Portrait Season

A lot has changed since I left the Sun last September. One of the biggest things (content wise) has been a significant decrease in the amount of news portraits I shoot. I used to use my lights, a lot, for everything, all the time. My new news clients don’t want that tight and bright stuff that was shoved down our throats. It use to be that if you couldn’t light you couldn’t work – now its if you can’t shoot video…

One soft box to the left of the archway and a bare flash sitting on the ledge behind him.

One direct flash trying to overpower the sun.

No flash, you can’t beat a lovely overcast day and a nice red wall.

One soft box high above him. I was thinking of Bill Clinton’s big knees on the cover of Esquire.

One soft box to the left, windows to the right. Shot from my belly.

I loved shooting portraits, and still do. So, whenever I get an assignment for one I try and step it up. A lot in the way I see scenes has changed since I fell in love with prime lenses, but they too have their downfalls. Stuff starts to look the same and you can get as pigeon-holed with a small depth of field as you can with the tight and bright action.

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Feats of Engineering v.2

I am back again with some Carleton University Engineering students working on various green technologies. I tried the “fire and explosions” line from my last post on these guys but had nothing for me. The assignment should have read, “photograph seven people in a cluttered closet”. It was a long narrow room with crazy mixed lighting and clutter everywhere! The only thing I could do was isolate the meticulous actions they performed to make their equipment work. No room for lights, no room to back up or crouch down or turn around…

Above, I made this dude plug-in and unplug a water hose from the water tank for a good 10 minutes. Below, this image could have been dynamite if the room was bigger and not full of junk…

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Feats of Engineering v.1

I have been working with Carleton University’s Faculty of Engineering for the last few years and I thought I would share some images I made during some recent shoots. I really had no idea what the grad students were working on or what kind of images they would make, so the first thing I said when I showed up was, “so let’s see some fire and explosions.” Happily, they said “sure” and led me right over to this puppy that burns gas and measures the fine particulate matter that remains after the burn. All of the work has to do with green technologies that the University is working on.

I used a slow shutter speed to bring up the ambient light values and gave the camera a bit of a nudge to give a slight ghosting effect. There is a flash (dialed down to it’s lowest power) sitting on the desk beside the subject to light an separate him from the rest of the scene.

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Minister of Dislocation

This Minister is s trooper.

Reuters sent me to cover a Rugby match between the Canadian Forces team and the Ottawa Irish Rugby Club on the front lawn of Parliament Hill the other day. Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay was playing on the Forces team. It was also pouring rain. I dug out my backpack-umbrella (if you haven’t seen me sporting this fine piece of engineering then you are missing out on a sight) and sloshed my way to the field. The game was fine and MacKay was pretty involved, making some hits, some runs and even diving into the end zone (is it called an end zone in rugby?) to score. The picture didn’t happen until the last play of the game though. The Minister is hit by or hits someone mush bigger than himself and dislocates his damn elbow. My luck isn’t that good. I rattled off a few frames before a big Irish bloke moved us all back. It even got some decent play in the papers the next day, thanks Joe!

Canada’s Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay is treated for a dislocated elbow he suffered while playing rugby with the Forces Rugby team against the Ottawa Irish Rugby Club on the front lawn of Parliament Hill in Ottawa May 27, 2009. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

Canada’s Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay (C) chants with Forces Rugby teammates before the second half of their match against the Ottawa Irish Rugby Club on the front lawn of Parliament Hill in Ottawa May 27, 2009. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA) 

Canada’s Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay (R) is hit by Ottawa Irish Rugby Club players while playing with the Forces Rugby team on the front lawn of Parliament Hill in Ottawa May 27, 2009. MacKay suffered a dislocated right elbow during the game. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA) 

 

The medics set MacKay’s elbow on the field and he posed for a team picture and did some interviews before heading off for proper medical attention. Cudos for MacKay for maning-up and having a laugh with all the lads before heading to the hospital.

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Hiding the Stars

The album Alchemist by the groovy, electronic-jazz group Project drops June 16th.

A good friend of a good friend contacted me asking to collaborate with other photographers to create artwork for his forthcoming album. A collection of photographers were asked to pick a song from the yet-to-be-released album and make a picture to illustrate the track. This was by far the most challenging thing I have done in a long time. I initially listened to two tracks (loud and with my eyes closed) and immediately saw a running narrative that went along with each song; almost like a music video or a scene from a movie with the soundtrack running. I had a very hard time distilling the moving narrative I felt into a single frame (I also only had 24 hours to pull it off which didn’t make it any easier). I came up with a concept for each song only to find out that art had already been produced for both them. One song was left, Hiding the Stars, the first ’single’.

Give the track Hiding the Stars a listen and see if you see what I saw. (This version is slightly different than what I heard)

I followed the same steps, listening to it loud, over and over. I realized that the scenes I was seeing matched up with what I saw in the other songs. Almost like the album was a ‘jazz opera’. I saw the same characters in all the songs. Hiding the Stars has a heart beat and a sense of motion. It was anxious and emotional. I saw the morning rat race in super fast forward with sections in extreme slow motion, almost as if individuals were trying to break free of it all. I saw a guy who doesn’t have a place in established society and doesn’t know what to do about it. Is he upset because he cannot fit in with the rest of society? Does he want to fit in? Has he broken free and can’t handle what is on the other side? Is he overcome with loneliness because he can’t find anyone else like him? Who knows, but this is what I had to think about when conceptualizing the idea.

The technical challenges were being able to create the image that I saw in my head in a short period of time with limited resources. This image was made near midnight after a few hours of walking through the Byward Market looking for inspiration. I used by 50mm f1.4 at f2 with a small softbox overhead. Originally I saw this in black and white, but I ended up desaturating the image by 50% instead. I also used the High Pass filter in Adobe Photoshop for the first time; I set it to a reasonably high number, dropped the opacity and fiddled around with the blending options until I found something I liked. Check out this months issue of Digital Photo Pro for a nice article on using the High Pass filter.

This was a big departure from the way I usually work. This was the first time that I wished I didn’t have the constraints of a still frame camera. I wanted the RED camera. I am inspired by the work that Vincent Laforet is doing with it and the way Esquire magazine used it to shoot Megan Fox for the cover. Maybe this is the next step.

 

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Maude and Me

I have another publication first. Zoomer Magazine, a Canadian lifestyle magazine that caters to a more mature and established readership.

A few weeks ago I was hired by Zoomer to photograph Canadian water-quality advocate Maude Barlow for their June edition. The only instruction I was given was to photograph her near water and try to incorporate a sense of motion in the pictures. It was barely spring and the article was running in the June issue (currently on news stands!), so no jackets, hats or scarves could be worn.

Maude was a pleasure to work with. This is my favorite frame from the shoot. Flip to the back page of the mag to see what Zoomer went with.

The Rideau Canal was drained so that was out right away. My next thoughts were to Mooney’s Bay along the beach and Britannia Bay along the rocks. A greta idea occurred to me, get Maude in a pair of big rubber boots and have her splashing through the water – her boots were at the cottage. So, we headed to Mooney’s Bay beach hoping that the ice had melted, and it had, leaving a big muddy beach to deal with. Maude had a phone interview in an hour, so we had no time to relocate. We had to deal with the mud (and the fact that she would be back-lit if I wanted her facing away from the water). I wanted to make simple, clean pictures – keeping man made structures out of my horizons as best I could.

This is what our shoes looked like by the end of the shoot. Mine have been retired. Lesson: carry rubber boots (aka Lanark County dress shoes) in your trunk.

 

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No Man in the Room

Last week I was covering the odd witness at the Oliphant Inquiry. Again, the inquiry is probing fishy business dealings between former PM Brian Mulroney and German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber.

Elmer MacKay (top), former Minister responsible for Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, is questioned by Senior Council Commission Evan Roitenberg (bottom-right) at the Oliphant Commission in Ottawa May 4, 2009. MacKay is shown on a projection screen via a live video feed from Halifax, NS. The commission is probing business dealings between former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA) 

Elmer MacKay (father of current Minister of Defense Peter MacKay) was in Halifax and was beamed in via a webcam for his testimony and we had to make some wire images from it. The camera system they used was very low resolution and the color temperature of the lights in Halifax and the ones in Ottawa were very different. I was filing the first image when KHS started scratching his head. Luckily I had a card in the camera that I picked up.

German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber (front) rubs his head while watching Elmer MacKay, former Minister responsible for Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, testify at the Oliphant Commission in Ottawa May 4, 2009. MacKay is shown on a television screen via a live video feed from Halifax, NS. The commission is probing business dealings between former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Schreiber. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA) 

 

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(house)Siding Light

Last weekend I shot a job for Maclean’s Magazine of Christine Jackson, executive director of the Canadian Skin Patient Alliance, in working in her garden. A few years ago Christine was gardening when she contracted a rash that caused her to scratch her skin so much that she bled. She has since recovered with only mild symptoms remaining. MM wanted a causal, action portrait – something that was real but was also a nice image of the person.

My first attempt.

For whatever reason I asked Christine if she would be around for the next couple of days in case I needed a reshoot. Good thing. MM’s design elements changed and they needed a more straightforward portrait. An hour later we made this image.

This was shot in Christine’s car-port. Evening light came in from the right side of the frame, bounced off the white siding on her neighbours home on the left side of the frame and make a beauty pool of light in her otherwise dark driveway. I asked her to move her car and shot it ambient. I couldn’t have made the same quality of light if I had tried. Now, I just need some sheets of siding in the trunk of my car….

 

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Slow Week

** UPDATE: stats form last week. 8 Reuters jobs. 2 Maclean’s Magazine + 1 reshoot. 1 corporate gig. 2 wedding meetings (1 signed). 1 wedding (Sat. + Sun.). **

No sooner had I expressed that things were ’slowing down in Ottawa’ to my friend Mitchell Brown than the phone started buzzing.

I went from having one assignment this week to having nine by dinner time – on top of various client meetings and a wedding this weekend. Stay tuned.

 

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Walter vs. the Toque

Last week was crazy-busy and the first half of this week has been just a nuts. I was literally running between jobs on Tuesday (4 for Reuters and 1 for the Toronto Star). I was going to throw in the towel when the Star called on Tuesday afternoon, while I was editing Tamil demonstration pictures, but I had to drum up some extra cash to pay my tab at the NPAC conference this weekend…

Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk wanted to meet the photographer that was up at 4 am the last time troops came home and he gave me a For Excellence coin from the CDS. He is actually pressing it into my hand while shaking it. I was very suprised and flattered that he gave a shit. Photo by Cindy Tessier.

I am always looking for juxtaposition.

Ruck sack versus Duty Free bag.

Corporal Bryston Cawley is greeted by his daughter Chloe, 3, and wife Rachelle. Approximately 60 Canadian Forces soldiers returned from a tour in Afghanistan at the Canada Reception Centre in Ottawa April 21, 2009.

 

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