Shooting fitness people

Hope everyone had a great Xmas and spent a lot of quality time with your family. I have so much to post in the next few weeks so keep checking back.
I was real busy with pre holiday shoots leading up to Xmas so a lot of different stuff with that, plus a lot of proprietary commercial and editorial works have been released.

One of my main goals for 2011 is to shed some pounds (18 to be exact) to regain my weight of my ideal playing shape when I played hockey (10 years ago).

Now that we are on the topic of fitness I have decided to post photo series I did for Lori Passmore.

Lori is a fitness trainer who specializes in Yoga and the hard core Kettle Bell training. She visited the studio in December and we knocked out some clean photographs that will be suited for her new brand.

Enjoy.




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White Balance, Gels and Cell Phones.

Today we shot some real fun photographs for CWB. The one part of the shoot took us to the 24th story of the of the CWB building. We were shooting some office culture photographs in a lunch room when I looked out and saw a corner of the building that peaked out at a 90angle looking out into the distance.

I asked our art director what he thought about putting some employees in an office and shooting them from the other part of the building.

(this is pre post production... want to know why? because you can see the messy desk and the Quadra in the bottom right, we just couldnt move it ant further to the right)

The AD went for it so I sent Aaron (my assistant) around the building to set up the lights. Because the windows on the CWB building are tinted green, there were some color issues shooting through my window into Aarons window.

I really wanted to have an over the top" blue" exterior with a warm glow lighting up the office. To do this I white balanced to tungsten and doubled up the light with full tungsten orange gels. Once I nailed the warm look, we shot a few images with a custom white balance and the naked light with no gels.

(dosent Aaron look happy? No? Its ok, because we started this morning at 8:30am)

To make this happen Aaron and I were communicating via cell phones with Aaron relaying my movement directions to the employees.

I shot this with the Canon 1ds mark 3, with a 50mm 1.2 and a circular polarizer to minimize reflections in Aarons window. I triggered the Elinchrom Quadra (one) with pocket wizards.

This set up was more complex than I would typically like (I tend to like more realistic photographs), but I think this rendered some interesting results.

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Edmonton Oiler Jason Strudwick

Since getting back from shooting in Hawaii thing have been pretty crazy, so I haven't had alot of time to post anything really cool. I am wrapped up in planning a shoot for an annual design contest editorial spread, which is taking a bit of time with the test photos. I will be posting more on this in the next few weeks.

This series I am posting right now is of Edmonton Oiler Jason Strudwick shot for the stollery children's hospital, as he and his wife are the honorary family. The stollery is a fine organization that is dedicated to children in need of medial treatment.

Here are some images of Jason. I have met Jason on a few other occasions and really think he is your average real nice guy first and then hockey player second. Jason actually came in on game day for this session. Which if you have ever met a pro athlete is saying a lot. Pros are extremely focused on game day and have very strict routines, so coming into Curtis Comeau's studio definitely qualifies as breaking routine.

North Shore DAY 2

Day 2 of shooting went very well, however that was 2 days ago. Why didn’t I post anything?

Well because I came down with a case of Campylobacter better known as food poisoning that side lined me for the past 2 days.

Although all is well now I will not be visiting the KAHUKU Shrimp Van ever again.

The fact that the “roadside” eatery was a decrepit van with flat tires and covered in graffiti should have scared me off.  But when I saw the word FAMOUS spray painted on the front of the van, I thought to myself “What the hell what’s the worst that could happen???”

Well, about 6 hours later thanks to the KAHUKU shrimp van I experienced hell… for about 36 hours straight.

Anyways here are a few editorial images shot of day 2.

Enjoy.

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North Shore DAY 1

Despite the off and on rain, today proved to be an excellent day of shooting which produced a nice series of photographs documenting the culture of the North Shore.

I began my day shooting a family at their fruit stand. They specialize in deep fried bananas, selling every kind of locally grown fruit and bbqued pork kebabs. Most of the visitors to the roadside stand were locals, but there were several members of the Hawaii 5 0 TV crew visiting as well. Tourists stayed for the most part away from the stand, which suited the locals just fine.

Next I spent a good half of the day at the pipeline shooting portraits and candid’s. I didn’t even shoot any surfing, because the waves were only 4 feet tall. 

After that I hit up Ted’s bakery for a banana chocolate cream pie. Again a place recommended to me by almost every North Shoriean I met.

While eating my slice of pie, an unshaven guy with no shoes, no shirt and a half-baked look walked in and got full service.  He ended up sitting at my table and we struck up a conversation. I named this guy The Angry North Shoriean – TANS.

TANS was about 40 years old, smelled of pungent weed and sported an sketchy unkept beard. During our conversation TANS ended up complaining about everything in life, but he revealed his real pet peeves were tourists. When I asked TANS why he hated tourists? His response was because they always stole the good waves. 

(this is TANS posing for a quick portrait) 

After meeting TANS I headed back to the house, download and waited for the sunset. 

North Shore pre shoot

(the office for the next few days, off to the right is a very popular local spot for surfing. the pipeline is about a 10min walk to the left.) 

I am shooting the next 7 days at the North Shore on the Hawaiian island of Oahu this week. I need to document the North Shore surf culture for a cool travel publication. 

(jamies pink bedroom.. I love how the bed is on a raised pedestal) 

I arrived two days ago and spent them getting everything in order, chatting with people and getting my bearings. Jamie Coutts hooked up a super cool place, which backs out right on the beach, so the temporary office is pretty cool. 

