Snapshot of Robyn Cumming

I've never reviewed a television program before, and it's rarely done on blogTO, but after seeing an advanced copy of tonight's episode of SNAPSHOT on Bravo! I thought I would spread the word. SNAPSHOT is a six-episode series exploring innovative photographers from Canada. Tonight's show documents Toronto photographer Robyn Cumming.

The shows explores her world not simply through interviews, but by taking the viewer behind the scenes of her work, showing how she interacts with her subject during a photo shoot, shops for props, prints in the darkroom, and mingles with guests at her exhibit. As a photographer, I was compelled. Her images are complex and entirely memorable, so to watch her work, see what and how she uses her equipment, and in general being a fly on the wall in her world was captivating.

But the show's success is not that it documents a photographer so well, but an artist so well. Technical skill and execution aside, Robyn's success comes from her creative vision and hard work. SNAPSHOT is a success because it reveals the work behind great work, which is wholeheartedly more inspiring and compelling.

The show airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo. The first episode aired last Thursday and featured Greg Girard. Future shows are as follows:

Episode 2 (Nov. 20): Robyn Cumming captures the tragic and mundane in her signature quirky and dramatic style.

Episode 3 (Nov. 27): Rob MacInnis recreates the drama of a fashion shoot with barnyard animals as models.

Episode 4 (Dec. 4): Cylla von Tiedemann is renowned as one of Canada's most treasured and imaginative dance photographers.

Episode 5 (Dec. 11): Eamon MacMahon is a gypsy at heart with a camera in hand who shoots northern Canadian landscapes and their landlocked inhabitants.

Episode 6 (Dec. 18): Jaret Belliveau is a master at being a fly-on-the-wall who is best-known for a photo series on the life and death of his mother.

All images by Robyn Cumming.