STOLEN IMAGE

This past week I was watching a hockey game on sports net and a commercial from the “Albertans for Change” came on. About 5 seconds into the commercial I noticed that this TV spot used a portrait I took of Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach for an upcoming photography exhibition.

The problem with this TV spot was that it was very slanderous towards the Premier and his government. So here was this organization using my image without my approval, in an TV spot I did not agree with. Not only did this organization infringed on copyright laws, but here is an organization which is a collation of the Alberta Building Trades Council and the Alberta Federation of Labor. These organizations preach equal labor laws, and yet here they are taking a photograph and not offering the photographer the adequate compensation.

To be honest I would have never licensed this image to this group as I do not agree with their message.

I have met Premier Stelmach in several occasions and I have to say he is a very honest and sincere man who is doing his best to make Alberta a better place to live for all of us.

Needless to say I informed my lawyer right away about the copyright infringement and we moved forward with the necessary steps to solve this problem.

The issue has since been dealt with. If you are wondering what image was used I have posted it to this blog.

Take care, C

Dominican Republic

Here is a series of photographs I shot in the Dominican Republic while working with Jamie Coutts at original video http://www.originalvideo.ca/. We were both shooting a documentary travel project in the Dominican, which revolves around labor laws.

The shoot went very well, but I decided to stray a little from my normal style of shooting and use a lot more of my 70-200 and shoot wide, rather than my wide lenses and shoot close, which I prefer. I chose to take a photojournalistic approach to this project as opposed to a more commercial feel, which I am accustomed to.

Hope you enjoy.

Union Billboards

Well I have decided to try to have a blog section on my website. I think its great to see a photographers work, but I also think its kind of cool to see what was going on behind the photo shoot. So I will attempt to keep up my blog at least once a week.

Moving on a couple weeks ago we shot some new billboards for Gateway Entertainment, venue The Union Hall. These billboards will be featured thought city of Edmonton. Gateway also owns The Ranch and Hudsons Tap House. I have been shooting for Gateway for along time now, going on 5 years.

We shot these images in two sets. One on white seamless and the other set on location. Both worked very well.

Anyways the design for these billboards was from Tim Hanas and his group at Ignition Media, while Jeff Mclean oversaw the art direction for the shoots.

I have worked alot in the past with Tim, which is always a pleasure because he just allows me to roll with whatever I feel is right, once he has let me know what his design concept is in pre production.

It was my first time working with Jeff as an art director. Jeff is based out of the city of Edmonton but works with photography talent across Canada, so I knew his name and seen a lot of his work. I have to admit it was alot of fun with Jeff. He was really clear on his vision of what he wanted but let me have my play on the work as well.



I have worked with all of these models before (Ashley, Ashley, Shilo and Christie) so they really followed direction well.

My assistants Trevor and Nick were as always great, when not chatting it up with the models.

Take Care
C