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2011 Hintonburg 5k

Ottawa Editorial Photographer - Hintonburg 5k

Did I skip a week between posts? oops – my bad.

I was contacted this week by my local (like, neighbourhood local) paper, the Kitchissippi Times, to cover the Hintonburg 5K for my first editorial photography assignment. I jumped at the chance, of course, since I love being associated with my neighbourhood, but it’s not often I get contracted to shoot events here. The forecast was calling for sweltering high of 30 degree heat on Sunday, but at the 9am start time it felt cool by comparison.

I ran into lots of the twitter folk I interact with on a regular basis, but had still yet to meet. And tried to circumvent the challenge of getting the names of my subjects, their ages, and then moving on in a timely manner – all required for captions in the paper.

This image was shot using the “Brenizer Method” (edit: thank you Younes> which I have been enamoured with lately, especially Miles’ work. This particular image is a combination of 19 images, then cropped down to taste. You can see this much larger (though still not full-resolution) on Flickr.

Jul 18, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Where I'm at

Where I'm at
I spent the latter half of last week 2nd shooting & assisting a wedding with Brennan (pictured) at Miller Lash house in Toronto, so I didn’t have a lot of my own work to show off. Of course I compromised by just photographing the photographer – something *we* don’t get very often.

That doesn’t mean I’ve been completely idle. You can catch the latest photography episode of Macgasm with me and Brennan reviewing the Blackrapid Double-Strap, the Orbis Ringflash, Tether Tools “Aero Master,” and the Lastolite Hotrod Stripbox. Also joined by the lovely Lisa Barker, who you’ve already seen in this post, but you can see her again here since she was willing to model again.

I also have a written review of my new travel/work bag the ThinkTank Photo Urban Disguise 50 – which you can read over at Macgasm. One thing I didn’t mention in the article is that it came with a Pee-Wee Pixel Pocket Rocket, which is a brilliant little memory card holder that attaches to the bag, or fits in your pocket after a shoot is done (keep the photos close and safe!)

Jul 04, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | Comments Off on Where I'm at

V

V
Here’s V, the three year old member of the family I recently photographed. She took centre stage though, most cuties do, so I’m

featuring her here solo.

For my standard family portraits I travel to the locations a bit lighter, rarely with an assistant, which keeps the costs down

for my clients and allows me to work a bit more freely. Of course by not bringing *everything* you can restrict yourself too. “if

only I brought this” I’ll catch myself thinking, but really, more creativity can stem from the adversity restrictions can

impose.

It was a cloudy, overcast day as you can see, but I wanted to show the clouds. Though if I were to use a non-flash exposure

would completely blow them out – rendering the top of the frame pure white. To balance the scene I needed to use all three of my

Canon speedlights (2 580exII’s & a 430ex). I hooked them up to a 15′ TTL cord from flash zebra, mounted them on a lastolite

triflash, and powered them through an umbrella. The reason I needed to use all three was that I was going to use high-speed

sync, which allowed me to fire at 1/8000th a second (usually they’re stuck at 1/250th), but I was going to lose a lot of power

per flash, and the light wouldn’t carry very far.

Even then, I wasn’t able to drop my aperture below f2.8 (a shallower depth of field) because f3.2 or higher was underexposed

(I would have needed yet another light)… That also restricted which lenses I could use, and I think the shallow dof compliments

the scene, allowing V to stand out against a grey backdrop, but retaining enough detail back there that you know what’s going

on.

What do you think? I’d love to hear how others pack for a shoot, if you always bring everything you’ve got, or if you’re

selective every time.

Jun 27, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , , | 3 Comments »

Living In Layers

Living In Layers
I’ve been living in layers for a while now, two kids, from Toronto to Ottawa. A retailer to fundraiser to full-time photographer and, often, daddy-day-care. I skipped a few steps along the way, so last week Mel & I finally went and got married.

It was small, just a few closest friends, some family (who could make it), and the kids when they weren’t screaming. We then rushed off to Quebec City – where this image is from. If you haven’t been to this city, you must. It’s filled with fantastic food, and true North American history.

For those who feel left out of the wedding we hired a photographer! Who will probably share more of her images as Mel gives the okay. Of course I can’t help but shoot a lot too, though to be fair to my bride I opted to travel as simply as I possibly could. My Canon 7D (no grip) and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 -> Light, versatile, and forces me to “think” about my shots because there’s no zoom, there’s no other lens. How do I “capture” a given moment with what I’ve got?
I’ll be okay, I’m sure 😉

Jun 19, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 4 Comments »

Ottawa Fringe Festival

Ottawa Fringe Festival
This is the kind of project I want to do more of. I had such a great time photographing the Ottawa Fringe team for their commerorative book, the first time they’ve done such a project. The producer at the Ottawa Fringe, Natalie, was introduced to me by showing up at my house one Photojam long ago. We had since become friends, but I like to think that I Was brought onto this job for my skillset in commercial photography, the composite images, as a by-product of my Stay-At-Home-Dad series – The fringe has no shortage of talent available to it.

This was the largest composite I have worked on, by volume of people, the project called for 18, though only 15 were available that day (which is fine, because the more people, the more work!). This was shot, specifically, for a double-page spread, thus the generous margin at the centre of the image. The only goal here was to fit everyone in, in a dynamic situation (the theatre) and, ultimately, have fun. Everyone who came that day was so great, despite some of the staff not knowing WHAT the final image was supposed to be (or even why they were there) they went to their individual shooting marks without hastle.

It’s a challenge for them, I’m sure, to try and conceptualize what is only in my brain, what will only be a final product after a week of sleepless nights, and hand cramping on my Wacom Intuos Tablet
pen from masking and gripping and photoshop photoshop photoshop. I did have a sketch out that we did on a notebook beforehand, just to see what a merged image would look like in final.

Once again I couldn’t have done the work without assistant/photographer Brennan Schnell, who held the lights, brought a few of his own (I think we used 6-8 speedlights in this scene?), and only once questioned my authority 😉

I do recommend you go check this out larger on Flickr, the native image is 9854 pixels wide, which is about 40″ wide at 250ppi, but I’ll spare you THAT much detail. And even better is watching a short timelapse of (most of) the shoot:

It’s even available in 1080p for the adventurous! (thank you Sean)

You can buy the Ottawa Fringe Festival: Off the Record, 15 years of the Ottawa Fringe Festival on their website here, even if it is for my two page spread.

Jun 13, 2011 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »