Bluesix Creative, the wedding photography collective that I belong to is offering a special promotion on engagement sessions.

We are offering sessions at a rate of $100 on Sunday, May 31. And as an added bonus, if you reffer a friend who books, you will recieve a $25 gift certificate to Milestones Resturant.

Find more info- Here.

NPAC Day 5

Today was available light day. This idea was inspired by one of my favourite photographers- Don Weber (http://www.donaldweber.com) Basically I decided at the start of the day that I am not going to use my flash, no matter what the situation is (I would probably break this rule if I absolutely needed too, but I that would be an extreme situation.)

I don’t use flash a lot, except in some portraits. The cameras today can easily shoot at 3200 so it give a lot of flexibility in playing with different situations. But when I walk into an assignment without my flash my safety net is gone and it really challenges me to think about what I am photographing and how I am going to photograph it. It does not give me the opportunity to fall back on setting up two lights and making a standard portrait, or blasting the flash off the roof to make a photo, if I cannot find a cool photo.

My first assignment was a business portrait at a law firm on Bay St. I have been to this office a few times before for other assignments and I knew that they have nice art on the walls with pot lights highlighting the pieces.

I found a nice painting with a nice light, took some test shots of my hand and knew I could make a simple portrait there. I shot some stuff and that was it.

Brock Gibson, who takes over as chairman of Blake Cassels & Graydon L.L.P., poses for a photo in their downtown Toronto office, Thursday, December 11, 2008.

The law firm had their own kitchen in the office and they invited me to have lunch with them and the reporter- I quickly said yes. The food was great, a fruit salad, stuffed chicken and pecan pie- the benefits of this job are great sometimes.

I then had an assignment to shoot a portrait of Japan’s Flower Travellin’ Band. They are a wild psychedelic band from the 70’s that are doing a few shows as a reunion type of thing. I met them at the practice space and we made a few photos. They were really cool and if they spoke more English I am sure I would have been able to get some really crazy stories out of them.

L-R, Nobuhiko Shinohara, Hideki Ishima, George Wada and Jun Kobayashi of Japan

The photos were nothing to crazy, pretty straight forward, I just found some light and worked with it.

Front L-R, Hideki Ishima, George Wada, Nobuhiko Shinohara, (back) Jun Kobayashi, of Japan

And that was my day. Nice and easy and I made a few photos that I was happy with.

This is the end of my blog adventures. I had a pretty good week at work and I hope anyone that followed my posts got some type of entertainment or positive ideas from my words. I love seeing how other photographers work and I learn a lot that way, I am excited to read the upcoming photographers entries and look into their work.

Thanks to John Lehmann, Derek Woollam and Jacques Boissinot for making this idea a reality. I also want to thank everyone that is working on bettering NPAC and contributing to the site and organization to make it better.

This is a volunteer and user based community. The only way to make it better is to contribute in some way, even if it is as simple as posting ideas and thoughts on the boards. If we all sit around quietly and wait for someone else to do it- we won’t have anything.

Read post here

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.

View NPAC Post Here