- Hide menu

Blog

Worldwide Photowalk 2011 – Ottawa Edition

Worldwide Photowalk 2011 - Ottawa Edition
This was my third year leading Scott Kelby’s annual Worldwide photowalk in Ottawa, one of over 1100 walks worldwide, and our group of 40+ complemented over 28,000 walkers accross the globe.

I decided to depart my my regular route of downtown Ottawa and bring the walk to my home-turf of Hintonburg and the nearby Ottawa River. I was fortunate to be joined by a devoted group of previous walkers-turned friends, and equally fortunate to be joined by a whole whack of strangers that get queued in the “to be friends” list. They were all troopers considering our weather was inclement at best, and wet and cold near the end.

Younes came and graciously offered to teach those who were interested in some of the proper techniques used in landscape photography. Usually people have to pay big bucks for this. I took another group and tried my best to short-out my flash in the rain by showing people how easy it is to do a single flash, off-camera lighting setup.

There’s this great section of rock on the Ottawa River that a local artist, John Ceprano, has sort of “appropriated” and created hundreds of these magnificent balanced rock-sculptures. It’s an impressive display and usually draws lots of attention, of course we were the only ones there on a rainy Sunday. This meant when John stopped by to check in on his work (exposed to the elements, these sculptures are always moving, falling, changing, the setting is never the same twice) he was kind of surprised to see a roving troupe of photographers appreciating his work.

I took the opportunity to recognize him for his contribution, I needed a subject for my one-light portrait anyways. Of course everyone jumped in to shoot at the exact same time like uncle-bob at a wedding, so he’s a little distracted, but that’s okay, he deserves the attention.

Extra special thanks to my friends at Canvaspop, who made sure EVERY person on my walk got to take something home, thanks to Think Tank Photo whose Retrospective 30 (review) allowed me to carry the perfect amount of gear – I also noticed a few other pieces of TT equipment – and Blackrapid whose RS-7, I think, is still the perfect accessorry for actually walking around with you camera.

There’s a group pool on Flickr that I’ve maintained for the past three years, there’s already lots of work there from this year and I encourage you to take a look. What’s always so fascinating to me, about photography, is that you can have 40 photographers in the same place, notice the same thing, and they all take different images. Great stuff. See you next year?

Oct 03, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | 4 Comments »

Going Pro

Going Pro

There are two steps to being a professional photographer: one is to value your own work, the other is to create work of value. You do not have to do these in order, but doing neither is unsustainable.

The above photo I shot while on assignment for my local paper the Kitchissippi times. While it’s not my most involved portrait work, it was a paying gig that I also highly enjoyed. They’ve also given me the creative latitude to shoot as I want, or as I can, depending on the scenario and as long as I get the requested assignment

I’ve been approached by similar publications, and not for profits, in the past to do similar event work – but they did not offer compensation. Well, unless you’re the kind of person who thinks photo credit is compensation: it’s not, it’s your name in print that nobody ever… EVER reads. And while I think most can agree that if a paper (even a free one) gets ad revenue, then its photographers and writers should also get paid; the line isn’t as clear when it comes to not for profits.

Let me be clear: not for profits (NFP’s) are hugely “profitable” businesses. I know, I worked NFP for 6 years and helped fundraise millions upon millions of dollars. The “profit” I speak of, of course, goes to great causes like cancer research, and food for the homeless, and innoculating children in poor nations. I’m not trying to diminish the work they’ve (and I have) done, but not every thing a NFP does is worthy of YOUR charity as a content producer or photographer.

If you create work of value, photos of a run or walk or a fundraiser of some sort, that the NFP will use for promotion, then it’s worth them paying for. The people who organized the event, likely, were paid, there are staff positions that are paid, and paid well for people to do great work at NFP’s so they can raise the most money for the cause – but it’s also money for their paycheque… so my argument is this: if they get paid to help raise money for an event and a cause, so should you and I. It will actually HELP us create more and better work for them, sustainably, and give us time to do what I truly deem charitible work.

The only work I do now, charitibly, is the kind I choose to do – I will do work directly for the people who need help. If it’s a women’s shelter I’ll help take family photos of the women who’ve been running so long they don’t have a photo of their kids. Or I’ll photograph a family who is losing their only son to cancer – the last they’ll have. You can shoot these on your terms, on your own level of creativity, and you’re truly helping the PEOPLE you want to. But I’m not going to show up at a $1,000 a plate fundraiser, where the caterers are paid, the venue is paid, they’re under budget and just want more freebies. This doesn’t help me, I’m going to say it doesn’t help you, and it doesn’t value your work and you don’t need it.

Again, I’m not knocking paid fundraisers, I did it and got paid well. I also helped raise lots of money to help further research, build community, and directly help save peoples lives. It’s rewarding work, but, and maybe this is just me, shooting an event isn’t “rewarding” in the same way. Though I do think you, as a photographer, should be rewarded for that level of work. Does this make sense? I’m sure some of you disagree… sound off in the comments!

