White Rock Postcard Photographer Ric Wallace  – AKA – Mr White Rock on Shaw TV

Being able to visualize the end result gives Mr White Rock the “Virtual Edge” over others, and so he chose Virtual Edge Communications as his company name.

Often when taking a photograph, he thinks more like an artist or an art director than a photographer. Ric doesn’t just see the image before him; he visualizes its future use in a variety of products and/or media. He knows how to attract attention in order to promote his ARTography.

Mr White Rock’s setup when in front of the White Rock Museum with no tent.

Biography

Mr White Rock (Ric Wallace) considers himself to be an ARTographer, which he defines as someone with a strong background in photography, as well as an aptitude for graphic design and the ability to combine the two into one art form, digitally, on a computer.

On the photography side, Ric has mastered lighting, composition, and the ability to see the world from a non-traditional viewpoint. He often incorporates shapes silhouetted in photographs for impact and visual interest.

On the art side, Ric has designed three coins – including a White Rock Beach coin, three pins, postcards, greeting cards, magnets, annual reports, conceptual drawings, logos, and web and graphic design.

In 2011, he travelled by car three time zones as far west as he could in Canada until he reached Tofino, BC on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He started working his way back in the direction of Ontario and happened to visit White Rock, BC – a place he had never heard of before. With August temperatures of 21 to 23C, White Rock was very appealing compared to southwestern Ontario temperatures of 40 to 50C with humidity and hail storms. As a bonus, Ric even found they grew palm trees here! Spending just one winter in White Rock convinced Ric to stay and make the west coast his new home.
Back in 1995, Ric’s love of nature photography – and, in particular, wildlife – led him to create an entire line of photographs dedicated to white squirrels. He marketed those images locally, but it was time to try online promotion. And so, it was the white squirrels that created a need for him to learn website design. After 19 years, he is still actively promoting his white squirrel photographs.

What he did for the white squirrels, he saw an opportunity for the “white rock” that gave this community its name. For more than three years, he’s maintained a popular website – WhiteRockBeach.ca – for promoting the White Rock beach area, as well as his locally produced images. Three of his blogs/websites had over 1.25 million visitors in 2012 alone!

Retailers in the surrounding communities of Tsawwassen, Delta, and Langley have no desire to sell White Rock greeting cards and postcards, although they would eagerly sell Vancouver postcards. Realizing, for that reason, that the White Rock Beach products have a limited market, Ric expanded his love of nature and wildlife into the Wildlife of Canada series – an additional 41 images promoted in stores and online at WildlifeOfCanada.com.
The George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Delta, BC has 2,000 postcards of his Wildlife of Canada series, many featuring their own local bird residents. And the Wildlife of Canada series can be sold anywhere in Canada, unlike the White Rock Beach line of products. With a seemingly endless supply of images obtained on his travels across Canada to discover his new home on the west coast, you can expect Ric to introduce more images to Wildlife of Canada series.
Ric’s White Rock/South Surrey and his Wildlife of Canada image series – are for sale as postcards and greeting cards at Save On Foods in Semiahmoo Mall (White Rock/South Surrey), as well as a few other British Columbia merchants.

Even though White Rock Beach is a popular destination, Ric Wallace believes the opportunity for increased tourism is unlimited. After all, White Rock is known as “the hole in the sky,” so the sky is NOT the limit – the moon or the stars are!
All of Ric Wallace’s images are available in many popular formats. While Ric markets many images to tourists in the form of postcards and greeting cards, he produces a variety of canvas mounted photographs, as well as framed photographic prints available in various sizes.

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Curriculum Vitae for Ric Wallace
Currently lives and works in White Rock, BC

Education
Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology
1983 Advanced Photography Diploma
1982 Photography Diploma

Televised Appearances
2015 Discovery’s Family Channel (U.S. network show) – Still LUCKY
2014 go! Vancouver (now known as go! West Coast) segment on White Rock
2010 TLC (The Learning Channel) U.S. network show
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2010 A-Channel News, London, ON
2007 Rogers Cable 13

Newspapers and Magazines (mentioned and / or used my photographs)

2015 Nanaimo Daily News
2014 Woman’s World
2012 The Now Newspaper
2011 The Globe and Mail
2002 – 2010 The London Free Press
2006 Harrowsmith Country Life
1994 National Post

Other media in both Canada and the United States
CJBK AM radio – London, Ontario
AM 980 AM – London, Ontario
CBC Radio more than a dozen times – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver
WAKR – Akron, Ohio with Ron Horner
Canadian Newspapers in Exeter, St Catherines, Milton
American Newspapers: Akron Beacon, Daily Kent Stater, Record-Courier, The Miami Herald, Philadelphia Daily News, The (Columbia, S.C.) State, The (Monterey County, Calif.) Herald, Rubbercity.com, BGnews.com, timesleader.com, Macon.com, siliconvalley.com
Various websites: Canoe.ca, Walletpop.com / Dailyfinance.com, TheGlobeandmail.com

Volunteer Photography
1998 – 2006 Habitat for Humanity of London, ON: provided photography to fully document yearly builds

The above video in HD with over 41,000 frames and 1.9 GB in size was created by Ric Wallace of Virtual Edge Communications.