I also spent a lot of the second day installing software on my new MacBook Pro (it’s a tiny 13inch), which I bought just before I left for the airport. I ended up piking up the 13 inch because I have two 17inch MB pros, but they are just too big to keep hauling around on travel shoots and Eva was shooting this weekend and needed them at the studio.   

(This is a stray cat named Chester who wandered in the house... We thought he seemed cool so hes hanging with us for the week)

I have to vent, I really don’t enjoy flying United Airlines anymore. Their fleet is very old. Their flight coming from SanFran to Honolulu still had ashtray holders in their armrests and the seats are very uncomfortable.  I didn’t book or pay for my flights so I get that I shouldn’t have complained, but its just I have flown over 120 flights in the last 8 years and by far United is the worst.  Air Canada on average gives the unfriendliness service, but their fleet is upgraded and they don’t charge you $25 per bag. 

(applejacks and banana muffin, great start to the day) 

Anyways tomorrow I start shooting I am very excited to finally get cracking and building my story.  I am not going to shoot the actual surfing because I am told by the locals that the swell is low right now, but it its supposed to pickup by Monday. So I dont want to waste my time shooting something when I will just reshoot it all again anyways. 

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Eveline Charles 2011 shoot.

Last week I shot the 2011 spring hair style campaign for Eveline Charles spa and salon. http://www.evelinecharles.com/

It was a intense shoot that required we shoot on two separate sets. I prepped the night before at the studio and my crew (nat and trev) met first thing in the morning on location to set up.

We shot some new product images on white and the hair collection on a sandy background. Working two sets made for a busy day not to mention all the gear we had to haul in.

The Eveline Charles team was great and had a clear vision of which direction we wanted to go with the shoot. To their credit the EC creative team wanted to go with something a little more conceptual that had been done in the past.

This collection is meant to feel like it has been shot in the 70's, a simple washed out bohemian feel.

Naturally we will need a little post production to complete this look, so the first step was to shoot clean files. To complete this first objective we shot on the Phase One and decided to accomplish lens flairs and the mimicked film stock later.

(This is without question my favorite behind the scenes photo I have ever taken. Its of my assistant Natalie standing in, while my other assistant Trev is bouncing with the foam core. Check out his facial expression... this is at about 10am after Trev had been out all night the night before. I actually burst out laughing)  
Here are some of the production images.

Enjoy!



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Behind the Scenes CWB, Architectural Photographs and Mount Sinai

A while back I shot a two day campaign for RED the Agency for CWB (Canadian Western Bank)


It was a lot of fun and the art direction fit perfectly with my style. I bring this up because often agencies hire photographers based on reputation who are not always best suited for a job.

(im giving directions to the talent... making sure they SMILE big... )

Then they try to get the photographer to shoot in a style they are not comfortable with resulting in a stressful day for both the art director and the photographer.

I really dig working with RED because they have always hired me because of my organic candid style which really fits for the CWB branding.

(nikolas doing hair and make up for the office photos)


I often turn down work because I am not the best photographer for the job, this is especially the case with editorial work. I actually turned down a huge editorial shoot which featured shooting 40 individual people in about 3 weeks. Schedule aside I didn't feel that I would have done a great job when shooting so many people in such a short period of time. I think it would have been almost impossible to match what had been done the year before.

(Roberta from Red making sure the talent knows his direction)

I typically find art buyers and art directors really respect you as a photographer if you can turn down a job you don't think you are really suited for.

Back to CWB, unfortunately I can't release any production images from the shoot because of proprietary and project confidentiality (fancy words which mean, the creative for the CWB campaign is not released yet, so I can't show the photos). So I decided to show some behind the scenes images from this shoot.

I have also decided to post some architectural images of the commercial / residential property called the HYS center. I was expecting this to be your typical architectural project.

However once we reached the mechanical rooms we found some fantastic scenes that produced these images.

Finally I have processed out an image I shot for Gap Adventures in Egypt atop the peak of Mount Sinai. If you believe in the old testament, this spot was the place where god supposedly gave Moses the 10 commandments.

enjoy.

Barbados Images that didnt make the Cut...

 

 
When I say Barbados chances are an image of a serene peaceful Caribbean beach suggesting relaxation or retirement pops into your head. The great travel marketing machine has conditioned us to form these pre conceived notions of Caribbean Islands...

I understand this thought process, how it has come to be, and harbor no ill will to it. I make my living contributing these types of images to the people who create these preconceived notions of a Caribbean Island, which allow corporations to inevitably vye for your hard earned vacation money.

When selling an Island through a photograph, the locals are almost always forgotten or purposefully left out of the image. And when they are included, it's usually quite contrived. They are always wearing a clean pressed white or beige shirt with a brightly light "resort logo" on the upper left hand side. The local is often holding a tray full for brightly colored drinks sporting a bright white toothy smile as if to say "welcome we are waiting for you in paradise".

With that said I have decided to post some not so typical touristic images shot in Barbados that well for obvious reasons didn't make the cut...

I find this series is still beautiful and are no less true to reality as other photographs I contrived to capture when shooting travel.

This series was shot in Christ Church along the southern tip of the Island of Barbados along the Silver Sands beach. I spent 3 days shooting there, and by far these are my favorite photographs from the shoot. They were shot on Ilford Delta 400 pushed +2 stops.