Edmonton Fire Exhibition

Hey Gang,

With the deal in place with Edmonton Fire, and the exhibit complete (or as complete as it will ever be, I am still going on a few ride alongs) we have a print release date in October 2010 at the Edmonton City Hall. The online version of the exhibit will be released at the same time at Photo EX www.photographyexhbition.net.

As a teaser I will be posting once a month a" preview" image on Photo EX until the print release date.

I am pretty excited for this exhibit, and I have to thank Tim Wilson of Edmonton Fire, who has basically been my biggest supporter and I guess you could say, "unofficial producer" of the exhibit. Please feel free to pass this blog around, I really cant wait for people to see check it out.

I feel this collection of images which I have been shooting since 2006 are even stronger than the images I captured when I went to Beijing in 2008 to photograph Canadian Olympic Taekwondo Team.

Enjoy!

C

Mike Percy Dean of UofA School of Business

I couple of days ago I was contacted by the Journals Les Affairs in Montreal to photograph the Dean of the UofA School of Business. The problem was I was scheduled to shoot 5 interirors for a magazine around the same time.

I ended up squeezing it in, thanks to an accommodating Dean… The Dean who was a very very nice man to shoot, he had little time but did everything I asked of him… and never made us feel rushed. The stressful part of the shoot was the ridiculously fast turnaround time. The absolute deadline was 5pm Montreal time which was 3pm our time. Here is a breakdown of the crazy morning.

Vancouver Photographer Curtis Comeau photographs Mike Percy

8am – arrive on location set up lights, and block the shoot

8:45am The dean arrives, we begin to shoot

9:10am I am in my car heading to the studio (its 12 noon in Montreal)… assistant tears down without me.

9:40am I arrive at studio, process proofs and send them off for editorial choices

10:15am choices made… processing x2 images for final output.

10:45am FTP the final files…

11:10 am head out to shoot an editorial home piece I need to be at for a 12:30 start time.

enjoy!

C

Photographing Edmonton Mayor

Photographing Mayor Mandel.

The problem with spending 6 days at the Olympics in Vancouver, is having to make up the work you delayed for my Edmonton clients when I returned home. So last week I completed 9 separate shoots in 5 days. The last shoot of this past week was with Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel.

Often on many shoots I am bound by strict art direction, which isn't a problem, but sometimes it strips your creativity. But the portrait session I had with with Mayor Mandel was a complete open book. So I shot the way I wanted to, black and white, tight... very very tight, lots of shadows and tack sharp...

Normally when you photograph a politician their communications director or dept is all over you with what you can and cant do... and the politicians always have to be smiling. I have been fortunate in the past however that I had free reign to shoot my style with the past two Alberta premiers, and fortunately now with Mayor Mandel.

(candid of the mayor shot with 35mm)

Whether you agree with his politics or not, Mayor Mandel is a super cool subject. He showed up in high spirits, pretty much did whatever I asked, but more importantly knew exactly what I was going for. His communications person was also very cool, and trusting that my style would not skew the image of the Mayor.

(pic of me with the set up at edmonton city hall)

The shoot lasted 5 minutes, not because Mayor Mandel didn't give me the time, but because I nailed what I wanted out of him in 10 frames. I think he was kind of surprised when I told him I was done. No point in over kill, especially when you get exactly what you want.

Enjoy!

Vancouver Airport

I spend alot of time in the Edmonton and Vancouver airports comminuting back and forth. Here is a picture I took at the Vancouver airport last week during the Olympics. Like most pictures the most fascinating part is the behind the scenes story.

Normally when a gate attendant announces the boarding of a flight everyone crowds the jet way as if the plane was lifeboat on the titanic (which really annoys me by the way).

But in this case the attendant made two announcements and people just ignored her watching the Olympic hopeful. It was kinda funny... imagine being the gate attendant seeing this infront of you... like children in play school... - by the way we didnt get a gold on this run... and I was first on the plane!

C

My Photography Process Again

MY PROCESS AGAIN

Thanks everyone for all the feedback and requests to see more on my process for shoots.

I was going to post another set of images from the Olympic atmosphere here in Vancouver, but decided on posting one more on my process.

This is a series done of a girl named Jen. A fantastic model who I knew had a great tattoo I wanted to show off. The tattoo was on her ribcage and required some preplanning to ensure that she and her art work were represented in the proper way. So I decided to kind of work off of a lighting style of Leibowitz. One light, simple and grey background. The key to this shot was the models expression. The lighting was pretty basic, but that's kind of my thing anyways... You can see from the sketch that I think its pretty much bang on framing wise.... If you try hard and try to visualize my crappy sketch you can also see that my lighting was also pretty close.

I really don't like using "back light or hair light" in studio... The reason for my leeriness to use the back light are... I find its overused for one... but second... its misused more often than not, so portraits with a hair light often look like over lit lame school photos. There are of course some shooters like Nigel Parry who are absolute masters with side and back light... But they are rare.

Please forgive my sketchy notes... They were only be meant to be read by me... Thanks again for all the emails and feedback about my blog.

Enjoy.

Japadog Vancouver Olympics

Japadog… Vancouver 2010.

The line ups are long for almost anything here in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics.... Especially the Japadog stand on Burrard…This Japadog stand has a quite a cult following which creates daily lineups of an average of 15-20 people. Now during the Olympics the line ups are around 50-75 people long.. all day.

Most good restaurants owners display pictures of celebrities who have visited their establishments, and the Japadog stand is no exception. The street stand is full of pictures of celebs who frequent it…

This past summer I was in line myself was in line for a (Veggie Oroshi) and behind me waiting was “Darryl” from the TV show the office. He was staying at the Sutton Place hotel he heard about Japadog from other celebs who he was filming a movie with…

Here are some pics.

Enjoy!

Vancouver 2010 Spring Olympics

Vancouver 2010 Olympics

This week I have been in Vancouver shooting some architectural work for Pattison Outdoor, specifically some of their building wraps of the Hudson’s Bay Building, TD Tower, Canada Post Building and the Molson Brewery. Honestly the Molson Brewery wrap is incredible, it’s a huge wrap made up of a mosaic consisting of thousands portraits. As my place is downtown, I haven’t made it to Whistler and have no plans to, but it’s a pretty unreal scene downtown. As expected the streets are packed with people from all over the globe. What’s most shocking is that the weather here is like spring, not an inkling of snow. In Vancouver it could seriously be considered the 2010 spring Olympics.

I did get a chance to check out a Slovak vs Czech game yesterday, and tomorrow will see the German vs Finland game.

Check back in the next day or so cause ill be posting some random street portraits, including some images from a tourist icon the Japadog stand !

Enjoy!

C