#604 Sugarbush Photo Safari

Posted on April 7, 2011 by admin

A couple of weeks ago we visited Fulton’s Pancake House & Sugar Bush in the Ottawa Valley near Pakenham for a delicious photo safari.

Fulton's Sugar Shack and Pancake House

Participants arrived for breakfast and then warmed up their cameras to capture the sweet photos of the sugarbush.

Sugarbush Photo Safari - Ottawa Valley

People explored, clicked, and ended their photo session with a sleigh ride.

And then the photos came in. See the fun!????

We have another safari lining up for May – stay tuned – we’ll be announcing that on Monday.

Sugarbush Photo Safari - learning about sap!

Sugarbush Photo Safari - Ottawa Valley

What’s the difference between a Photo Safari and a Photo Workshop?:

• A safari emphasizes fun and friends with some photo guidance and tips included. They are short and inexpensive.

• On a workshop the emphasis is on learning specific photo skills. Fun is always included. Photo workshops are more intensive, longer and are usually more costly.

Sugarbush Photo Safari - Ottawa Valley

A big thank-you to participants, Fulton’s and Alain for helping pull this together.

Sugarbush Photo Safari - Ottawa Valley

Ottawa Sugarbush lines

#603 “Unusable stock photos”

Posted on April 5, 2011 by admin

Brian sent me a link to some “unusable stock photos” last week.

“What?!”

Stock photos are photos shot by photographers for the purpose of editorial, commercial or other use and usually marketed through a stock agency. The photographer usually spends a lot of time thinking about metaphors and building a photo around the theme.

Back a few years when stock produced better $sales I spent much of my time creating photos that had potential for sales. Some had good success. Some never made it.

The “unusable stock photos” have problems! Technically most are ok. They are exposed ok and are in focus but they lack in other ways – what do YOU think?!

Thanks Brian!

Harry Nowell.com Stock photo

#602 Canadian Geographic Contest Winners

Posted on April 3, 2011 by admin

In November I judged Canadian Geographic‘s Heritage Treasures of Parks Canada Photo Contest with Suzanne Morin, CanGeo’s Creative Directror and a rep from Parks Canada.

We spent much of the day narrowing the short list of ~350 submissions down to ~10 winners in three categories. The final selections were tough. Have good photos? Pitch them in one of Canadian Geographic’s contests!

The winner’s photos appear on the CanGeo contest page.

Past Canadian Geographic Photo Assignment

#601 Reader’s Photo of the Month

Posted on March 31, 2011 by admin

Last post we announced a new feature: Photo of the Month

We will be highlighting one of your photos every month with links and much applause. Just follow the guidelines and send us a photo. We will pick one and add some comments.

This was sent to us by KFPhotoArts, one of our students:

Photo of the Month - March

He says:

“I shot this image about a week ago while the moon was full and close; according to NASA, it was the best view of the moon in 18 years! Well lit by moonlight, my frozen fingers fumbled around at the switches and buttons as I adjusted various settings on my camera. The resultant image was good but didn’t capture the cold that my fingers felt that night. I wanted more, and so I continued tonight to add an artistic element to the photo to draw the cold out of my fingers and onto the canvas. My pick #77 of 365”

KF started taking our photo courses last year with the goal of pursuing an artistic line of work. In the photo above he has taken a raw photo and started transforming it with painting software. To be effective you need to start with a good photo!

His work makes me remember the ache of cold fingers – good narrative that adds to the visual art.

Good work!

Check the guidelines.

Send us your photo of the month!

#599 David Trattles Exhibition and Print Sale

Posted on March 27, 2011 by admin

Big news.

David Trattles’ award winning photographs come to Ottawa Studio Works for one night only – May 7th, 2011 from 8pm onwards. Boxing Ladies presentation starts at 9pm.

David’s show showcases out-takes from travels around rural Canada, Germans who live as cowboys in east Germany and a travelogue of panorama prints from a cycle trip in India.

David Trattles - Percé

The show will also feature a presentation of the Boxing Ladies, which is about the story behind the photographs of the girls who are boxing in Calcutta, and how the photographs were presented in the environment that they came from.

David Trattles - Boxing Ladies

Trattles spent months in Calcutta befriending the women and capturing their stories.

See the video below – in Hindi and English.

David Trattles has been photographing for over 20 years. He has been traveling, by bicycle, and working as a social documentary photographer. His work is about interactions between people, photographed from within the happenings.

His work has appeared in Canadian Geographic, Elle, MacLeans, the Globe and Mail, Arctic Journal, Canada Year Book and Ottawa City Magazine. His work was featured on CBC Television’s “Legacy: The Will to Survive”.

