Jill in Summerside Edmonton

Ok what's new, well I just shot a Jill again. She's this fantastic model i always enjoy working with. We shot at the Summer side beach. Summer side is a lake in the community where I live in Edmonton. The lake is actually a great location in the city.

Although you can fish, swim and sail on the lake, shamelessly I don't really have the time to hang out there during the summer.. So I thought to myself damn it, I pay all these dues to live near this beach house lake community and I never use it, so hey I might as well use it as a location for a shoot.

Because I get so many emails asking about how I shoot the photos I post on my blog I am going to start adding some tech details. These were shot on the Phase One P30+ 210mm, with the ranger kit. My assistant Nat and I are literally up to our asses in water. Shot in 10 mins.

Danica Patrick and Paul Tracy INDY Car Drivers

This past few days have proven to be quite fun in Edmonton. The city hosted its annual Indy car Race.

I was fortunate enough to have had the chance to shoot at portrait of Danica Patrick the fiery female race car driver for Versus. Actually Jamie Coutts from www.originalvideo.ca gave me the gig which was then shot for Versus the American TV network. Alot of people who found out I had a chance to shoot Danica asked how was she? I can sum it up quite easily - the most interesting part of the shoot was getting lost trying to find the location.

We had Danica for like 20 mins, but I only needed to knock off a few frames . She made small talk, I asked he about a picture of herself holding up a trophy in the room, she just kind of looked at me like I should have known and said in a monotone dry voice "It was from a race in Japan."

Perhaps her mood was dry because she was racing that day or perhaps she just thought I was an idiot... Although she didn't have time for makeup, she did thank my makeup artist Nikolas and told him she wished she had time to have it done.

The day before however Honda Canada commissioned me to shoot one of their drivers Paul Tracy.

Paul was super cool as everyone was rushing Paul around he took his time with me... then when I was done shooting, he asked "Are you happy with what you have? Do you need anything else?" super cool guy.

Enjoy.

Mayfair Golf and Country Club Edmonton Alberta

Last week I shot golf photos for the Mayfair Golf and Country Club. I can see how many people would like golf. But I myself am not a golfer. Im just way too impatient to play such a game.

But I do enjoy shooting for golf clubs. My first ever commission shooting golf was in Belize for the exclusive golf resort of Caye Chapel. In fact I ended up shooting for CC at least 6 other times over the past few years.

Its a long crazy story how a Canadian ended up shooting the commercial images for a Golf Island which is visited by Bill Gates, the Rogers family and various famous bands. Regardless it was fantastic company to be commissioned by and a great place to learn how to shoot a golf course. Unfortunatly the Island is now for sale, but on the plus side if you have an extra 2million to spare you can pick up one of the 6 villas.

Again since I am not a golfer I and not very familiar with the sport, I ended up relying heavily on the notes of my art director Eldon. With his notes in mind I let myself go and ended up shooting what felt right.

I am really happy with what came of this series. More over I shot a lot of this with the Phase One P30+ a bad ass medium format camera which kicks out an image quality is just out of this world. In my opinion shooting on DSLR is like using a box camera compared to the Phase One systems. Unfortunatly not many Pros in Edmonton use this system, so little Phase One dosent even have a rep here in Edmonton Alberta they do in Vancouber BC though.

(image crop from the pic above, check out the grass detail this would not be possible on a DSLR like the 1dsMark 3)

The regret I have is I only wish I had made the medium format investment a little earlier in my career. Oh well... Enjoy.

C

JORDAN

For me photographing a job in a foreign country is a method to refreshes my senses.

Although I am working, there is something special when you are experiencing the subtleties of a new culture while working. This experience makes the colors of the world appear as vibrant as they were when I was a child and saw them for the first time.

Through my travel work I try to say something which can't be said through mere words. To do this I often recede into the back of my viewfinder and allow the play of life unfold in front of my lens.

The problem is at times I do miss the real life experience, only to re live it on my computer monitor weeks later when I am editing my photographs.

At first I thought I kind of bombed my shoot in Jordan, but after editing these I feel that they are much stronger than my series in Egypt. I have been meaning to send these out for weeks, so here you go.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Please feel free to share these.

C

Washington DC

I love shooting editorial pieces in Washington DC. Whenever I have the chance to shoot in DC I always have a good time.

DC claims host to several excellent restaurants, the downtown is designed for foot traffic, and the shopping isn't too bad either.

Here are a few photographs of some of the more iconic locals in DC.

Phase One P30+....

Hey gang.

One thing photographers hate is learning a new system. Well today I ended up shooting with the Phase One P30+ on a Mamiya platform. The P30+ is a new camera back I have added to my kit which will pack a little more punch for my clients, but still allowing me to use higher ISO's.

My clients know quite well that I like to use faster ISO's because I move around a lot and like to shoot with natural light. So when it came time to buying a new medium format back I was naturally intrigued with the phase one P30+ because it can accommodate quite well a higher ISO like 400.

Anyway at first I really didn't like the camera. I found it clunky, slow and the Phase One interface is not user friendly compared to the 1dsMK 3. But we have been testing it more and more on actual shoots and its getting better.

I will say though when you preview the photos on the back of the camera the images simply look like shit. Really. Also at first I didn't feel that the final Images when ran through Photoshop were event that great.

So I called the Phase Rep in Calgary and told him. Jeff was fantastic. He told me that I NEEDED TO BE USING Capture One software first and not Photoshop.

Once I did this the real magic came out and the final images were just unreal. For technical reasons ( I wasn't really listening cause Jeff called me back at 8am) one needs to use this software to make the most of the Phase One files. Either way it worked.

(cropped from the photo above)

The only problem though is that clients are so used to "looking at the back of your camera" to see what you have shot, and you have to say, whoa shooting is just step one, all the info you could ever want is there step two is the processing. Its like drawing here, then I paint later. So they really need to trust you.

I do have to say the information you get in a file with the Phase One back is simply unmatched with the best pro SLR. Especially in tricky situations. It's not even a comparison in my view.

Take a look at the photos I posted. Normally you would not have this kind gradient detail on the white cream white shirt against a white background. The other thing is the sick cropping factor. I mean just look at the cropped version in this blog.

Anyways I am starting to like this camera more and more and can really see the value... if you have an extra 20 thousand to spend and your clients need the bigger files and better quality...

But I will keep using both systems and choose the correct camera depending on the job requirements.

enjoy.

C

mmmmm food...

Hey everyone, again I have to apologize for the late posting on the blog. Anyways this past week I spent shooting in for NAS (a division of McCann)in Vancouver. I always enjoy shooting in Van and am seriously considering a commuting working schedule in late Summer 2009 between Alberta and Vancouver

Anyways just before I left for Vancouver, I shot for 3 half days for the new Kyoto Japan menus. Kyoto is a sushi restaurant chain based in Edmonton Alberta. In that time we also shot for Famoso Pizzerias which specializes in traditional pizzas from Naples.

Both shoots went very well according to the Art Director, but I was really happy because we got to eat the food after we shot it, which put smiles on the faces of my assistants Natalie and Nick.

Enjoy!

C