Diane Bos

1956–

Dianne Bos (1956– ) is a Canadian photographer based in Calgary, Alberta. Her works have been exhibited internationally since 1981. Bos is known for her use of the homemade pinhole camera technique.

Dianne Bos was born in Hamilton, Ontario, received her B.F.A. from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick in the late 1970s. Under the advice of her professor, Thaddeus Holownia, Bos began exploring the pinhole camera technique. Bos found the technique to be a liberating experience, as it provided a way to showcase photographic history in Canada. Specifically, the medium rejected the notion that photography captures solely instant moments, due to the pinhole camera requiring a longer exposure time, reflecting the passing of time. Bos notes that her images offer an attempt to capture a memory, instead of an objective record of an object or place.

Bos’ work centers around contemplative spaces and offers a meditation on time's movement within a still image. Time and light, movement and stillness, memory and the observer: these elements link all of the diverse images she creates. Many of Bos’s recent exhibitions feature handmade cameras, walk-in light installations, and sound pieces. In 2015 Bos created a site-specific installation for Dawson City, Yukon, a work that has continued to be shown as part of the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura travelling exhibition.

Bos’ photographs have been exhibited internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions since 1981, including 10 Countries, Pennings Gallery, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1999), Out There Here: An International Pinhole Exhibition, Provincetown, Mass. USA (2000), FOTOGRAFIA STENOPEICA, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Senigallia, Italy (2011), and Home-for-All, Sendai Mediatheque and Toyo Ito Architecture Museum, Imabari, Japan (2011), among others. Important national exhibitions of Dianne’s work include Light Echo, an innovative installation at the McMaster Museum of Art, in collaboration with Astronomer Doug Welch, which linked celestial and earthly history; It's You!: Unexpected Photographs from Papua New Guinea, at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, PEI.; and Reading Room at the Cambridge Galleries, an exhibition exploring the book as a camera.

Bos has been nominated twice for the Scotiabank Photography Award.