2019 in Review VI - Spring Fling

Did I not tell you that selective color would be back?

Syd Ensing’s dress rightly deserves such emphasis. Using selective color here achieves that goal, and also emphasizes Syd’s distinctive Celtic-looking tattoo.

And I figured I would complete this post with a couple of photos of Syd’s posting companion from the image above, River Doucette.

When June 2019 Where Andrew Haydon Park @ Ottawa ON Who Syd Ensing & River Doucette

Camera Canon 6D Lens Sigma 24-105 Art (Syd Ensing)

Camera Canon M6 Lens Canon 35mm f/2 IS USM (River Doucette)

#ottawaphotographymeetup

2019 in Review V - Shining Gold

When June 2019 Where Andrew Haydon Park @ Ottawa ON Who Emily Kerr

Camera Canon RP Lens Canon 70-300L (Holi! CLR 2019)

Camera Canon 6D Lens Sigma 24-105 Art (Spring Fling)

#ottawaphotographymeetup

2019 in Review IV - Urban Beauty

Maria Michelle Palomino was another one of the models who were with us during the Ottawa downtown walkabout that were organized by Garry Black this past summer.

Needless to say, I had a great time exploring urban looks with her.

I think that this exploration proved very successful.

When June 2019 Where Ottawa ON Who Maria Michelle Palomino

Camera Canon 6D Lens Sigma 24-105 Art

2019 in Review III - Along Came a Spider

Far from me the intent of too closely associating the concepts of “photography” and “equipment”, I felt like I had to do justice to the 6D, which, despite its flaws, served me well on many occasions until I replaced it with the RP.

In one of my best shoots of the year, a downtown walkabout with Garry Black, models he convened, as well as a number of fellow photographers, I had the occasion of shooting with Sarah Haerkens.

On the shoot, Garry showed us around a number of good shooting places in downtown Ottawa, some of which I am hoping to revisit in 2020.

When June 2019 Where Ottawa ON Who Sarah Haerkens

Camera Canon 6D Lens Sigma 24-105 Art

2019 in Review II - Blue Flame

For the second post in this series, I am taking you back once more to the Auto Boneyard shoot of July 2019. It continues the trend that I was seeing with my new Canon RP, and which I discussed at length in the my previous post. More than that, though, the photo is evidence of a paradox I often find myself in at photoshoots.

Specifically, I find that when I shoot candids or ‘casually’ I find myself getting better results than when I am too actively trying to pose a model. For some reason, the creative juices not only flow better, but I achieve genuinely achieve better results that I should be getting consistently with the equipment that I am using. It is a conundrum that I cannot find the reason for; the mystery, however, is a big key to its charm.

When July 2019 Where Auto Boneyard @ Cardinal ON Who 613 Goddess

Camera Canon RP Lens 100L

So the photo was taken as a bunch of us were photographing a couple of models casually at the end of the shoot, aftey they had changed out of their modeling clothes. Worked out fine as I see it!

And yes, each and every time that I do selective color, I find it cheesy, but that only makes me work harder to enjoy it even more. This is not the last time that you will see something like that on this blog or eventually in my galleries! ;-)

2019 in Review I - Summer Belle

It has been a while since I added anything to my site or blog - I am still beset my many distractions. However, I find it important to dedicate some time to making this website and this blog grow, so, even though I am not ready to share galleries/a fuller portfolio yet, I figured that I would share a selection of some of my favorite photos I took throughout 2019. In that way, I intend to share at least one photo each day from December 25 to 31 inclusively.

So I want to start with a callback to summer, with three photos of Brianna Aiken taken at the Auto Boneyard in Cardinal, ON. This shoot, and this set in particular, represents my first experience shooting with the Canon RP, which is my first full frame mirrorless camera. Previously, I had been using a DSLR, the Canon 6D, and I was none too pleased with its autofocus performance: it had only a few focus points that were poorly spread out on the screen. Even if you found one that would minimize recomposition, you could almost assume that either the focusing would be bad, or that even minimal recomposition would lead to even worse focus, generally compromising image quality. I usually spent shoots struggling against my camera or anxiously checking each image for sharpness every time I took one just to ensure that output was reasonable.

Needless to say, shooting at anything wider than f/4 would result in headaches, especially if it were a telephoto. In that context, my 100L, which is currently tied with the 40mm pancake as my widest lens, did not see much use in that period. (And f/2.8 is not even so wide, especially not for primes.)

Enter the Canon RP, which opened up a new world. I simply do not want to imagine what would have happened if I tried to shoot something similar with the 6D. Focus with an unreliable corner point. Recompose. Check for sharpness. Possibly find out that it was blurry only way after the shoot when looking at it on my computer. Or shoot a f/4 and have a really busy background.

When July 2019 Where Auto Boneyard @ Cardinal ON Who Brianna Aiken

Camera Canon RP Lens 100L

The Auto Boneyard - Preview

Yes, I’m very busy posting “previews” while not really ever ending up building/posting galleries…that will have to change. In the meantime, I’m just back from a photoshoot at the Auto Boneyard in Cardinal ON, and I just absolutely need to post a few that I took with Genevieve Dupuis just a few hours ago.

For the shoot, I rented a Sony A7RIII to see how it compares with my Canon EOS RP - can you guess which image was taken with which camera? As much as the matter of building actual galleries, I most certainly to share my impressions of the A7RIII, which was my first time using a non-Canon camera for an entire photoshoot, before too long (but probably after I’ve handed it back in to the rental store)….

