Steve in the Fiat

Steve in the Lego Fiat 500 (afternoon shoot)

Woke up super early today 5:00am.  To get outside to do a small photo shoot across the street before the sun came up. I had just received the fiat500 model car by LEGO.   I spent yesterday, roughly seven hours assembling it.   It turns out it’s hamster scale.  So today I would take Steve out and work the camera.   It’s been awhile. I wasn't really that happy with the photos.  It was too dark.  If I left the shutter open any longer Steve would be blurry, or I'd lose depth of field had I changed the F-stop.

I did another shoot in the afternoon in the front yard.   With this lock down, quarantine in place there’s not a lot of places to go.   So I have limited options.   While shooting Steve in the front yard, I lost a piece of LEGO of the car.   Being yellow it blended in with all the grass and dandelions.   The OCD part of me was cursing inside.  But luckily it’s not my first missing a piece of LEGO rodeo.   Because the set is from this year, and new, it would mean that replacement parts could be ordered from the LEGO site.  No problem.   No stress.   Just log in and order another piece.

The stress levels sprang back up as I logged in and realized that LEGO is still under quarantine operation.   I already have two emails that are in a queue in which they never got back to me on their, I’m guessing, smaller staff.   Turns out that the LEGO company has shut down the Canadian part replacement service.  Ugh!  

The American service was still open so I thought I’d just run the part number through the database to see if it was even in stock.   It was, and could be mine for the cost of 15 cents (US) and shipping.   As they probably don’t ship to Canada, I mean that’s what the Canadian store is for, I would have to ship it to a friend in the USA and then have them ship it to me.   While doable I thought maybe I’d sleep on it.

All kinds of scenarios popped up in my dreads about that stupid brick.   Maybe it got flung out of the bag I was carrying it in from the wind, or maybe the hamster grabbed it as a trophy and hit it inside it’s sleep pod to snuggle over, or maybe it flew out under a clump of grass, near a rock, maybe a crow took it after that to reward a small child.  I woke up, by this time it was around 12:30am.  Put on the pants, and went outside with a flashlight.   I figured it would be easier to find a piece of plastic at night because the flashlight would reflect differently on the plastic object than on the grass.  

In less than a minute I had found it.   It was sitting right under where I would have been photographing from.  The yellow piece of plastic stuck out like a sore thumb.   I went back inside and placed it back on the car model not allowing for chance to have me lose it again but in the apartment.

I went back to sleep.  

Photography in dreary weather

Joe Kicak, guy of adventure.

On the way to Joe's car to grab some work gear from the trunk, I noticed the crazy cloud formation in the sky. I commented saying that I should have my camera to photograph it. Joe then blurted "Get your camera". It didn't take much convincing, I ran back inside grabbed my Nikon, ran back out, then started framing the sky to take some photos.

"Ugh, the trees are in the way", I said while looking for a nice opening.

"Why don't you go up onto the roof?" remarked Joe.

"What? how?"

"The ladder is right there".

Moments later we were on the roof. I took a few photos of the storm heading toward us. I also managed to take some photos of Joe in the foreground. To be honest he was standing in the way of my stormy cloud photo taking so I figured I'd just include him in the shot rather than trying to crop him out in camera and have to go through the effort of changing my position on the roof. It was then that I started to shout out directions of standing still to pose, turn that way, turn this way. It became an impromptu mini photo shoot.

The photo shoot ended when we started to get pelted by big blobs of rain drops followed shortly by the sounds of thunder in the distance. "Okay, time to leave." and we rushed back down off the building and back inside. I never did get my gear from the car at that time.

Knick Knack patty whack

Leanna, up and coming interior decorator

Today's photo gig was to shoot an apartment layout put together as an interior decorator assignment by my friend Leanna. It's interesting to shoot something new.  When looking at the reference magazines she had noticing the way the photos were taken and how the light bathed the room.



We weren't in a studio where we could put the lights anywhere.  We were in an actual apartment where lighting, if used, had to be squashed in behind the scenes.  The challenge was having the lights positioned in such a way that they would make the apartment look naturally lit.



Much like a model with make up photographing a prepped apartment was pretty easy.  It was just finding the right angles to make the photos look good.






A lamp that you can buy at Ikea!

Boat load of Hamsters

Sunday. I woke up again at 4:30am. Part of it being the fear of a flood occurring after last night's mini flood. Crap came up in the furnace room from the intake drain. It was kind of gross.

Seeing that the hamsters were awake I decided to do get their weight and do a creative.  An odd combination of tasks to be sure.  It was just something I had to do...  right at that moment.