He is also a Master Black and White printer winning the Kodak Print of the Year Award in 1998.

In conjunction with the show, David will also be running a photojournalism and social documentary photography workshop from May 5-8, 2011. The workshop is a combination of in-class and in-the-field study focusing on using the camera to tell a story.

Sue Skillen, past student on David Trattles workshop glowed “I have not seen anything even close to this offered in Ottawa. David has an impressive history of capturing the personalities of people all over the world.”

Learn more about David, his adventures and the Boxing Ladies in a Canadian Geographic interview

Mark your calendars for the David Trattles’ workshop and David Trattles – Photo Exhibition and Print Sale in May, 2011.

#598 Road trip

Posted on March 24, 2011 by admin

This week, J David Andrews and I went on a road trip to investigate locations for the upcoming Landscape and Wildlife Photo Course coming up in June.

It was a fun day that included waterfalls, ice cream and we even got a brief glimpse of a bear, groggy from hibernation.

The purpose of the trip was less about shooting and more about finding a location that students wouldn’t have access to individually. We found a spot to provide privileged access to people on the course.

The re is currently one spot available. Please contact us to register. Please check our other workshops for other workshops.

On the trip I managed to capture a couple of shots of the inquisitive and unique Andrewsifus Photographes JDavid. He was quietly enjoying his natural habitat but once he detected me shooting he fled into the wilderness:

Andrewsifus Photographes JDavid

Andrewsifus Photographes JDavid

#597 Tips for “Getting your Photo Seen”

Posted on March 22, 2011 by admin

One of our students is working on developing his art work – we have developed a Custom Program – similar to the ProProgram to help him achieve his goals. Kevin’s work has come along way in the last year and we are now discussing non photo elements involved in promoting a show of art work.

Recently, we discussed what it takes to get noticed, artistically. Unfortunately, producing good work, alone, does very little to attract attention and a reputation as an artist! At our last session we discussed the process of developing a following, artistically.

After our session he sent me the article “5 Ideas for Getting Your Photography Seen“ from the Lightstalking website. And Kevin says “This is a lot of reiterating things that you have been pointing out, but it might be a useful article for your blog.”

And thanks to Kevin you benefit from his research!

Kevin Foisy Photo - Portrait Photo Workshop

In other fun news, another reader sent us a link to PerfectlyTimedPhotos.com – a fun distraction of what appears to be fun photos submitted by the public.

Have a fun photo related site or bit of photo news? Let us have it!

#596 Portrait Photo Class

Posted on March 20, 2011 by admin

Recently, we ran a custom photo class in central Ottawa for a woman who wanted to learn about portraits.

KL did well, starting with good photo skills. She had a few portrait elements she wanted to develop.

We met and worked with a few very fun models who were very willing to make our student work for her photos – see below. Ok, a skill testing question… How was this hair shot made?!

My job? Well to teach and assist KL which included making the models smile:

#595 Photography for Communications Professionals

Posted on March 17, 2011 by admin

There were some furrowed brows.

Then lightbulbs started popping.

And they finished the photography class with smiles (and better photos.)

Last week we took a group of Ottawa based government communications staff through a photo class – Photography for Communications Professionals – to help them produce better work photos.

Many of the participants were expected to provide good photos of events, meetings, press conferences as part of their jobs.

That can be scary!

We started the day in our studio and finished with some practical shooting in Ottawa.

“I very much enjoyed the Photography for Comms Professionals course. You were very conscious of the challenges faced by comms professionals and presented some great tips for getting around sticky situations…”

I’ve covered events in Ottawa for years – communications staff benefit!

Our next session is in November, 2011.

Event Photography - Daniel Alfredsson celebrates Royal Ottawa Hospital's 100th anniversary

#593 Intro to Studio Photo Workshop – Ottawa

Posted on March 13, 2011 by admin

Last week we ran the Intro to Studio Photo Workshop for two growing Ottawa photographers in our rental studio.

Both had some experience shooting and wanted to enter the world where anything is possible – the studio. In the studio you can control everything if you have the time, equipment and skills.

See student’s successes below:

Ottawa Photo Studio Workshop - student success!

On past studio photo courses we have had students who expressed ‘some’ interest in studio photography who got totally addicted. It’s infectious.

Ottawa Photo Studio Class - student success!

We start with the basics, build a trial set and then bring in some very willing models where I turned the studio workshop over to them. They built the set and produced the work below with our gracious models – Thank-you for providing the talent!

I was impressed for their first time in the studio. It was nice to see their smiles widen as their workshop successes grew.

Ottawa Photo Studio Course