architectural work

Schools for BIRD/GRAHAM.

This past week I landed a real nice contract for the joint venture of BIRD/GRAHAM construction. Its an architectural contract that has me shooting 18 newly constructed schools in both Alberta's cities Edmonton and Calgary. Im quite into the project right now trying to work it in when shooting Steven Mandels campaign images and trying to juggle a couple agency shoots in Vancouver.

I decided to shoot this Alberta architectural contract on the PHASE one P30+. My reason for this was I wanted to be able to handle and manipulate the dynamic range of the highlights and shadows because I am shooting the images primarily during hard sun of the day. I wanted bright colors, and vibrant images, but not overly processed.

I think over processing is a mistake many shooters make nowadays, and I am trying to avoid it with proper planning, the right tools and well of course a bit of luck.   

In addition to shooting on the PHASE p30+ back I am using the prime 35mm 2.8 lens (which is like a 20mm on an SLR body)

Google maps is serving as my locater, and my ipod is my entertainment while shooting.

For fun, I have also dabbled in a few panoramics of the schools. I am really liking what results they are producing, but not sure if they are suited for such a project. Time will tell.

Enjoy!

C

#94 "Scotty"

94

Scott Stewart.
A great hockey teammate.
A great person.
One of the best one timers I have ever faced.
We will miss you man.
Life's too short.


C

My Standard 35mm Equipment Kit

Hey Gang,

EQUIPMENT BAG

Thought I would post something a little more fun on the blog. A lot of people email me about little questions regarding my photography gear, what lights I use and what I carry in my bag. So I am for this post I am going to share what's in my standard 35mm kit. Keep in mind depend ding on what I am shooting, I will add a few things and take out others, but for the most part this is what's on me at all times.

1. Focal Range. I like a wide focal range, so I use basically the Canon 16-35mm 2.8; Canon 24-70mm 2.8; Canon 85mm 1.2; Canon 70-200mm IS 2.8 (Which I am strongly considering going back to the 2.8 NON IS version, as the IS version is much heavier) Canon 15mm Fisheye 2.8 (which I rarely use, but I still carry it). I also have a 50mm 1.2, but almost never use it... so it stays at home.

2. BODY. I use the Canon 1DS MARK 3. I am very happy with this camera. Mine is quite literally beat to S*#T, but it still works just great.

3. Often Looked Over Gear. As photographers we are often talking to people really close to us so GUM is a must. You would be surprised how many art directors tell me about other shooters Coffee Breath. Next is sunglasses. I carry polarized RayBan aviators. Its not so much a fashion statement, but the lenses are great ; they are not cheap Chinese plastic that will inevitably burn your retinas, and I can shoot outdoors with them on, without poor visibility. Finally a Lanyard. When shooting places you need access, I always lose the little "badges" so a lanyard allows me to stuff it in and wear it around my neck.

4. Make Pics Look Pretty - Color Checker and Polarizer. If you don't carry these, get them, now. They really help.

5. Batteries; Ok I use rechargeable to "help the environment" but they really suck and a really unreliable, so I carry in the "RED CASE" a set of Full AA Energizers... But in this case crappy Duracell's... which suck, but I was in a pinch in Vancouver and that's all the 7-11 had... $10 for 4 crappy Duracell's.. Coppertops dont last!

6. Flash and Triggers. I always use pocket wizards. They are pretty reliable to trigger my Elinchrom Strobes. I also use Canon 580 EX and EX2 flash heads... Then I always... and always carry a long sync cord... I always carry an old school sync cord  because sometimes I leave my pocket wizards in my medium format bag... leaving me with no way to trigger strobes... If you ever see me shooting with a sync cord its because I forgot the pocket wizards..

7. Memory Cards. I shoot with 16 GB and 8GB SanDisk mem cards. You will notice a 1GB "Oh Shit" Card I carry buried deep into my bag...I hope to never see it unless I am cleaning my bag, This "OH SHIT" card is used only when the words " I forgot my memory cards at the studio" are uttered to my assistant.   