The hamsters despite Peppy looking a bit smaller than the Professor weighed the same amount.  They both came in at 16 grams.  Next up, the photo shoot.



I was trying to think of something to put the hamsters next to or in. There's nothing much around the apartment. I found some foam from a camera project I was working on and I have my large pad of paper that I've been using to scribble code on (yes, in the day and age of electronics I still go to paper for some things).

Armed with some scissors and a few clothes pegs I jury rigged a fake water set. A paper origami boat was made using a sheet from the pad. A plastic tub to hold the boat up so it "floats" on the water. Viola! Hamsters on the sea!

Morning photo shoot

The world of Sanjay Burman (click on photo to make bigger)

I had an idea to photograph a panoramic photo of the apartment but due to rescheduling and an enormous amount of people in the apartment on sunday I volunteered to come back and shoot the empty apartment today.

The last photo I did like this was of Emmanuel in his apartment before he moved. I like these photos even if there's a bunch of post work involved.

"Right" said Fred

Fred poses with the light meter

I did a photo shoot in our basement today. While you wouldn't necessarily notice Fred bending his knees so his head didn't hit the ceiling unless I told you, the photos actually came out ok. With the limited space, getting a head to toe photo was not going to happen, so we concentrated on the head and upper torso. Your portrait type head photo.

I kept hitting my head and camera on the ceiling trying to get as much height as possible. I suppose this is where it would be nice to have a studio space.

Motivator Man!!!

Going up? With motivation from Emmanuel you bet you are.

The creative spark is one of those things that pops up when one least expects it. At least for me. Something usually has to trigger it, be it a conversation, or some experience. It's rare for something to just pop in out of the blue. It's because of this that I'll force myself to go outside for just the sake of going out and doing something.

I was in one of those modes today. Driven myself home earlier this morning from Hamilton. It was an unexpected drive. I drove and dropped off a drunk (maybe half drunk) skater friend to her home. By the time I got to my apartment and fell asleep it was around 5:30am, some time just before the sun came up.

Waking up to a phone call at 10:30am had me cloudy brained all day. I had suggested to Emmanuel that we do a photo shoot a few days earlier. It was to test put some lighting techniques I'd been toying around with in my mind over the last few week or so. Originally I told him I'd be available in the afternoon. I wasn't expecting to be back from Hamilton until 2pm and I really wasn't expecting him to call so early in the morning.



As a general rule though I tell people to just not call me before 10am. Then I'm not just cloudy brained, I'm crusty all day. 10:30 was fine but I still have errands to do and I told him I'd get back to him by 2:00, the originally planned time.

2:00pm. We set up to meet at his apartment and from there we went to the back of the building to do some photography. It didn't take long for the photo shoot to become fun. We ended up doing some Super Hero type poses and shots. I even tried making the lighting a bit more dramatic. In the end got some pretty cool photos.

Force yourself to get out there and just do something. That'll get you 80% there, just showing up.

Zip Car to the Brick Works

The "Tough Cookie" shot


My first zip car rental.

I had gotten my approved zip membership card the other day and decided to take a car out to not only test drive it but figure out how the whole gas thing works. Gas is included in the rental fee. They give you an Esso gas card that you can use however if there's no Esso near by fear not, you can use any gas station and just email or fax a copy of the gas receipt to get financially reimbursed.


King's Cafe... another photo from the wall of gluttony

I picked up Leanna and got some food at King's Cafe then happily stuffed with vegetarian food we made our way down to the Brick Works to do a mini photo shoot. Travelling with all the lighting gear in the zip car is a great alternative to owning a car or lugging all that crap in a taxi or worse on the TTC. Plop it in the trunk and go.

FAB underwear photo shoot

Canadian underwear designers featured in the upcoming underwear issue of FAB

Woke up this morning to shoot seven models in underwear for an upcoming article in the FAB underwear issue (which is out now, Aug 08). I was pretty tired from being up the night before attending the HCRG/Cincinnati after party. Even though I had left early (around midnight) I hadn't gotten back to Toronto until 1:30am and by the time I backed up all my photos from the bout and the party the time was 4am.

The shoot went well. I photographed the models and had 11 minutes to spare before leaving at the scheduled time of noon.

Turned out to be a two page layout in FAB issue #378 (see style section).

Liquid Shoot

Spiked drink or Love Potion?

Valentine's Day. February 14th, 2009. A crappy day to go out as a single guy as most good restaurants are full with couples that reserved days in advance. Same goes with movie theatres, parks, the beach, and any other interesting venues. Candlelit dinners swarming with the guys selling flowers table to table. Yeesh! It's a good night to stay in and be productive.

I finally manged to empty most of my front room with all the boxes and junk clearing a large space. A space big enough to set up my flashes around a table. It's nice to use the flashes as they generally sit around in boxes waiting for the next photo shoot on location (someone else's location).

I'm not sure why but I've been wanting to photograph flowing water. Shooting with a strobe is great because you can freeze the water in motion. The first day I bought my first visatec solo 1600B I shot a pot of boiling water. Frozen in a photo the pot of boiling water looks more like a pot filled with hair gel. Kind of neat.

The pot I shot way back then shattered a few months ago in the kitchen disaster of 2008. I am potless but thought I'd still shoot moving water. Armed with a measuring cup of dyed blue water, some fake ice cubes, a J-cloth to soak up poor aiming, and a camera on a tripod with a shutter release cable, I went ahead full tilt. After a few hundred shots trying to get the water just right I decided to take my photography outside and play around with custom filters. Kind of neat for experimentation.


Love is in the air

As I write this I'm still photographing. Now back inside I'm trying to think of other things I'd like to shoot under studio lights.


Bottle-o-love

It's cheesy but it kept me busy for a bit.

If you build it...

There are those that say if you visualize something there's a better chance of it materializing in the real world. (ie. "If you build it they will come") While I have had some luck last year getting my photos published in a magazine (thanks to the fashion editor at FAB magazine, Max MacDonald) and some newspapers this year I'd like to concentrate on getting more magazine work... with a studio budget.

And so with the help of a photo session taken yesterday with Ashley Wolstat, model turned actor, I've created this mock up of what might be seen on a magazine, somewhere, some day.

As a personal assignment it's good to know how to frame up a shot for a magazine cover as you need to compose the shot so that you're leaving room for the magazine's title and barcode spot. The beauty of shooting medium format is that you can just shoot, then later once the slide is digitized at 100 megapixels you and pretty much crop out what you don't need.

Since I wasn't shooting with a medium format, I was shooting with my D700, I had to set up the shot in advance in my head with the thought of where all the magazine text would be floating around.

So now that there's an example of work floating around the web ether we'll see if this affects the jobs I get flowing in. Fingers crossed.

If you're feeling a bit stuck in the new year and need help getting motivated out of your rut check out the motivatorman web site and blog.

Baddie and Goodie

Baddie and Goodie

Woke up this morning early. Early for me that is. It was 6:30am when I found myself wondering why I would agree to take on any job so early. The job wasn't that early. I had to wake up early to put together a camera package for the day's shoot. I wanted to sleep badly the night before that I convinced myself that waking up a few hours earlier would be so bad. I was wrong.

A make up artist by the name of Christine had an idea for a shoot involving special effects make up. The location was unclear, the last I heard it was going to be at a bus station. I told the person organizing the shoot that we would require permits to shoot on location (especially if it happened to be a bus terminal). That was two weeks ago. I had not heard a peep back since then, even after leaving a barrage of phone and email messages.

It was going to be one of those fly by the seat of your pants days. Nothing new really. Most of my gear was packed from the trip to Fort Wayne so that made it easy. It was just a matter of pulling out gear I didn't need and putting gear in that I would need.

The meeting location, at least, was consistent from the day we all decided to meet up. As for time, I was told to show up at 9:30 but figured I'd show up earlier just in case I had to take time to set up. I hate rushing things.

I arrived at 8:30am. About an hour early. The first model was in her finishing stages of make up application. I thought the make up would be more gore related, as when people talk about effects make up I tend to think gore, but I was pleasantly surprised to find an evil elf, an evil sci-fi elf?

Christine has just started working on the second model when I decided to throw up a black background. Since this was for her make up portfolio I figured some close up head shots couldn't hurt. Once I got those we could then, if time permitted, go outside to do some impromptu action shots.

The photo shoot like most photo shoots flew by and before we knew it, it was noon and time for the models to go. I forgot how much I like to shoot studio type lighting shoots. I'll have to make an effort to do more in the next few weeks.

Portable Photography

Nigel

If you were to look at this photo where would you think it was taken?
a) in a nice warm studio
b) in a backyard with a neighbour's cat wondering around
c) in a supermarket with people knocking on melons in the background
d) in a basement with 6 foot ceilings
e) in an apartment

If you picked B then you are right.

Last night while packing for Ohio I received a phone call. A friend of mine needed photos, head shots, done quickly. For anyone that's knows me I am what they call a "saver", I believe the not so PC friendly term is "pack rat".

I have an apartment that's filled with stuff. With all my gear lying around on the floor as I was customizing my gear for the trip, there wasn't any room to photograph. I forgot about this when I was asked if I could take photos. After hanging up the phone this small detail dawned on me. Ack! Where to shoot.

I have two lighting systems. One portable and one not so portable. The portable one consists of a few sb-800s, some stands and some umbrellas (by photoplex). It's battery powered so I don't have to worry about cables for power. For heads shots it's perfect.

I set up a background by hanging it on the clothes line outside. Since the sun went down I didn't have to worry about light leaking into the set and luckily there was no wind. That would have caused a bit of fun with the umbrellas.

By the time Nigel showed up the make shift studio was ready.

Just our Luk

Fun photo shoot

Today's photo fun was shooting comedian, improv pro, and friend, Jane Luk for a poster to advertise an upcoming Bad Dog Theatre show. My favourite prop was the rubber chicken (see photo). When you squeezed it an egg, with yolk, would stick out of it's butt. I should have taken a photo of that.

Sometimes it's the simple things that are the funniest.

Yes, I do Head Shots

Leanna Spina, make up artist

It's just one of those things that I do that I don't advertise. Head shots. For business cards, model cards, web sites. Yep, I shoot head shots. I'll have to update the web site one of these days.


The Ikea chicken puppet and Leanna

Oh, I also photograph goofball images.

Darryl's 3D request

Darryl holding up my 3D print submissions

Before going home I decided to swing over to Darryl's office to see how things were going. With the HLAP event tomorrow night I wanted to see if Darryl had gotten my 3D files for his 3D gallery. This was a bit of a mistake. He wanted to know if I had anything new.

All my submissions were photos I had taken over the years using my old, but trusty, stereo Realist camera. A camera made in the 50s. The photos were of past HLAP film making. The number of photos seemed enough to me yet there was a bug in my brain that wouldn't stop.

When I got home I pulled out the old MachoBaby set. A few days ago I had found it while packing stuff away for my big apartment move. Most of the set was still intact and was only missing a few bricks. All the figures I used for the small short fim where still in a fishing tackle box I had. I decided to shoot the set using the cha cha method (single camera, moving slightly from left to right between frames).


The MachoBaby! set... Found, rebuilt then shot in 3D

I must have found a second wind because after positioning the village people and Laer, Darryl, and I, I added some movie people, some shrubs, trees and other lego objects to fill out the scene. I then did a close up of my Lego character and made a separate 3D "movie poster" (I use that term loosely). It was about 4am when I finally uploaded the finished artwork to Darryl.


Icing on the cake... me as a Lego person (note: the camera).

Aliens in High Park

An alien couple on their honeymoon

I had got roped into helping Jill and Darryl shoot a 3D film in high park today. I was feeling a bit under the weather and crabby. Most likely due to the lack of sleep over the last few days. I sat waiting for about 20 minutes at an entrance to High Park to find no one had shown up.

Just when I was about to leave I saw Darryl whiz by on his bike and fly up the Bloor street hill. I tried shouting but my voice was still a bit screwy from the laryngitis. I came to the realization that I might have gotten the wrong directions. I left a message on Jill's cell phone and was waiting for someone to call me back.

I really have to get a cart or something with wheels to carry all my stuff. The two suitcases of camera lenses with the 3D gear, the remotes, the light stands and my cameras were feeling a lot heavier today. I carried them up the hill to the other entrance. They they were.

Trudging through the park after finding them to look for a location to shoot put me in a foul mood. The lack of organization was rubbing me the wrong way. Like I said before I was tired and irritable. On top of that I thought I was going to throttle Darryl when he started suggesting last minute adjustments to the cameras and the direction to shoot. As a note to myself, I should always trust my instincts when it comes to photography, we ended up shooting into the sun.

Over the course of spending nine hours in the bush a calm eventually washed over me. The realization that I was going to give all the photos to Darryl to deal with all the post work made me a bit happier. It was also nice to see the people from Jill's previous shoot.

Being behind the camera and using new technology that I've configured is always a good thing in the end. By the end of the day I was feeling much better.

