Cat in my trunk

It's been a long time since I last blogged on my site. I have been shooting, honest! In most cases, no news is good news, but in self-promotion it's suicide. Over the past few weeks I have been shooting for the National Post, Bank of Canada and other portraits of clients, but I am not sure if I can post those photos. So... until I get clearance, here is a photo of Xiao Z in the trunk of my car.

I find backgrounds are so hard to control, either a tree is growing out of someone's head or the ground is brown and ugly. Sure you can shoot wide open and blur the background, but finding a free black seamless backdrop is pure happiness.

I was cleaning out the car and had the hatch open whereupon my cat climbed in to enjoy a new vantage point where he could keep an eye on the birds in the yard. A cloudy warm spring day gave me perfect light to catch Z in both a horizontal and vertical shot (gotta keep the editors happy).

Lesson learned: if you see a shot, take it. I would have never thought of taking a portrait in this situation, but I think it came out as one of my favorite photos of him.

Photo was shot with a borrowed 100-400mm 4.5-5.6 lens. Such a great piece of glass.

Vancouver 2010

Last week I was able to find a cheap flight out to Vancouver and decided to head out for three days.

I knew that I wouldn't be able to see any of the events, and that most of the highlights that would remain in my memory would be free events that I would stumble upon.

The first thing that I found was that spring had come to Vancouver while Calgary and so much of Canada was still in the grip of winter. Flowers were everywhere, and the grass was green. The temperature was warm and the sun shone everyday. I know that this is not typical Vancouver weather but it was such a nice surprise coming from frost and snow everyday for the past month.

As for the Olympics... the city was putting on a hell of a show.

There were posters on buildings, flags on construction sites, and the whole downtown core was full of Olympic spirit. But if you had enough and wanted to escape, all you had to do was walk a few blocks out of the downtown core and all of a sudden you wouldn't think anything special was going on.

There was a small amount of anti-Olympic spirit going on, as demonstrated by this poster, but overall everyone was having a good time.

Steven Colbert was there doing his show The Colbert Report from Vancouver. He was very cool and attracted about 4000 people to see his show live.

Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans were there putting on a free show my first night, which makes it twice now that I have seen them without paying. They had the crowd dancing and singing, and as it was a dry event, there was no fighting, and all the kids in the audience were able to have a really fun time.

While I was cycling around Stanley Park, I bumped into two Russian athletes who had recently won gold and silver in Biathlon and Cross-Country skiing. To see medals at the Canadian Mint there is a four hour wait, while I was able to see real medals just inches from my face.

A new artist has erected a group of bronze statues at the west end of Stanley Park. Really cool faces and everyone was enjoying having their picture taken with them.

It was a great time in Vancouver and if you can get out there, don't hesitate.

Olympic Fever

I'm going to the Olympics! Sadly not as a photographer for a newspaper or magazine, but just cuz. Lucky for me, my brother lives out there and his sofa hasn't been rented out. So... see you back here next Saturday and hopefully I'll have some great Olympic moments captured even if I am not going to a single event!

My last year

Ever since my dad passed away in 2009, I've become fascinated with genealogy. After the funeral, I took his photo album and started to scan all his old photos so that I could share his collection with the rest of the family. I looked at his album and figured I could scan them within a few months.

However, after telling my aunt Karina my idea, she allowed me to add her bags of photos to the mix and told me to scan them all, and so began a year-long project that has been therapeutic and interesting at the same time.

This group shot in the garden was taken around 1918 and holds the faces of people I am related to but never got the chance to meet. My grandmother sits in the front row in a white sweater, looking young and pretty, while my great-grandfather and great-grandmother also pose in the photograph.

After my dad's photos were done, my step-dad asked to have his photos scanned and re-touched so that he too could share his photos with his friends and family. This picture of him in 1936 is a good example of what you are up against when you scan a 70-year-old photo. Time has made the photo yellow, and scratches and other bits of dust and dirt appear on the scan in great detail.

So... Photoshop to the rescue! First I cropped the photo, adjusted the angle, color corrected the photo, de-saturated the image, and then zoomed into the photo to about 400% and removed all the dust and scratches with the clone tool.

Each photo took me around 30 mins to clean up. If I was lucky, I could be in and out in 5 mins if there wasn't much dust, or if it was a big crowd shot where dust marks weren't noticeable. Each day I would try to find time to do about seven photos. Slowly, I got through them all.

In the end, I discovered great photos such as this one of my uncle Andrew in 1964 in Italy. He was 26 in this photo which blows my mind that my uncle was younger than I am now! I look at this photo with the great outfit, the shoes, the coca-cola boxes, and I can't wait to talk to him about this time in his life. I wish I had had this photo with me when I was in England in November!