Sneak Peek Preview: Gothic Red Riding Hood

Not so long ago, I did a great Halloween shoot with Kali and her friends Liz and Kristen; I’ve made a few changes to how I finish photos for sharing as of right now, and wanted to post a sneak peek preview to what will likely become one of the first galleries with which I ‘officially’ launch this website.

Below: Liz Seallion’’s interpretation of a Gothic-style Red Riding Hood.

The LensCulture B&W Awards

It is done… as of yesterday, I entered the LensCulture B&W Awards 2019, my second participation in the competition. I have yet to work up the courage to read the reviews from that previous participation, but I am feeling that I am getting closer to doing so. I certainly was flattered that one of my photos was, according to their e-mail, “top-rated”, though I still do not precisely understand the exact meaning of the phrase in this context. Still, I am excited to be part of the competition and will look forward to seeing the outcomes of my participation.

For my 2019 participation, I submitted the following six images:

42 Steps You might have correctly recognized this one as being my homepage photo. In some truly pessimistic and twisted way, I feel that the photo is one of the many interpretations of life (hence the title) that I was able to come up with photographically. As it is inherently negative, I will save you the details of that explanation here; I may make a dedicated gallery somewhere else to explore those photos that I feel aptly represent life as I see it!

Streaks One of the legacy images of a shoot I did with Anja Takera and members of her posse (the model here being, to the best of my recollection, Alfa) to showcase her fashion designs. Although the memory of arriving only at this result has not left me (it was probably more difficult than it should have been!), I keep coming back to this photo as one of my favorites of the day.

The Violence of Colors At a Holi! CLR session where I was shooting with model Sophie Bègue, colored powder was literally flying in all directions at once. Sticking to models in more or less random patterns, the colors would ‘enhance’ the models in an aesthetically pleasing and, as is intended, very playful manner. In looking at some of the same photos in B&W, though, I noticed just how stripping colors away (yet using them to set a tone) could change the interpretation of the image: where the colored version is an image of frivolity, the black & white lends itself to darker interpretations.

Waiting for a Storm (That May Never Come) For this photo with model Cristiana Bodnariuc (wearing a dress designed by Michèle Beaudoin), I sought to create an atmosphere of expectation and uncertainty. For me, this atmosphere is anchored in the tension between the main elements of the photo: the woman, young and beautiful, but seeming apprehensive (of the future? of her current predicament?), remains immobile; her possible fates are illustrated by the rusting truck or the flowing grass, growing, blowing in the wind and becoming visually intertwined in the folds of her dress. As I see it, this photo is a commentary not only on time and beauty, but also on self-actualization.

Breaking the Rules A different take on the concept above, with the same model.

White Fabric I don’t know if I am able to put into words what this image makes me feel, how I would describe its atmosphere. With model Kate Snig, during a one-on-one shoot with the #ottawaphotographymeetup.

Fading Away

Sadly, I have not been more successful in advancing work on this site… Having recently changed post-processing software (from Adobe ACR to Capture One) made me want to re-post-process just about everything in my collection, maybe even cull more photos than I had before, and this de facto has left me with next to nothing to post - since whatever “photos” I had from ACR won’t look at all the same with C1 and I will not keep the original post-processed versions, then they don’t really exist anymore.

Part of my “procrastination” is also that I keep doing shoots here and there, and just adding to the pile of post-processing. Just yesterday I went down to the cemetery with one more event of the #OttawaPhotographyMeetup hosted by Mike Giovinazzo to do some fading/ghosting photography.

Technically, what I am sharing with this blog post is a non-photo, as it was finished with Photoshop (I’m yet mulling over my intent to migrate fully from Photoshop to Affinity), but am posting it here as a sneak peek at what I am currently working on.

Imploring the dead to return…

Multitasking & Failing

Well, just been back online for a few weeks, less than a month really, and already I’m back to being myself: trying to do everything at once and failing miserably in the meantime. Part of me tries not to judge myself not too harshly considering what I’m to; the other wishes I had more time for photography and for building this website, which is really what I want to do right now.

Distractions have been many, and not all have been pleasant. Here’s a peek at one of them… Now, some of you (you know, you, my as yet nigh non-existent audience) might know Ottawa festivals well enough, or be geeky enough to look it up, to call me out on Chamberfest being out and over and being no reason for me in being so late to get a website going.

To those I would respond the following: 1. You are not sufficiently geeky: otherwise, you would know that there are Chamberfest events throughout the year. 2. You are still correct in guessing that the photo was indeed taken at an event during the festival. However, you probably did not guess that, as I was sitting there, snapping a couple shots and sipping my beer, that I was thinking to myself that I really should be getting going on starting that website… So you see? Despite the apparent time anomaly, it was all a perfectly reasonable and legitimate form of procrastination :-)

Waiting for the start of “Rumi’s Fables” at Ottawa Chamberfest at the Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins

Here I am!

For the first time since Geocities was a thing (at least some of you are as ancient as I am and will remember what this refers to), I am on the web! I look forward to adding content in the weeks to come. I expect I will be a bit more active once the summer weather passes us by on the North American East Coast, so do check back for more!

On the website, I will be posting lots of types of photos, but I expect I will principally publish my portraits and travel photos.

Working on it…