Tuesday, Dec. 09

Fairly busy day today. Not busy with a million assignments, just some running around and stuff.

I started out shooting a portrait of Canadian Tenor Victor Micallef downtown in the Financial District. A lot of my assignments are in a two-block radius of Bay St. and King St. That intersection is the heart of the financial district and at the Post we do a lot of business portraits. The scenery can start to look the same and ideas can be hard to come by sometimes, but you have to be creative on demand.

The portrait was for a section on the subject’s favourite thing in Toronto and is illustrated with a portrait. I would rather photograph the subject when they are doing their favourite thing in Toronto, but that’s another story.

I walked around Micallef for a few minutes and tried a few different situations that did not work out to well. I found an alley that I worked with a little. I shot some stuff looking into the alley but then decided to turn around and shoot out into the street.
I was hoping to make a photo with the available light and blow out the background but I was having problems with that as well. I set up a flash which was a safe bet to make a photo.

Canadian Tenor Victor Micallef poses for a portrait on Adelaide St. near Bay St. Tuesday, December 9, 2008.

I made a photo close to what I was thinking; I was readjusting my light and looking at a different composition, hoping to have figures walking by on the street in the background, when a security guard came out from the building and told us that it was private property and we had to leave. Not sure what we were hurting by standing in the their alley- but it was their alley and we had to leave.

Micallef had to run to an appointment and that was a wrap on that.

I spent some time filing the 22 products that I had shot the previous day and then grabbed some lunch.

Working in my window office.

I then had to an assignment to photograph six winners of the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards. Not to much to talk about, filled the room up with light via my shoot through umbrella and tried to get a frame where they had their eyes open.

I was leaving the assignment and it was wet, but not wet enough to stop people from being out or me wanting to make a feature, but wet enough to make a photo. I drove by Yonge and Dundas Square to see if there was anything happening and there was a big lit up Christmas tree making a nice reflection on the wet ground.

At first I thought of just having a person walking in front of the tree, but the billboards around the square made that impossible. It then dawned on me, instead of fighting all the distractions- work with them. The photo is not perfect, could have used a little more room on the top, but I am happy with it.

People walk through Yonge and Dundas Square past a Christmas light tree, in downtown Toronto, Tuesday, December 9, 2008.

I shot a wedding last weekend so I spent the rest of my night editing. I love shooting weddings but I hate editing. I have some photoshop actions set up to speed the process up, it still takes forever.

Mark+Sam

Aside from that I decided to start learning to speak French. I brought an mp3 with me in the car when I drive around- I probably look pretty ridiculous talking to myself at a red light- whatever. And no, I am not ready to translate this into French.

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