#507 Exposed! Photo Newsletter

Posted on by

August’s photography newsletter went out to most recipients today.

This week we explored the idea of Opportunistic Light:

“Recently I was away on a photo hunt – expanding my base of stock and photo based art while experimenting and trying new techniques. My tools were mostly simple – cameras, lenses and the sun as my main light source.

I started shooting at what I call “Far Too Early!” to capture golden light and stillness. As I was crawling around investigating a garden I stumbled upon a momentarily backlit situation behind a beautiful thistle, below. Working quickly I captured a decent shot that was only available ten minutes a day for perhaps two weeks a year.

Opportunistic photo lighting

Opportunistic photo lighting


While we sometimes use manufactured lighting – strobes, reflectors – there is always an opportunity to discover simple and magical “opportunistic lighting.”

In this edition of Exposed! we explore where to find the special light and how to discover the magic.“

#506 More student successes

Posted on by

Recently, two separate students happily announced their successes in recent contests. I was very proud!

Join me in cheering for them below:

• Hagen Hohn, part of our ProProgram, won third place in Outdoor Photography Canada’s recent Spring 2010 Photo competition. And the photo (below) will be published in the next edition. Yay, Hagen!

Hagen Hohn

© Hagen Hohn

• Michelle Tardiff, who is a proud graduate of our photo courses was bursting with news. She says:

“It is with great surprise that I would like to inform you that one of my photographs was published in the Emerging Photographers issue of Photolife (Aug/Sept 2010 – page 40).

Thank you for coaching and mentoring me in photography.”

Yay team!

#505 Executive Portraits

Posted on by

I have been a little negligent showing some current work!

Recently, we shot a whole office of executives and support staff to promote their business. The session went well.

A peculiar thing happened: while setting up I found that two of the 12 staff had shot a hole-in-one. I was amazed! That’s 16% of the whole office – far higher than average. I was dealing with an exceptional group!

Executive Portrait Ottawa

Executive Portrait Ottawa

Executive Portrait Ottawa

Executive Portrait Ottawa

#504 Assignment Spotlight

Posted on by

Coming soon – some recent fun with executive portraits!

I am taking some quiet time over the weekend to charge the batteries. With the Preston Project, assignments, students, etc. I need a quiet weekend. Family (and clients) appreciate it.

#503 Student Success

Posted on by

I saw some work of Nathalie Madore – ProProgram graduate who took many of our photo courses over her year. I was so impressed with her progress I asked her to share some photos and her experience for the blog.

Nathalie contacted me in late winter 2009 about the ProProgram and started with some basic skills and basic photos. She worked hard and her photos developed very nicely as did her business sense.

Read her take on her recent work at the Quebec Games or jeux du Québec.

“It has been a great experience so far to shoot pictures for the e-magazine SDV*mag. Les jeux du Québec is a provincial competition every year and Gatineau is the host city this year.

I received a media pass through SDV and I am enjoying every minute of the games… even if the days starts very early and finish late at night. During the day I shoot at different locations and download, post process and write a small article for the magazine.

I am developing a new way to present sport based on my vision. Being a sport person helps me – I know what to look for. I have also met lots of contacts that help me get better shots. So far I love my experience and would do it again. I cover the event  until Friday then REST!

Nat ”

Nice work Nat!

Nat Madore - jeux du Quebec

© Nat Madore - jeux du Quebec

Nat Madore - jeux du Quebec

© Nat Madore - jeux du Quebec

#502 Toronto Photography Marathon

Posted on by

Sunday morning and we were half listening to CBC radio…

…And we heard about the Toronto Photography Marathon.
It’s pretty fun – 12 exposures, only, on 12 themes.

12 only?
Yep. The way to keep you honest is the 12 exposures are on one roll of 12 exposure film.

Oops?
Yep, a mistake counts.

I am a big fan of film. Of course I shoot digitally for clients that need it. We ran a prototype film course last weekend – stay tuned next summer for a film photo adventure.

#501 Photo Adventure

Posted on by

I went on a photo adventure over the last few days with a few goals in mind:

  • produce some new material
  • produce more stock/art based work using large and medium format systems (this means film!)
  • explore the Tremblant region for future work
  • a bit of R&R – they were long days of work but the most fun type of work!

I explored with a long time student who was looking for a photo adventure. Adventure we had – we explored and worked early mornings and late evenings with downtime during the day.

The sessions were filled with water, night lights, dogs, gardens, teepees and small adventures.

Stay tuned for more tales of the adventures…

Photo adventure

Photo adventure - night time shooting

#499 Power of the web

Posted on by

Ok, this has been on my list of blog posts for a while – here goes.

I do some work documenting artwork and also run a presentation called Photographing Artwork for Promotion – helping people figure out how to get better photos of their art when there’s no budget to hire me for the photos.

Both shooting and teaching the subject are fun and, quite some time ago I posted photo of a piece I documented of Fiore de Henriquez – she was an Italian sculptor living predominantly in London, England – most renowned for her bust work of prominent people such as the Queen Mother, JFK, Laurence Olivier.

Fiore de Henriquez

Fiore de Henriquez

I was also lucky enough to get to know Fiore a little – she was very good friends with my Dad’s aunt. Fiore passed away in 2004

I posted one of Fiore’s pieces I documented on the blog a while back. And sometime later I got an email from Texas  filmmaker – Richard Whymark – who was creating a documentary on Fiore’s incredible life.

He found me through the Fiore post and ended up flying north to interview my father and I about our experiences with Fiore.

It was quite fun to connect in Ottawa with a Texas based filmmaker about an Italian sculptor  – all because of a little blog post and google.

Learn more about Fiore and see some clips from the film project.

Thanks Google!