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Movember Calendar Environmental Portrait of Suzy Kendrick

Ottawa Portrait Photographer Justin Van Leeuwen - Suzy Kendrick

Suzy Kendrick ©2013 JVLphoto

What do you do if you’re approached by a beautiful, charming, and good friend to help her with a collaborative fundraising calendar portrait, including some of the best wedding, portrait, and commercial photographers in Ottawa? Of course, you say “yes!”

mo’

Learn your Lights Ottawa Photography Workshop Results

Justin Van Leeuwen Portrait Photographer

First workshop taught. Check that off my to do list.

I had a great group of students at Saturday’s “Learn your Lights” Photography workshop at the JVLPopUp studio here in Ottawa. I chose to do a one-day intensive so we could all keep our Sundays as a weekend day and not run into any trouble with our significant others. Sarah, Don, and Correen started their day at the reasonable hour of 10am as I fed them SuzyQ doughnuts and started to talk about light.
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Creative Photography With Lights

The Devil we Know

It’s been an incredible first week at the JVLPopUp photo studio. We had an opening party which (though I didn’t tell anyone this) marked two years in full-time photo business for me, with incredible food by Essence Catering, drinks from Beyond the Pale, perfectly rendered and HUGE canvases by CanvasPop. I’ve entertained a few headshot clients and, bittersweet, I’ve been busy still working on assignment and location, leaving the space mostly empty during the day. At least my name’s on the window right?

I did take advantage of having a place to “hang out” on Monday. I hosted the first PhotoJam in years, which was a great success. 10 photographers of varying levels of interest and skill got together to just experiment, learn, and try some things they never had before. The above image of Tamara is a result of my own desire to mix constant lights with strobes to create motion in a single image. I had always known how to do it in theory, but to actually go ahead and pull it off was something I had never quite felt comfortable enough on a commercial gig.

Of course, tried once, that all changes – I’m looking forward to finding a way to do this with a client in the future. You TOO can learn how to use lights in your photography, how to creatively expand your repertoire and have your work stand out, my workshop is this Saturday and still has some spaces available. Do it, you know you want to.

2006 to 2013 RIP Pixelpost

Pretentious Self Portrait

Selfie

In 2006 I purchased what would be my first of many SLR cameras. I needed a creative outlet and found a happy balance between creativity and tech-geek with a digital photographic medium. My friend Aaron helped set up my site and I ran with it as I went from a Fundraiser in Toronto, to a first-time father in Ottawa, to a full-time photographer. It served me well, and though I’m not one to change things unless I need to (despite so much change over the years) it was time to send off old Pixelpost into the night… I wonder how many other photographers were still using it?

WordPress, as a medium, is new to me, so please bear with me as I settle into my new home, after all, I’ve been blogging on PP longer than I’ve been a dad. There are still some bugs to work out on this site, but I had it in a place I thought was good to put out there, seeing as all the little tweaks take forever to finish, if they ever finish at all.

But don’t worry! We have successfully and painstakingly (through an automated script) moved all of my original blog posts – for the most part – over to the WordPress blog HOORAY! For those new to this blog, and my back catalogue in particular let me explain: This goes back, way back, to my very first “good” photo I took with a SLR, when this was a daily photoblog. It’s actually not very good at all, at least not by my standards today, but it means something to me, it was new to me at the time and that still matters. This blog is as much a chronicling of a professional photographer as it is of my life. I’ve had people come to this site after seeing some of my work on Flickr, or published in a magazine, and they’ve gone back, through every – single – post. That’s something even I won’t do, it’s too embarrassing, but to some it shows growth, and how they too can grow and take a slightly better photograph, the one they see in their head, but just don’t know exactly how to yet.

So yeah, if you’re starting out in photography or want to see how much progress someone can make just by trying the backlog is there for you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I had creating it. 8 years old, and still growing.

As if one blog post wasn’t enough today, you can catch me over on Scott Kelby’s too.

“Learn your Lights” Ottawa photographic lighting workshop for beginners

Chris

Chris – selfie

Q: How many lights did I use to take this portrait?
A: Just two, and you can learn how to do this simply and effectively too – even if you’ve never use a light before. Get over your fear of speedlights and strobes: sign up for my workshop taking place Sunday October 26th.

The Learn your lights workshop will help beginner and novice photographers interested in expand their camera flash lighting capabilities. We meet Friday night on the 25th from 7-9pm to get to know everyone’s current level and any specific interests in using camera flash in their work. You don’t have to own a flash to participate in this workshop, but familiarity with one is a plus. We’ll have a model/subject on-hand, so you won’t have to worry about posing in photos (if that’s a phobia of yours) and I truly believe in learning by doing, so everyone will have a chance to try their hand at something new. (more…)