8. TAPE... oh my god this is one of the most important pieces of gear in my bag. Its been used for everything for placing a mark, repairing my 1ds3, placing flashes in hard to reach places, taping up scrims and gels pretty much everything.

So yeah that's pretty much my Tools of the trade.

In a bit I will post my Medium format kit, which is much less and a lot cleaner than my 35mm kit.

Enjoy!

C

Artisan Cafe Food Photography

Shooting food for an Ignition Media client.

Shooting food is fun, I like it because you can really use the ambient light to light food in a rather romantic way. I often use a boom and large soft box to light food, but when I am shooting on location and the ambient light is right, then roll with that.

I also use alot of reflectors and mirrors to light food as well. And color accuracy as well as kelvin temperature is really really important when processing out food images.  

(This is a color checker.... it keeps my colors in check my assistant Natalie is holding it)

For this shoot, the cafe is a artisan cafe, so  I ended up purchasing some pine wood planks and staining them so the tables would have a real organic feel.

(Natalie holding the reflector... Dosent she look happy? She was actually super hungry during this shoot)

(i think this was a mango mojito... which i got to drink after i shot it)

The art directon here was from J over at ignition... The client is artisan cafe Artisan Cafe  he as always did a great job.

Enjoy!

C

Harley Davidson and Molson Canadian poster series in Calgary AB

Just got back from shooting a 3 poster campaign for Molson Coors and Harley Davidson in Calgary. Left first thing in the morning arrived on location at 11am and we shot till 2pm. Nice quick half day.

I'm not a motorcycle guy, not at all. In fact i drive a BMW x3 and before that and Audi A4... so my experience with choppers was nil..

 Needless to say I had to do some research into bike positions and how I wanted to shoot it.  

The other thing is that commercial photographs of vehicles are almost never shot in western Canada, Unless its from a private collection, so I really needed to plan how I was going to shoot the bike properly, as my vehicle experience was also slim.

Comically I don't even know how to move a motorcycle, so I had to have the store guys do it for me.

We shot the bike on location in the Harley store, which is never a great idea (to shoot at a store), but because they had this empty warehouse and the scouting photos looked cool it all worked out, and the client seemed really happy.   

I lit the bike with two backlights flagged off with black cardboard. They were Elinchrom Ranger packs. The main light was a Elinchrom 600 with a Elinchrom square medium box.

I shot it with the phase on P30+.

Off to play hockey, then shooting another series tomorrow.

Enjoy!

C

Mayor Mandel In Studio

I just flew back from Vancouver for a quick shoot of Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel. Now I cant really say what the photographs are for at this time save the fact they were not shot for non profit, the city or editorial.

I quite enjoy photographing Mayor Mandel. He is very focused and always does what I ask. In front of my lens he always seems to be quite at ease and lets me do "Whatever I want".

That is pretty flattering words for a photographer to hear from someone who is in the public eye.

When shooting politicians they always give you "the smile", which is fine, and cool, but I always like to nail a photograph of a politician without a smile.

I think shooting a politican with a non smile is refreshing in a way. You see them as human. I did this with alberta premiers Ed Stelmach and Ralph Klien.. the non smiling images reveal so much about a person.

Anyways, I cant post any of the images that were submitted for selection, but these ones are permitted as they were not in the mandated creative direction.

i like this photo... i dont know why. but i do, so im going to post it.

Im pretty excited because I shoot tomorrow for an artisan cafe, then off to Calgary for a campaign with Harley Davidson for Molson and back to shoot another series for the un named project for Mayor Mandel on Thursday.

Enjoy!

C  

Preparing for upcoming 2010 Editorial and Travel Photography Semiars

In preparing for my upcoming Travel and Editorial photography seminars I have been scouring through various travel images shot during the past 8 years. One of the cool parts of the travel photography portion of my workshop/seminar is my postproduction techniques.

