Allan de la Plante, D.T.M.

Allan de la Plante has won many accolades for his photography of people of action. In 1970, he began taking portraits of sports personalities, especialy those in the world of automobile racing. In 1974, he covered the Russia-Canada hockey series for the National Sport and Recreation Center. Between 1974 and 1976, commissioned by the Bank of Montreal, he created the First Canadian Gallery of Athletes, and in 1976 he was the official Canadian and COJO Photographer at the Montreal Olympic Games.

While de la Plante's summers were organized around world motor sport racing events, winters were spent capturing the exciting world of downhill racing during the era of the Crazy Canucks.

1978 saw the release of his first book, entitled Ski Free, with World Freestyle Champion, Greg Athans.

But long before then, de la Plante and a fiery young motor racer by the name of Villeneuve had joined forces and begun work on a book on Grand Prix racing. De la Plante had begun recording Villeneuve's meteoric rise from Formula Atlantic to the ultimate, Formula One. In the fall of 1982, after the untimely death of the great Canadian driver, he released Villeneuve, a photographic essay on Villeneuve's racing life.

1983 saw the release of de la Plante's third book, The Original Gas Bar-B-Q Cookbook with Joanne Bennett.

Book number four came in 1984 in the form of the official book on the Canadian tour of Pope John Paul II.

Flame of Courage was released to great acclaim in 1993. The book on the Canadian firefighter has been hailed as the definitive book on fire fighting in Canada.

With the introduction of CD-ROM into the publishing industry, the rebirth of "Villeneuve" as "Villeneuve - a Racing Legend" became a subject very dear to de la Plante. This book coupled with its fully-interactive CD-ROM promises to be the definitive book on one of racings great legends...Gilles Villeneuve.

Allan de la Plante's work has been recognized by the Canadian Government when Canada Post selected his photographs to be the base for the design of two commemorative stamps in memory of Gilles Villeneuve. The stamps were released in June 12, 1997.

De la Plante's next two projects have already begun with the introductory research on The Eye of the Storm - the American Firefighter and Whistler...It may not be heaven but you can see it from there.

Allan has made many friends around the world over the years and we are proud, at Flagworld, that he has selected us to build and maintain his personal web site for the promotion of his work on the Net.