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, a collection of portraits of the top Canadian athletes at the time. 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 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 Gilles 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 his friend Villeneuve, he released Villeneuve, a photographic essay on Villeneuve's racing life.
1983 saw the release of de la Plante's third book, The Complete 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 became a definitive book on Villeneuve. It also won the bronze medal in the New Media Invision Awards a world-wide competition in the publishing industry in 1996.
De la Plante's work was 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 saw the release of Malibu, Young Life's pictoral history of their beautiful children's camp on the Princess Lousia Inlet north of Vancouver British Columbia. It was released in 2002. Bowen Reflections was released in 2004 to great reviews. This David O'Malley design beautifully tells the story of Bowen Island from the 1850's to the mid-sixties.
While living on the very inspiring Bowen Island, de la Plante completed two novels, both of which have recently been turned into screenplays. At present he is working on his second barbeque cookbook.
As a member of Toastmasters International at the highest educational level, de la Plante has delighted his audiences with his candor, humour and his life stories. He has drawn the spotlight many times throughout Canada and Asia.
