheists to pastors, discussing their relationship to faith. The videos serve as a bridge between the more exoticized view in the black and white images and the voices of people as they talk about their struggles with concepts of faith.

Brazilian Pentecostal Church, Toronto, Canada

Lucasville United Baptist Church, Halifax, Canada

Ruth Kaplan is a documentary-based photographer whose work explores a variety of themes such as the social behavior of bathers in communal hot springs and bathhouses, participants in rituals of spirituality and more recently the transient status surrounding refugees seeking asylum in Canada while living in shelters in Buffalo, Detroit, Toronto and Fort Erie, through photographs, interviews and videos reflecting the slow passage of time within this extended limbo. She has recently completed an exploration of the Roxham Road border-crossing straddling New York and Quebec including soundscapes from the site, interviews with asylum-seekers, and photographs of the diverse forces intersecting at this tiny spot. As well as exhibiting this work, the book “Crossing”, has just been published by Kehrer Verlag.

In addition to an extensive background in editorial photography, Kaplan has exhibited internationally with work in major Canadian and international collections and publications. She is a recipient of numerous grants and awards and currently teaches at OCAD University. She has previously published Bathers, (by Damiani), a book about bathing culture.