A Quick One

On Wednesday night I had a great shoot with the "Pussywillows", a group of lovely and talented ladies who host an open mic jam on Wednesday evening at Mikey's Juke Joint. It was one of the fastest on-site shoots I had ever done.

Here is how it went down.

The shoot had been scheduled about one week in advance, but I didn't know all the details until the afternoon before. I did have some vague details ahead of time and I used that limited information to plan my shoot. My biggest concern was only having one hour to get the shot. Usually, I plan two hours for most shoots as it affords time to play with a couple of options. One hour, in my books, is tight.

Having been to the location before, I had a good visual of exactly the shot I wanted and exactly where I would take it. Unfortunately for me, my memory is not quite as good as I thought. The location I had mapped out in my head did not quite match reality. Oops. Fortunately for me, I arrived half an hour before the shoot and I quickly found a suitable location in the bar. After kindly asking a few patrons to switch tables, a bit of table shuffling, and throwing up some lights I was ready for some test shots.

It was pretty simple lighting. One 580EX II in a softbox overhead, reflector underneath and a gridded flash, gelled blue to rake the wall behind the subjects. I'm not sure what it is about blue but it always give a shot that cool, nighttime, in-the-bar kind of look. Perfect for what I needed.

Most of the girls arrived on time but by the time everyone was present our shooting time was even shorter. It's always challenging to get multiple people doing the right thing and the right time but on this particular shoot with these particular ladies, the pieces fell in to place quickly. Within forty minutes, a few changes of camera and subject position, we had our shot. Awesome!

I credit the success of the evening with one thing - planning. Visualizing the shot in advance and knowing the lighting setup required to pull it off allowed me to concentrate on getting my subjects looking their best in our limited time.

Keep planning and keep shooting.

Hello 2012!

I am still kind of shocked how quickly 2011 came and went.

I spent a quiet New Year's Eve day cross country skiing with my partner Jen and some friends. It was a great way to wind down an otherwise busy and transitional year. I didn't pack my SLR with me but I had my iPhone to snap a few pictures to mark the day. Here was one of my last pictures of 2011.



I am really looking forward to making 2012 a very, very memorable year.

Keep shooting.

Take The Time

It was late, it was Christmas Eve and we were both tired from the preparation and activities of the day. It would have been easy to plop down on the couch, flip on a movie and snooze until Christmas morning. Instead we decided to make a short trek, with gear in hand, to a nearby park to make a holiday picture.

It didn't take long but the picture and the memory will last a lifetime. And, it was actually a lot of fun too!

Take the time and keep shooting. Merry Christmas.

The Jiggle...

I wanted something a bit different tonight for family Christmas pictures so I pulled a fun and dynamic technique out of my book of tricks - "the jiggle". I know what you're thinking, "just what exactly is 'the jiggle'"? Well, read on and find out.

Growing...

I haven't been shooting much in the past month. Instead, I have been logging hours and hours, sitting on my butt culling my massive image library. It had to be done. I could procrastinate no longer. I was down to my last few gigabytes of disk space and I had photos to load and projects to edit. I needed space!

The easy solution would have been to open my wallet, buy some more disk space, archive a bunch of junk and be done with it. But as it turns out going through years and years of pictures turned out to be a pragmatic process.



First, it made me realize how many bad pictures I had to take in order to start making good ones. It gave me a chance to see how my photography had grown and improved since I grabbed my first SLR shot with a Canon Rebel Xti. I was able to spot photographic flaws more readily. I became ruthless in my editing, deleting literally thousands of images. It was a long, tiring, yet rewarding experience that is still only half way complete. But I think the best part of the whole exercise is that I found these little gems along the way. Images that stood out amongst all the - *cough* - crap. Small, positive reminders of growing skills.



It seems to me I *had* to make thousands of crappy shots in order to realize how to make good ones. I just wish I had of cleaned up the mess as I went (sigh).

Keep shooting.

Peace Bridge

Last week, I finally took a break from three weeks of butt surfing and got outside to take pictures of Calgary's new Peace Bridge as it was being pushed across the Bow River. The bridge is over a year behind schedule and has been a tad controversial since it was first announced but I have to admit it was very impressive to see it in person. The shot below I took late in the afternoon on the first day the bridge was on the move.

There still was a long way to go and it seemed like it was done moving for the day.

However, the very next day it was already fully across. I was actually quite surprised. I thought it would take a lot longer.

The bridge still needs to be plucked off of the temporary supports and placed on its permanent moorings. That should make for some exciting pictures so I will be watching the newsfeeds closely to make sure I don't miss it. I am also really excited for the photo opportunities once the temporary support structure is removed revealing the bridge's unique aesthetic fully.

Keep shooting.

Farewell Little Snoof...

Yesterday was a very sad day for my partner Jen and I. We had to say goodbye to a wonderful, loyal companion of nearly 18 years, Jen's beloved cat Snoof. Her real name was Patches but she became a part of my life after Jen moved in with me almost 3 years ago and eventually she became known as Snoof. For some reason the name was the perfect fit for her personality. She was a bit aloof, she was bright and demanding but very loyal and loving. She was a tough, agile, spunky little girl in a small package. She was the Snoof.

Snoof was also quite camera shy. It would be very lucky to get a shot of her actually looking at the camera and nearly impossible for her to seem pleased about the process. As soon as the camera would come out, she would hide her face or completely turn her back to the camera. Sometimes I think she would toy with me and let me believe she was cooperating while I set up lights and umbrellas only to walk away just as the camera came out. On a few rare occasions I was able to grab a shot or two but now that she's gone I regret not making more of an effort to capture pictures and video of an amazing little cat.

It is easy to fall in to thinking the shot I didn't make today is the one I can make tomorrow. Sadly, tomorrow is sometimes too late.



Rest in peace little Snoof.