The strangest bit of doing this project has been seeing the family resemblance in all the photos. My dad is seen here sitting front row centre. In 1996, my nephew Damir was born and when I saw this photo I couldn't believe how much they look alike. I can't wait to start my genealogy search and to trace back as far as I can the lines of my family tree.

The cure for the winter blues..

I have never put much faith in disorders for some reason. I tend to think that people who claim Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) are simply looking for a day off from work where they can catch up on laundry or watch movies while lazing on the sofa.

But recently I have seen changes in my own personality. I haven't picked up my camera in a week!! That's eons of time in a photographer's world. I asked myself what the problem was, what's keeping me from my passion?

I came to the realization that January in Calgary, Alberta is a dreary time for me, as I don't ski or partake in any outdoor activities. I am a "hot and humid" kind of guy I guess. (Although in all honesty, I have to admit that hot and humid makes me sleepy, so I can't win.)

Thankfully I have friends like Anna and Cai, who were able to pull me out of my hibernation and into the real world again. Anna organized a day trip to a senior centre where we would take pictures and talk to seniors for a school project that she is involved in. I was brought in as the photographer and I had a great day because of it. So,... thanks Anna.

We set up a little photo booth area where seniors could come and sit for a quick impromptu photo session. Meeting these people was a treat for me as they all had great personalities and amazing stories. I really hope that they enjoyed having strangers in their midst and that they like the end results. I think the photos speak for themselves and show that they had a good time. Nothing like meeting new people to brighten up your day.

Weddings again

Thanks in part to my short-lived career at the Calgary Herald, I have received a lot of requests to shoot weddings from friends who know me and recommend me to everyone they know. "He shot for the Calgary Herald" they say, and people figure ..."well, if he's good enough for the newspaper, he's gotta know something about photography."

This wedding is thanks to my good friend Jolene (first photo, right) who acts as a model for me from time to time, and whose brother Brent (second from left) got married this past weekend. The wedding and reception was held at a hotel and thanks to the slushy warm Chinook-y conditions outside, we took all the photos indoors and didn't have to travel too far or fight with the strong winds outside.

It was a perfect wedding ceremony from my point of view. It was held in a room with no natural light, and had a white ceiling only 7 feet high. This allowed me to bounce my flashes up and create soft white light that fell on the couple rather than blasting them with direct flash and creating harsh shadows behind them.

With the wedding ceremony shot, we moved upstairs into the main foyer of the hotel and set up two lights with umbrellas to shoot the formals. The light that the umbrellas produce is soft and even and they tend to increase my "street cred" as people usually look at my set up and say "Wow.. that's so professional." I love that.

After a few moments taking photos, the flower girl made it clear she loved to have her picture taken. Once she saw the camera was pointed in her direction, she would pose herself and sit there like a princess with a perfect smile on her face. I showed her this first photo of her and she seemed to be very happy with her effort.

If you look closely on the last photo on the sofa, the bride and groom are talking happily with their friends but that little girl is all business. She's found my lens and she isn't letting go anytime soon. BTW... I love this shot of the newlyweds on the sofa. Everyone seems to be so relaxed during one of the happiest and most stressful days I could imagine.

Clearly, I am still single. More to come..

Baby photos for Christmas

Baby time... My friends were out from Toronto for the holidays with a new addition to their family. Amelia was born in July and so the proud parents wanted to get some photos done for their family in time for Christmas. I did the shoot at my parent's place as they have more room than I do and my mom loves having a baby in the house. (I think she has given up long ago on my chances of adding to the human race!)

We set up a white backdrop in a spare room and then set up lights so that we had about a +1/3EV on all exposures. A few pillows and a white blanket and we were ready to take some photos. Amelia was a super baby and kept herself composed for the majority of the shoot. Perhaps it was the big camera, or the idiot behind it making clicking noises, but she saw that lens and stared right into it. Great!

Did she throw up during her shoot? You bet. Right on cue too. "Oh! Perfect! Hold it right there!" "Bleeecch". Lovely. But how can you not keep smiling at a face like that!?

Amelia (like any great entertainer) needs to have a few clothing changes. Once we had her in her purple outfit, we found a small problem as her attention was almost totally taken by her new tights. We were all saying her name but she simply focused on the new dots that were running all over her toes and legs. Luckily we got a great photo of the family before she started to look down again.

Total time: 1.5 hours. Two feedings, not much crying, and hopefully the grandparents like their new photos of a smiling granddaughter. Who wouldn't?