Kelly Hofer was raised in a Hutterite community inManitoba. From the age of 8, he contributed to the colony as a gardener'shelper, fine woodworker, apprentice automotive electrical engineer and finallya CNC waterjet operator. His colony, notably, manufactured fire trucks. Hisfirst experience with photography was using a point-and-shoot camera his motherhad for documenting construction. Between the ages of 11 and 19, Hofer capturedhundreds of thousands of photos of Hutterite life in his community and inneighbouring colonies. The act of taking photos would eventually become hisoutlet, art form, and career. This exceptional 240-pageannotated book of photographs depicts (for the first time from the inside) thenon-staged, colourful, and often mystified experience of growing up as aHutterite teenager on the Canadian prairies.“I started photographinglife around me at age 11 and just saw it as a form of art. I didn’t consider mywork or this series as a ‘project’ until leaving the colony in 2012, when Iquickly realized just how misunderstood and mysterious the Hutterite lifestyleis to outsiders," said Hofer. “All of the people in thebook are my family, friends, community or neighboring colonies in Manitoba." It is a book that beautifully depicts family, community, love, friendship, work, play and the joys of rural childhood with arare sensitivity. | HUTTERITE by Kelly Hofer, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters