Amazing Colors

Traditionally at this time of year we have our annual fireworks competition which draws enormous crowds out to English Bay and the Kitsilano area to watch. On the evening of July 25th however clouds started to roll in and what was supposed to be a nice sunny evening soon turned into showers. This of course drove a lot of the usual crowds away. But as the night went on it was soon to become one of the most impressive lightning storms I think this city has ever seen. If you ask me I think Mother Nature's light show is way better than any fireworks display. Also just as the sun was setting there was this amazingly vibrant color to the sky that I've never seen before so I rushed out and amidst the downpour I took a few quick pictures and composed this panorama of the view from Kitsilano looking towards English Bay and downtown Vancouver. No color correction or any Photoshop was used to post process any of these pictures. It really was that beautiful that night. Vancouver has not had a night like we had last night for a long time. Here are some more.

Stepping Outside - Photo Shoot with Flo

I did a photo shoot recently that stretched the comfort zone again for me and allowed me to challenge myself. The shoot was done outdoors and it was a chance to try some key shifting or at least to balance the ambient light with the single flash that I was using. One catch though, the infrared wireless trigger that I was used to using in the studio was not really working as well in wide open spaces and it was really critical that there was line of sight to the flash from the camera. Luckily I had an off camera flash cord so instead I shot with the camera connected to the flash that was mounted on a tripod with a softbox. I would later on place my wireless trigger on the end of the off shoe cord and have it aimed at the flash and this worked really well except that I always needed an extra pair of hands. For this session I got to work with Flo again whom I have shot before and this time she brought along makeup artist and stylist Sharley. We had about four different outfit changes and started late in the day when the sun was already going down but this session below is the one we finished with after the sun had completely gone down. I'll have some of the other shots as well in future posts. The location for this series was completely improvised. I think the backdrop and the colors from her dress work really well along with the hair and makeup. My favorite set from the entire shoot.

Three Months to the Day

Today is exactly three months till our wedding day and I have to say that it is really going to get exciting from this point on. I've been counting down the days with a desktop widget application and it hit home last week when the days went from triple digits to double digits. To be honest we really have a lot of the big items already taken care of and now it's down to all the small details and logistics. I often joked to my fiancee that if I could shoot my own wedding I would but for the actual day we are going to leave it to our professional photographer, Alana Couch. Although I have thought about rigging up a few flashes along with a camera on a tripod and triggering everything from a Pocket Wizard while I say my vows during the ceremony. Somehow I don't think that would go over very well though. Here's a fun moment from our engagement shoot a few months ago.

HDR - MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory

If you've ever been to Vancouver you know that one of the tourist destinations on almost every travel book is Queen Elizabeth Park and at the top of the park you will find the famous geodesic dome known as the MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory. This structure is now forty years old but somehow the strange shapes on the dome makes me think it's something from a science fiction movie set in the distant future. I'm sure everyone who visits this place ends up taking pictures in front of it but I wanted to get more of an abstract look and focus on the shapes. On this particular day the sun was starting to set and so I decided to experiment with some high dynamic range imagery. Below are some of my results.

Location Shoot - Billiards Room with Natasha

For my last shoot I left the safe and controlled environment of the studio and did a location shoot at a billiard room with model Natasha. As soon as I stepped in I knew it was going to be one of the more challenging lighting situations that I have dealt with in awhile. This place had bright fluorescent lighting all around, tungsten lights above the billiard tables and neon in some areas of the ceiling. Also behind the bar area there was a very flat fluorescent light. So for billiard area shots I wanted to get some of the ambient from the lights above the tables to maintain the look of lit billiard tables. Solution was to do a three light setup and just feather in enough ambient light by playing with the shutter speed till I had the look I wanted. For the bar area I pretty much did away with any ambient and did it all with a three flash setup. One flash had a warm gel on it to light the bottles behind the bar and then Natasha was lit with a softbox as the key light and a shoot through umbrella for fill.

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.

Long Exposure - Shooting Star

I was experimenting a few weeks ago and headed out one evening just as the sun was setting to do some long exposure shots. Both of the pictures below were shot at f/11 with the top one at about two minutes and the bottom one at roughly three minutes. I did it by using bulb mode in manual for the shutter speed and then timed it with my watch. For both photos I switched to tungsten for the white balance to get a very blue shift in color but the top photo was then also color shifted in Photoshop for a different effect. If you look closely in the bottom photo you see I might have captured a shooting star or at least that's what the light trail looks like to me. A happy accident.