photo effects

I downloaded a new effects plugin today and had some fun with it. it is made by on1 and is called effects 10. I found some great presets and filters in it and the nice part is it attaches itself to photoshop and lightroom. The second part of my post refers to my conversation with the model you see in this image. I told him he should give up his career choice of an engineer and start modelling. I can honestly say that was the first time i had ever said that to anyone. More often some may say don't give up your day job , but not in this case. Just a natural i guess. The third part of this post is that you will notice that i have used lighting that i would tell people to never ever use. The dreaded copy lighting, on a person you say, no way. The eyes give it all away. In my defence, i was shooting groups of people and was trying to get some light on all faces. We also did individual shots but they were less important to the client. I did try to balance the light so the main was on the right side and fill on left, with the fill being less powerful. I also had two lights on the background to make it white. The fourth part is that there is no more to tell.

professional light tester

Its funny how you stumble upon your favourite models and its wonderful when you do. I take a lot of scholarship recipient photos and usually like to set up one or two off camera nikon flashes. I of course then need to test my setup and am lucky to have my client at all the presentations. I usually take a handful of test shots and then am ready to roll. Over the past little while this has added up to a significant collection of great testers. Perhaps a show will be had one day, you never know.

shoot

2015 tree

Another Christmas and another HDR tree shot. I used three images through photomatix and then a few curves to try and correct colour cast. I used a tripod with a low iso setting and around f5.6 for this. Shutter speeds started around 2 seconds as room was pretty dark.

winter again

Im not much of a winter kind of guy as my fingers just don't like the cold. I did manage to get out last week and take a few images of our first snowfall of the year. I didn't have a tripod but i did bracket 7 exposures (hand held) for two reasons. The first was easy, in case i wanted to do an HDR later. The second was to see if there were any unexpected surprises in the scene that i just wasn't seeing (for example, two stops underexposed looked pretty cool and dramatic). I did do an HDR using three of the exposures i shot and then i did quite a bit of burning and dodging to bring out the light and dark parts that i wanted the eye to bounce around to. I do recommend a tripod and warm gloves if you want to do some winter HDR shots. Also photomatix pro is my HDR program of choice.

Remembrance Day

more blue jays baseball

Go Jays

I happened to be in toronto this past weekend and was lucky enough to see the jays play the yankees. Great game with great company and even liked a few of the photos i took.

harvest jazz and blues

The harvest jazz and blues festival has kicked off with the downtown blues band giving a free concert tonight. I love this band and have been fortunate to have done lots of photography for them over the years. This should be a fun week.

on duty

I walked by this on my way to a shoot recently and had my camera at the ready. I always set up my camera in the car and walk in with it around my neck as i always see something worth shooting on that little trip.

whale watching

We went whale watching for the first time this past weekend but unfortunately did not see a whale. We had a nice boat ride though and i shot about 500 photos during the three hour trip. There was a weird fog on the water which made for a great background behind this herring net. I exposed the image for the brighter parts, having decided that the net would go black. In lightroom i boosted the clarity, lowered the blacks and the exposure to where it looked good and brought the saturation down to 0. I cropped it to a bit of a pano and that was that.

ellens stardust diner

We watched pitch perfect tonight for the first time and it reminded me of ellens stardust diner in new york. This was a great night and my children loved it.

recent sports shoots

last flood

with warmer temps planned for next week this may be one of the last floods for the season. I got up and was on the ice at 7:30 this morning in -34 degree wind chill to get some working shots. This photo was taken closer to 8 but it was still mighty cold on my fingers. the guy working the hose could not have been nicer and it was a pleasure to spend a half hour documenting his work.

light test x 2

I have a portrait to shoot tomorrow that i have been overthinking so i thought i would do a couple test shots. I was playing with some ideas that unfortunately did not turn out like i imagined so ended up with these. The background in both shots is the same white seamless paper backdrop. The image on the right has a light on the background and the one on the left just has a bit of spill from the main light. My models were great and overall i thought the shots were good but had another brainstorm last night and will be testing more today. The lighting info for those that would like to know is just one large softbox with a big piece of black styrofoam in front of it to narrow it down a bit and the photo on the right has an added nikon sb flash pointed at the background.

ashley

Ashley was looking super cool when she walked in the office today and lucky for me said yes to an impromptu shoot. I had not tried out our new beauty dish yet so this was a perfect opportunity. I can't say that i feel comfortable with it yet but more practice will come soon. Thank you Ashley for the modelling and your patience as i fumbled my way through the new to me light.

funto's visit

My friend funto came for a visit today and it ended up turning into a photo shoot. Its funny how some of my favourite images come from very unexpected places.

through a window

I was waiting for a video interview to finish today so i could do the stills for a very nice client. Since i had a camera in my hand i passed the time shootng. This was the view out one of the windows.

remembering

These images are from a great trip to france for the dday anniversary this year. I took over 14,000 photos on the trip but none affected my emotions more than the last photo above. It was just a ceremony that happened that we did not know about or plan to attend. The image of this man holding the flag just got me and it was one of only two times over the 15 days that i had tears.

NYC Photo Conference

I was very very lucky to attend the Photo Plus Expo in New York recently. I have been to a handful of other photo conferences in the past and i highly recommend them. Not only are you in a huge crowd of people that love the same thing you do but you also get to listen to some of the worlds best tell you about why they love what they do and how they do it. A walk with zack arias (http://beam.zackarias.com/#!/index) was really cool but the highlight for sure was listening to dan winters (http://www.danwintersphoto.com/html/) for an hour. If you have an opportunity to take in a photo conference then go, don't hesitate, just go. Be prepared to be exhausted but also inspired. So some tips you say: Stay at a hotel close to the conference, go a day early and do a pre conference session, plan your lectures well and if one is not what you thought then leave and head to a different one, spend time on the show floor (lots of lectures there too plus all the equipment you want to get your hands on), if they have a party night go (you will get a chance to talk to other attendees and make friends), bring a sweater (the conference areas are always air conditioned and cool), stay an extra day if you can for shopping and street shooting. I have been to photo plus expo and photoshop world conferences and i would recommend both.