Shooting editorial and editorial travel requires very very different post production techniques then say commercial work, or even weddings and family. In fact weddings and family photography is probably the furthest you can get from editorial travel photography.  

Post for Travel requires things like metadata management and knowing which specific editing techniques are acceptable, and which are not for magazine publishers.

So I thought I would post some of these images from 2003/2004 shot in Thailand, just as the western "Thai Travel Boom" really kicked into high gear.

Enjoy!

C

Rickey Ray - CFL Edmonton Eskimos Quaterback

If you have been reading my blog a while back I wasn't posting a lot of images, although I was shooting a lot. The reason was because alot of my work could not be shared because the assignments had not been released yet. Here is one of those projects.

It's a cover and a spread shot for the AUG issue of Avenue magazine. Its of CFL Edmonton Eskimos quarter back Rickey Ray. I was really glad the art director chose me to shoot this story. The first reason is because I really enjoy shooting athletes. They are to the point people and often have a confident demeanor to them. They are also very busy and I like shooting under short time periods. I find I work better and more efficient when under the clock.

That all being said, Rickey gave me as much time as I needed to shoot him.

We shot the spread at a really cool restaurant which provided a whole whack of shooting options. We arrived at 8am for setup. Restaurant manager was really cool and pretty much let us move whatever we wanted to. So Nat and I took him up on that and basically re-designed the space.

The art director arrived at 845 and Rickey arrived at 9am, he arrived by himself without an entourage. Which is cool because it makes things go so much quicker.

We shot about 5 outfits in about an hour. Rickey shot really well and did everything I asked of him.

What shocked me was that Rickey was so soft spoken, and such a nice guy. There was 0 ego. He was also taller and much slimmer than I thought he would be. He told me during the session he had infact slimmed down for the upcoming season.

We had just wrapped up shooting the opening shot with Rickey against the slate wall. I said the shoot was done and that was a wrap, then he said to me "Ok great, I was just getting nervous that I was running out of time on my parking meter"

here is a production photograph (never made it to print)

How cool is that?  Here is this pro athlete worried about his parking meter, most guys would have just been "ok man I have to get going when is this going to be done?" Or did the Curtis Comeau - "whatever its just a parking ticket, until you have to renew your registration and find you have $450 in parking tickets!"

All in all it was a great shoot. but I can't help myself when I look at the opening spread wondering if  Ricky thinking about the time expired parking meter?

Enjoy!

C

London Released images

LONDON TRAVEL            

Three months ago my 3 day shoot in London produced some great editorial travel images.

Typically when shooting editorial, the copyright transfers back to the photographer after 90 days post publication. Some magazines typically European ones have a 30 day hold on the images.  

So now that my 3 month copyright release period is over I can release these on line.  I am pretty happy with the results. Enjoy!

C

Shooting in Calgary and Kelowna

This past week I was shooting in Calgary and Kelowna for some Vancouver based AD Agencies. The first agency Toolbox is super cool. They did the Southgate AUG 5 billboard campaigns in Edmonton AB.

The second agency was NAS a division of McCann Worldgroup.. they are a regular client of mine and always a pleasure to work with.

For Toolbox we shot some pretty cool interiors / exteriors and landscapes for the Waterfront developments. Day one went well, but the weather took a turn for the worse midday. So the client decided to book another half day shoot to ensure we got the perfect blue skies needed for some of the exterior campaign images.

As soon as my shoot with Toolbox was finished I jutted down on a 9 hr drive to Kelowna to shoot for NAS for Urban Systems. This was our 6th shoot for Urban Systems. So we were well aware of what we needed. This coupled with the fact I really enjoy shooting with Maureen made the day quite free flowing, and very pleasurable.

Then I ended up shooting a "fall in your lap" editorial assignment in Kelowna. In this series I inevitably ended up visiting the Summerhill Winery (bought some Robert Bateman exclusive ice wine) and shot on a Master craft boat with the Marina Crew of the Eldorado Hotel.!

enjoy!


C