POV

Dan Deveau (lifeinaflash.ca) let me tag along with him as we shot Laura and Trevor’s wedding last weekend. Check out the pictures and slideshow below.

Laura and Trevor

Laura and Trevor

Laura and Trevor

Laura and Trevor

Laura and Trevor

Laura and Trevor from Brett Gundlock on Vimeo.

I shot the L’Oreal Fashion week last week here in Toronto. It was…. long.

I filled 25 is photos from each show for the Post and the Canwest New service. After 5 shows a day, 5 days of shows- I filled 740 photos. That is a lot of skinny girls in big dresses.

Going into the event I needed to have a solid workflow. I was expected to send the images between shows, which was a 30 minutes.

My work flow (for you photographers) was very simple.

1. I made sure my exposure and colour balance was as close to perfect as possible. The light was pretty close the same for all of the shows, so that helped. I had the exposure and white balance to the point where I could have sent the images without any correction.

2. In Photo Mechanic, I ingested my photos into dated folders, one for each day. On ingest, I applied my caption through the IPTC. Before each download, I would change the name of the designer and collection that I was about to edit, so they would be ready to send after processing.

3. I would make my selects in Photo Mechanic and open them in Photoshop.

4. I would crop the image, then I had an action set up. It would do a small levels adjustment (to increase to contrast,) apply an unsharp mask, save the edited image to a folder (which contained all my photos ready to be filled,) then close the image.

This action really reduced my time in photoshop working on each image, speeding up the simple stuff.

5. From there, I would open up the folder with the edited images in Photo Mechanic

, rename the photos, then FTP them to the photo desk at the Post.

It was pretty simple, but it allowed my to file very quickly, moving a lot of images.

A model wears clothing from the Mango collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Monday, October 20, 2008.

A model wears clothing from the Diesel kid collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Tuesday, October 21, 2008.

A model wears clothing from the Carlie Wong collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Wednesday, October 22, 2008

A model wears clothing from the Evan Biddell collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Wednesday, October 22, 2008.

A man watches a model, wearing clothing from the Andy The-Anh collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Wednesday, October 22, 2008

A model wears clothing from the BUFFALO DAVID BITTON collection, during the Toronto Fashion Week at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, Thursday, October 23, 2008.

As you may or may not know, there was an election in Canada Tuesday, Oct. 13.

I was assigned to cover Liberal candidate Bob Rae, photographing his victory speech after he won Toronto Centre.

There are many rumors the Liberal Leader Stephane Dion will be stepping down after the Liberals poor showing in the polls. This man may be a front runner for the leadership.

Toronto Centre Liberal candidate Bob Rae enters a election wrap up party, after he won his riding in Toronto Centre in the Federal Election, at the Oakham House, 63 Gould Street Toronto, Tuesday, October 14, 2008.

Here is a good article, by Doug Menuez , about balancing what makes you happy in photography and paying the bills.

http://www.editorialphoto.com/articles/doug_menuez/

“To learn about longevity, it’s instructive to look at the great masters - pick any that inspired you in your early career or education. I doubt they thought consciously about having long careers. Instead they instinctively made choices that guaranteed that to happen. They were true to themselves from day one.”

This is a great example about how we as photojournalists can use photography to greatly impact the lives of people. We have a valuable skill that can be used for great things, and it is very discouraging when our routine work fails to give us this positive feeling of producing work that really matters to our subjects.

Check out Phil Hawkins story on how he created photographs and memories that will last his subject and client photographs and memories that will last generations.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=30985

This last month I was in Detroit photographing a community event as a favour to a friend. Yusef Shakur is an ex-gang member, who went from a gang member to a black revolutionary while in jail for 9 years, serving time for a crime that he did not commit.

He hosted an event with speakers, rap groups with a positive message, games for the youths and free school supplies for all of the kids in the neighbourhood. While he was looking at the photos- watching the emotion in his face was amazing. How can you beat that?

A young boy plays on an inflatable slide, during a community event for members of the community of "Zone 8", a Detroit gheto, that encouraged the strength of black people in the community, September 23, 2008, in urban Detroit.

A young girl looks through school supplies, while they are being distributed to members of the community of "Zone 8" during an event to encouraging the strength of black people in the community, September 23, 2008, in urban Detroit.

Three young boys sit on chairs, during a community event for members of the community of "Zone 8", a Detroit gheto, that encouraged the strength of black people in the community, September 23, 2008, in urban Detroit.

Yusef Shakur and his son Kobe, pose for a portrait, September 23, 2008, in Detroit. Shakur is a self described black revolutionary.

Tania and Diego from Brett Gundlock on Vimeo.
Portrait session with Tania and Diego.

We had a fun time strolling through downtown Toronto at night.

To view video full size click here

To find out more about my wedding photography, click here- http://www.brettgundlock.com/