Sep 27, 2011 | Categories: Photography Rant | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments »

George

George
Did a few portraits for George here. He’s been top of his game for this stage in life and has spent some good time working on his Harley.

He lives out in the country(ish) with his wife (who you can see keeping the hog safe here), so asked for a more urban/grunge setting for this photograph.

I’ll tell you, lighting that thing (tank and all) wasn’t completely easy, you can definitely see the reflection of my octa in it, but that could be *any* reflection really, if you think about it, so I didn’t sweat it as a detail. You can see one of my rim lights at back didn’t trigger (CURSES!) using the Rogue ROGUEGRID 3-In-1 Stacking Honeycomb Grid Which I found helps me use my strobes quickly & efficiently as back-lights. I used one of these in the last, foodieprints post too.

I actually shot this image as a Pano (3 images stitched together) to give me a lot of latitude to crop down on the scene, one of those crops you can see on 500px too.

I have a few more projects that I should be able to show off soon, including a cover photo for a magazine with a dragon, some cool new products from DNA11 & Canvaspop, and maybe a few surprises in-between. TTYL.

Sep 15, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments »

Food for Flash

Ottawa Commercial Photographer Justin Van Leeuwen - FoodiePrints

In a world of potrable strobes, pocket wizards, and flash power units, the AA battery is, for me, the food that my gadgets feed on. 4 speedlights, 2 auxilary packs, & 4 PW’s means I bring at least 40 Double-A batteries with me for every shoot, and that’s just in the clip. Of course you need extra too. On a long day your flash recycle time will dip down, or maybe you just forgot to recharge the ones in the flash unit the day before *ahem* – not that I’d do that.

Without batteries the image above, of the friendly folks from Foodieprints, a local trio of food & wine enthusiasts who share their passion in the form of a blog, would look more like this:

That’s right, THEY WOULDN’T EVEN EXIST (kidding, but you get the idea).

To transport these cumbersome metal tubes I’ve gone from elastic bands, to specialized plastic containers made exclusively for batteries: All of these break. At a few bucks a pop it’s not the end of the world, but certainly not a commodity I’m happy to replace all the time. I like to track my charged batteries from those discharged too – so keeping them organized is still important.

Think Tank Photo AA Battery Holder Review

That’s why I was so excited when I saw that Think Tank Photo released a canvas version made of the same durable material as their Pixel Pocket Rocket card holders. I asked Think Tank to send me one so I could review it here, but the opinion here is my own and not influenced by their generosity (it’s only influenced by their awesome).

The Think Tank AA Battery holder is a simple thing, and maybe that’s why it works so well. Two pockets that snuggly fit AA batteries, overlapping, and secured by a piece of velcro, it’s really all you need. All the plastic holder’s I’ve owned have had little segmented areas, clips to lock them shut, and shards of plastic everywhere every time you accidentally drop one. Of course there’s little chance the AA Battery holder will ever break, and I’m not sure it’s really capable of ripping either – it’s so well sewn together that I think I’d have to TRY and destroy it – but it is precious to me, so we will not destroy it.

$10 might seem steep for something so simple too, but like I mentioned, the plastic holders are a few bucks each, all you need to do is break 5 and you’re done: believe me, you will break them. That said, I do think it’s a bit much, especially considering the quantity you may need (any plans for a 16 AA battery holder guys?). I’d also like a small clip, or even an elastic loop like the Pixel Pocket Rocket has to clip to their bags – though the weight of the batteries might make this a bad idea anyways (I’m no engineer).

It’s obviously not for everyone, but for photographers like me who travel a lot with off-camera flash it’s certainly a valuable piece to throw into my kit and hold my AA’s when I need them.

You can view the foodieprints portrait larger over on Flickr

Sep 08, 2011 | Categories: Portraits, Review | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Homes

Homes
Here’s a recent home renovation image I did for a client. Actually, the renovation wasn’t new, but my client needed a different approach to the space because they really wanted a single image to display how open they had made the space. As you can see, the kitchen in the back seamlessly opens into the living room and entertaining area and off to the right there’s a formal dining room, but still very much part of the same space. It was important for the home owner to be able to cook and entertain, and it was just as important for me to be able to show this in the image.

a standard, single frame wouldn’t have cut it, though, it would only have been a fraction, pick one room over the other. An alternative is always a fisheye lens, or something very wide angle. I try to avoid this in my interior photography as they heavily distort the room, given them a false sense of enlargement and space. Also, wide lenses will emphasize the objects closer to the lens, something a bit more telephoto introduces compression which smacks the background up a bit closer (in a two dimension frame, it’s important to choose how your background is perceived). All that said, I was still shooting at 17mm (which is quite wide) and stitched this image together as a panorama using over 20 frames. To minimize the distortion (though it’s still present to my eyes) I had to do a lot of skewing and warping in Photoshop to get it back to the space you’d actually see if you stood there.

Right now this space is submitted for a renovation award with this image leading the portfolio, I couldn’t be more pleased and hope my client wins!

If you’re interested, a (much) larger version is up on Flickr.

Sep 05, 2011 | Categories: Interiors | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »