Photo Shoot with guitarist Shane Carling

I had the pleasure this past weekend of photographing Shane Carling for his upcoming website and CD. This guy is really amazing and you must check out his performance of "Dust" on YouTube which he played for us live during the shoot. You can also find out more about Shane on his Facebook page. Shane was introduced to me by Pirabalini, a great stylist that I have worked with before and who was also the creative behind the outfits for this shoot. Rounding out the team was Kyla Charney who was in charge of makeup. We had such a fun time during the whole shoot and there was just such great chemistry with the team. Here's a small sample of the shots from that day. Only the one at the top of this blog was really edited in Photoshop. The rest below were pretty much as they were shot. I kept the lighting very simple but did mix a little bit of natural light along with flash. I shot most of these with a 50mm 1.4 wide open.

This shot above is one of my favourites because the depth of focus is so shallow. Notice how Shane's face and hands on the neck of the guitar are in focus but his shirt and vest are blurry.

Model Shoot - Brittany

I had the pleasure this past weekend to work with Brittany and also makeup artist Jazmin. Both of them were very professional and fun to work with. I had originally thought about an outdoor shoot but because of the forecast for rain on our shoot day we opted for the studio instead but as luck would have it the better part of the day was actually really sunny. Fortunately though the studio has these huge windows at one end that lets in some amazing natural light when the sun is in the right place. I've been wanting to challenge myself a bit more and leave the safety of the studio and start doing more location lighting and mixing strobes with natural light and ambient light. For part of this session I tried some shots next to the windows and mixed in some fill flash just enough to blend with the natural light but to also get those catch lights in the eyes.

Model Shoot - Vienna

This is a model shoot I did a few weekends ago with Vienna. We had a hairstylist, Ivy and makeup artist Melissa helping out on the shoot as well. We had three different looks that day and tried some natural lighting as well as some work with flashes. Vienna wanted to do a sexy but innocent nerdy look and brought along a fake apple that had me fooled that it was real right up until I actually picked it up. Here are a few shots from the session.

First Shoot in my studio space

I wasted very little time in getting my first shoot done at my new studio space with one of the models that I have worked with before. Some of you may remember Katie. The day was sunny for the most part so it gave us some incredible natural light coming in from the big front windows for a few of the shots here. A combination of fill lights and reflector work helped to balance the lighting out and overall I was super pleased with the results.

Crazy Colors of Fall

The amazing colors of fall have the leaves on this tree almost looking as if they are on fire!

Wedding Moment

Sometimes it is all about being in the right place at the right time. I captured these two shots of the bride and groom sharing one of their first kisses as a married couple. I just happened to be sitting in the aisle when the couple was stopped by the real wedding photographer for a shot of them and I was just a few feet away. Not that I aspire to be a wedding photographer but I really enjoy capturing magical moments and I thought this opportunity with the sunlight coming in worked well.

Natural Light

During the Location Lighting Workshop class I also took some shots with just natural light and for these I had to really work the ISO to get the shot. I had to also use a tip I learned from Joe McNally in a You Tube video about how to properly grip your camera body to minimize camera shake for slow shutter speed shots.