Help Portrait Vancouver

2010 is almost over and when I reflect back on what it was that moved or inspired me most as a photographer, I think the first thing that comes to mind is Help Portrait. The principal behind it is pretty simple. Find someone in need, take their portrait, print it and deliver it to them. The photographers do not keep or publicize any of the photos of the people's pictures that we take. It's not about fame or adding to your portfolio. It's about giving.

What makes it so special are the lives that you touch and the smiles that you see. This past year as part of the Help Portrait Vancouver group I got the opportunity to work with Ian Sheh and Steph Forster, the two leaders of the group along with some fellow photographers and makeup artist in two events. The first one was a smaller event held on November 23 at BC Children's Hospital. It was in the Child Life Department, a part of the hospital dedicated for terminally ill patients and their families. The small group of us took pictures of the kids and their families, printed them out a couple of 4x6 prints and then also gave them a CD with all their photos on it. The magic of seeing these kids faces light up was beyond words. Here's the group along with Diane from Children's Hospital. We have been told that they want us back and we could not be happier to do this again real soon.

A few days later the official Help Portrait event with venues all around the world was held on December 4th. Our group of volunteers this year for Help Portrait Vancouver grew by quite a bit from last year and we had an incredible turn out from the community of the downtown Eastside. This year instead of actually taking pictures I served as one of the group leads for the morning team of photographers. I think I actually had more fun watching the joy that the other photographers had taking pictures and interacting with their subjects. I also helped to hand out the photos to the guests and the look on their faces was priceless when they received them. Smiles from ear to ear and literally tears of joy were on some of their faces. Many of them had never had a portrait done before let alone to be treated with such a warm reception and attention by our volunteers. Check out the link to Help Portrait Vancouver on Facebook for videos and more photos.

Here I am with the morning crew of photographers. Lots of new faces in this group and I bet they will all be back next year. So proud of everyone.

Many volunteers stayed on for the whole day even as the afternoon crew came on to replace them. I know most of the makeup crew were on their feet all day making the women look beautiful for their pictures. They were incredible.

In the end the event was an amazing success and I am already looking forward to December 3rd, 2011.

If you want to volunteer just let me know.

Suki's Salon Shoot

A few weeks ago I did a shoot for the student stylists of Suki's Salon. The shoot itself would be done upstairs at the Granville location where we had the most space. The stylists were asked to provide eight models and to use the four elements of wind, water, fire and earth as a creative inspiration. There were two models for each element, some were friends of the stylist and some had modelling experience before. The models also had their makeup done by a team of three makeup artists comprised of Jessica, Desiree and Liz. It was really cool to see the transformations and the amazing amount of work that went into each styling. Many of their in house Senior Stylists and Artistic Directors were on hand to provide guidance. Our shooting schedule was pretty tight but we managed to fit all the models in one right after another and wrapped up our shoot in just one afternoon. Here are a few shots from that day.

Wind: Jeanna and Christina

Water: Breanne and Robyn

Fire: Emily and Rona

Earth: Jessica and Andrea

This is the team of stylist from the South Granville and Downtown location. In no particular order, Rachel, Chelsea, Hannah, Elynne, Penny, Andrew, Mitchell, Farnoosh, Aline and yeah that's me in the back!

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.

Zuka Shoot with Ali and Samantha

As promised here are some more final edits from the shoot that I did a few weeks ago with Ali from Lexington Models and Samantha from JK Models. The makeup and hair was done by Natalie Jean who happens to also be a fantastic model with John Casablancas and the jewelry was from Kari Staten of Zuka Artful Accessories. This was shot in a park near Kari's studio where she designs and makes all of her wonderful creations. The photo shoot started around the mid afternoon and the sun was perfect. Not too high in the sky to create unflattering shadows and not too blindingly low for the models. I stuck with pretty much just a big reflector for these and used it as either a fill or as a blocker. Here are some shots from that day starting with Samantha.

In the shot below where Ali is lying on the grass I actually took off the reflector cover and just used the translucent fabric as a shade. Open shade created this way is actually a very beautiful light and is very soft. I shot that one wide open with a 50mm at 1.4 so you can see the shallow depth of field. It was actually kind of tricky because I was standing over her and the minimum focus distance at that range meant I had to do some balancing on my toes. Note to self is to bring along a small step ladder for shoots like these in the future.

Preview from the Zuka Shoot

I teamed up this past weekend with Natalie Jean, a very well known local model who is also an amazing makeup artist and one of my favourites to work with. The shoot was centred on high lighting some jewelry pieces from local designer Kari Staten of Zuka Artful Accessories. We had two models that day. Here is a teaser for my upcoming blog post featuring Samantha from JK Models and Ali from Lexington Models. Stay tuned for more pictures of this shoot.

Model Shoot - Stephanie

Shot these series a few weeks ago with model Stephanie Hay who is represented by Carrie Wheeler Entertainment Group. She was great to work with and her experience in modelling definitely shows. I would be thinking in my head "can you move a bit to your left and place your chin up a bit" and before I could even say it she would already have done. So crazy it was almost like she was reading my mind and she continued this all throughout our shoot that day. I really love it when models know how to work the camera. Our team was comprised of Diana for makeup who I had worked with before on a photo shoot a few weeks back with Tony. The styling was done by her friend Christina who did an amazing job and I especially liked the jacket that she brought for the shoot. Maggie was our hair stylist and she transformed Stephanie from long flowing hair for the first part of the shoot to a short classy style that just pulled the look together perfectly for second series . Another fun location shoot!

Model Shoot - Clayton

On my last day of class at Vancouver Photo Workshops I did two separate shoots and the other model that I worked with that night was Clayton. He was styled by Amanda that evening. We did a similar edge lighting setup that I had used before and the look with the grey suit and sunglasses worked out well. Amanda brought along a very stylish long leather coat that had great texture to it and it worked really well with both the edge lighting and also the full white background shots as well. The third lighting setup we had was a pair of Kino Flo lights against a brushed metal background. Here are a few shots from that evening.

Later that same week we teamed up again for a location shoot this time. Amanda once again pulled some great outfits together for the shoot. We did the shoot in the early evening just as the sun was starting to go down in the sky a bit. I was really hoping for a day with fewer clouds but as it turned that day was partly overcast. For the lighting on these shots I used a small softbox and portable strobe triggered by Pocket Wizards. I did some minor colour balancing in post to give it a warmer look too. Clayton had been talking about trying to get signed with an agency. He mentioned that his agent really liked the stuff we had done together and soon after these photos were taken he was signed on by Next Canada and it even has one of the photos we did together on his portfolio page. Congrats Clayton! Here are some of the location shots.