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Phodo Gear Guide 2011

Tis the season for a wrap-up of all the great things we bought this year, and to let people know what you can pick up others to make them temporarily happy, all while reducing your own personal wealth through “mandatory” giving.

Humbug you say? Fine, you want to buy something for the photographer in your life, and here’s a list of #phodo things that they will undoubtedly love:

Hasselblad H4D-60

Every Photographer needs a camera, and what’s better than getting the best camera possible? Considering the lenses themselves aren’t cheap, I chose a package to get you started. An 80mm lens is perfect for portraits and the 60MP sensor will make sure you don’t miss a lick of detail. At $42,000 USD you can guarantee you’ll be qualified in an elite group of professionals and wealthy amateurs and nobody will miss you while snapping photos on vacation – you could probably print those shots out life-sized. Invest in some extra storage space too though hard drives, memory cards – those files won’t be small.

200 mm f/2 Lens

If you found the Hassy a bit pricey, you can take a step back and stick with the camera system your photographer already has. If they’re any good, they’re probably shooting Nikon or Canon (ha!). One thing us photographers can’t get enough of is long fast glass – it’s a penis thing really – theses $6000USD lenses are sharp wide open, big as hell, and would make a great surprise gift under the tree!

Broncolor Location Kit

I’m a big fan of location lighting, and this kit is one of the best available – three 1500 WS lights will make sure you won’t care if there’s a bright sun, or even where it is. We don’t need ambient light where we’re going kid. While you’re at it, you might as well pick up the ~~economically priced~~ 10.8′ (FOOT!) Parabolic Umbrella for a cool $11,000 USD (Canadians will have to pay duty & tax)

Logistics Manager

For my final, and budget conscious item, I chose the Think Tank Photo Logistics Manager. Sure, it’s no Pelican case – capable of withstanding bomb blasts and far easier to wipe baby-puke off of – but it’s by a company I truly adore and respect. I have several of their products already and I’d accept this in a heartbeat. Not only could you fit all your new fancy gear from above, but I’d wager a two-four of beer near the bottom to weigh it down too. I’m actually fairly confident that, if I were on location, I could use it for a quick nap and nobody would know.

Anything I miss on this list? What are you hoping to get this holiday season? Or what don’t you have a chance of getting – but kind of want anyway?

Dec 07, 2011 | Categories: Photography Rant | Tags: Gear | 3 Comments »

CanvasPop and Instagram

I have been greatly honoured by my friends at CanvasPop by being chosen by them to do the product photography for their launch of their Instagram-to-canvas launch. For those who don’t know, instagram is a free app for the iPhone that allows you to quickly take photos add a number of preset filters and, most importantly, share these photos with your network.

The closest parallell I can draw to instagram is a balance between Flickr & twitter. It’s a photographic community built for sharing images that you are taking wherever you are at that time. Some of my more fun, even experimental photos, are taken on instagram (username “JVLphoto” if you want to follow me). Until recently, though, there wasn’t much of a way to get these images offline if you wanted. I guess you could have grabbed the saved image off your iPhone, and printed it somewhere yourself – but that’s kind of tedious.

CanvasPop taps the Instagram API so you just log into your account through their site & it loads all your photos. Select the ones you want with a few options like size, order, and a few days (it’s my experience that you get these things pretty fast) you’ve got some great looking prints for your wall, or to use as gifts.

More than shilling for my client, I really appreciate CanvasPop’s commitment to quality in their product. On many occasions have their staff listened to feedback I, and other professionals, have given, and they often, if not always, implment some form revision. Take the type of canvas they print on; a few of us didn’t like the grain of the canvas they used (despite being the most expensive commercially available at the time), they talked to their suppliers, switched it up, and now the texture of the canvas is more in line with what many of us want to see in a photographic print. Attention to detail: they’ve got it.

I couldn’t have completed this shoot if it wasn’t for the meticulous design work of Catalina Bloch whose attention to detail and meticulous planning of props helped set the scenes for the day, I’m not sure I could have worked with anyone else quite so long in that condo.

CanvasPop has an introductory price on their instagram canvases right now: $29.99… I’m not sure you can get something professionally printed & framed for that little. I know a few of my readers have got some Canvases done recently – want to sound off in the comments with your experience? Thanks!

Nov 30, 2011 | Categories: Commercial, Product Photography | Tags: Canvaspop, Commercial Photography, Instagram, Justin Van Leeuwen, JVLphoto, Ottawa, Photography, Product Photography | 4 Comments »

Doug Tetzner – Business Portrait

Doug Tetzner - Business Portrait
I’m a location photographer, I don’t own a studio, and I don’t much care to at this point in my career. That’s why when I’m contacted to do some professional business portraits, my mind starts spinning with potential locations near my subjects office.

Why not just set up a backdrop, some lights, and have a studio there? I can, and do, and certainly have, but if they’re willing I’m a big fan of telling a story, or at least creating a more compelling image, using the elements that are found around us. I scout out some clean backdrops, some cool street-scapes & buildings (request access when necessary), and always have one experimental idea if there’s time.

This image was the later of those, it was my “what if… let’s give it a try.” I wanted to do a daytime/dusk long exposure (usually long exposures are needed for night photography) where the cars would create blurred lines with their lights (that’s why it had to be dusk). As it turns out, Doug is pretty close to one of the few streets in downtown Ottawa with a median. Better yet, it’s got that SWEET turn lane arrow right there. This photo is actually two exposures, using a Fader ND MKII by Light Craft Workshop, what this allows me to do is create an image at 1/20th of a second to capture the subject, then slap on the fader ND and get an identical exposure (light wise) but with a much slower shutter speed for the final background image.

I hope to use the Fader ND a bit more, I originally purchased it to get some shallow dof photos using my speedlights (cuts the light so you can stop down your aperture while maintaining a sync-able shutter speed) during the day, and it will be great for landscapes when I want to dial in how much light to cut, rather than root around various different filters.

What do you think of the photo? Obviously it’s not for every application, I have a few more of Doug on Flickr too.

Nov 26, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | 8 Comments »

Amanda & Younes – Married

The great thing about an Ottawa City Hall wedding is that it’s short on formalities, but big on formals. What I mean by this, is that the ceremony is short and sweet (just like my own was) and we can focus on taking some brilliant posed formal photos with the happy couple.

Amanda was the photographer at my city hall wedding, so I knew I had to step up my own series of portraits. Not to mention Younes is pretty much the best photographer I know. I spent an afternoon before the wedding scouting the location, making notes on where I would shoot and how. We also knew we were going to take a trip to Champlain point to try and catch a sunset if it delivered – I think you can see that it did indeed.

I’m not sure I’ve ever met a couple who were so physical with each other publicly, without being inappropriate. They are in constant physical contact and you can see on their wedding day they couldn’t keep their hands of each other. Good. It makes for some of my favourite portraits ever. A big concern is when you photograph for other photographers, they often have an idea of what they want, but it’s also quite an honour, because they know your capabilities and chose that over those of others. Amanda & Younes knew what I would deliver to them and that’s what they wanted – I’m so happy they included me in their wedding day and I hope y’all enjoyed the photos.

Nov 17, 2011 | Categories: Wedding | 4 Comments »

Ottawa Extreme Family Photographer – Superbaby

Extreme family portrait. I still have session dates available in and around Toronto as per last weeks post, so if you’ve been on the fence (we can do this literally if you like) about getting a photo get in touch with me ASAP. I’ll be in the area November 5th to 7th, and then “poof” back to Ottawa.