Fit to a Tee

T-Shirt photo shoot for Monster Records

Today,with the help of Brigitte and Leanna, I managed to do a photo shoot for Monster Records. Specifically photos for T-shirts they are selling. This project was on the back burner for the last year. I'm reminded of this as it was during last year at Wakestock I found a potential model but had so much trouble with her modelling agency. They wouldn't give me a rate card or a solid answer on how much it would be to hire her. During the first phone call it was $50 an hour. By the third photo call it was just over $3000 for an 8 hour day plus licensing fees every year to pay for the pictures I would be taking. WTF!

The photos should start appearing on the new and improved Monster Records site in the merchandise section soon.

Vikings and Maids

Darryl and Barbie, the mad viking maid

At some point I'm sure there are readers out there asking "What the heck?" when looking at the above picture. No there's no new B-movie with Vikings and Maids being made. At least not to my knowledge. If anyone knows of one let me know.

Today a bunch of us got together to shoot various outfits for Darryl's upcoming hard liquor and porn posters. The theme seemed to escape even me and is something that really only Darryl can explain. But hey, shooting giggling girls in the odd costume isn't the worst thing one can do to pass the time.


Leanna and Barbie pose for Darryl's HLAP ads

If it looks like we're having a fun time in these pictures it's because we are!

Three roaches, three times the fun

Three cockroaches in a jar are worth four on the floor

After just getting back from visiting Mary and Mike (some friends living in London) I turned on my hotel room light to find two roaches crawling around on the floor. I managed to catch one with the patented roach catcher (the creme brulee jar and the postcard) but the other one got away. It managed to crawl under the rug somewhere in the corner of the room.

I placed the newly caught roach into the yogurt cup with the first two roaches. They seemed to be doing great. The problem with the last photo of the roaches is that you really don't appreciate the largeness or smallness (depending on other roaches you've seen) so I took a picture with one of the roaches crawling up the side of the cup next to a pound sterling coin. Later on I'd realize that some people may not know how large the coin was and next time I'll try to bring a ruler of some sort.

I spent most of the night until around 5am or so going through the day's photos and backing them up onto the portable hard drive. It was during this time that I kept a vigil eye out for anything else moving on the ground. Then around 4:30am the forth roach (maybe the one that got away, but probably not) came out of the shadows and was crawling toward the camera bag.

I had put the camera bag on my foldable stool. Since the roaches couldn't climb smooth surfaces I figured the stool was smooth enough that the roach wouldn't be able to crawl up it. That's when I noticed the camera strap on the floor which lead right into the bag. Whoops. I managed to catch the forth roach on it's hike up the strap and added him to the jar with the other three.

It is understandable then that when I woke up four hours later I was tired. I managed to drag myself down to the BFC tent to shoot the Ashley Isham catwalk. I'm glad I did. They had converted the catwalk into a long mound of "snow" with a leafy evergreen background. In some weird way it reminded of back home. Even though we don't have evergreen trees everywhere (at least not in Toronto) there was a big fat snow storm yesterday back in Toronto according to various emails I received. I'm not there.... Woo hoo!!!


Caution tape is placed around the catwalk to prevent people from walking on the catwalk


I thought the bow took away from the dress


Snow for the beginning and ending of the show added a nice touch



size zero bad? This designer doesn't think so.

With all the hype going on around now with banning size zero models from the runway it was interesting to see this designer sporting this shirt. I'm not really sure where I am on this subject. There will always be a body type that society deems appropriate and there will always be people that will have a different opinion. In the end I suppose what we should be asking is "Are we healthy?"


Gearing up for the Betty Jackson show in the BFC tent


Casual wear by Betty Jackson

This seemed like an odd hat to me

Betty Jackson, designer


Josie and Mary come out of the fashion tent while Enzo sits outside getting some air.


Hyde Park Corner


The wall o pigeons.

As for today, it was a pretty easy shoot day. I only shot two catwalk shows before making my way to the Metropolitan to take a few shots of Vanessa, a model who was hired to help showcase Andrew's designs to potential buyers and press. Originally from Chile, Vanessa moved to London to work on her modelling career with possible plans to move to L.A.

The afternoon was spent in the hotel room taking photos of Vanessa in various outfits to be used later on. The hotel lighting was pretty bad. I had to resort to shooting with my sb-800 (flash).


Vanessa with cheesecake...


...modelling a Majtenyi designed dress.



Vanessa in a suit designed by Andrew Majtenyi.


Andrew and Vanessa exchange fashion modelling tips.

Andrew, Josie and I ended up going to a restaurant with this gourmet burger (costing 10 quid). It was okay but I think I still like the Lick's burger better. I ended up crashing on Andrew and Josie's couch in their hotel apartment.


A gourmet burger