Leading the Liberals

I photograph a fair bit of politics in the Nation’s Capital and for one reason or another I seem to photograph Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff more often then most. Also see Living in Opposition.

Portrait for Maclean’s Magazine – softbox high in front

Soup kitchen for Reuters

Daycare for Reuters

Farmers market for Macleans Magazine.

Scrum after a speech for Reuters.

He is generally pretty good to work with – although I am pretty sure he dislikes us despite the fact that he was a journalist once upon a time. His wife Zsuzsanna is great for just going about whatever it is she is doing while we are around. She acknowledges that we are there – she gave me an apple once – but understands that we want to be kindly ignored in certain scenarios. It is always nice going to Stornoway (the official residence) as their head of staff Joshua is always offering refreshments and fresh baked goodness.

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Tea with Chuck

Earlier this month Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, took an 11-day tour across Canada. I photographed him for Reuters at two of the stops. The first on Remembrance Day at CFB Petawawa and the following day at his departure ceremony.

Protocol said that we had to remain 10 feet or more in front of the Crown Prince, but as you can see from some of the pictures, we were much closer than that. A big thanks to Bernie for getting the officers at the base to agree to a media pool, otherwise their would have been no usable images!

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Rebounds and Reflections

I was on my way out to the Ottawa Senators game when I received a call form the Globe and Mail newspaper that needed a last minute photo. I diverted course to Barrhaven to photograph a real estate agent for a story on the housing market. The below picture was my favorite from the shoot – shot from outside his office looking in. I was to get the subject clear and sharp because I had to stop the light outside from hitting the window by blocking it out with my body. His head and the shadow from my lens hood overlap, allowing me to get a clear shot of him and keeping the cars and business park reflected in the window around him.

I was originally trying to use the black cadillac as my anti-reflection, but my shadow worked a little better.

This is the image that ran in today’s Globe and Mail.

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Back to School

As I walked across Paladium Ave to gate 3 at Scotiabank Place on Thursday afternoon it felt like the first day back to school. Did I have all my card readers? Did I remember the website that generates my code replacement for Photo Mechanic? Did I have enough CF cards? Will the internet work? Good lord. This is the start of my fourth-ish season shooting the Senators (my second for Reuters to go along the two and a bit I did for the Ottawa Sun) and you would think this would all go smoothly, but school never really went smoothly.

This image was one of the best images of the past 24 hours on the Reuters Pictures main site.

Ottawa Senators’ Chris Phillips (R) hits New York Islanders’ Tim Jackman to the ice during the first period of their NHL hockey game in Ottawa October 8, 2009. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

So, it turned out that the internet did not work. For anybody. Wireless or hard wired. But it worked all pre-season?! I was going to have to drive to Starbucks between periods to file meaning I would miss at least all of the second period. I eventually found a hard line that worked and made the in house technician aware that we were all F’d. We were all able to get our images out eventually. I even shot downstairs for the first time in a year!

This was the first time one of my Reuters frames ran in my hometown paper, the Woodstock Sentinel-Review. I am sure my parents and grandparents are pumped.

Ottawa Senators’ goalie Pascal Leclaire stops a scoring attempt by New York Islanders’ John Tavares during the second period of their NHL hockey game in Ottawa October 8, 2009. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

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Flaherty, Of Course

So, I did my first photo shoot for Canadian Business Magazine last week. I photographed Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in his office on Parliament Hill. I was give some vaguely specific instructions; head on, tight on head, nose in focus. The pictured editor joked that was starting to sound like a passport photo. I was told I would have 3 minutes, about 2 more than I was expecting.

I knew roughly what I wanted, but brought 3 different lighting kits just in case. I arrived at his office an hour early with my assistant Pawel Dwulit, who raided Chris Pike’s apartment for his lighting kit while he was out of the country (we later found out that the specific piece of kit I was looking for was locked in his car…Damn you Pike!), found the piece of wall we wanted and got setup.

In the end, CBM had a technical glitch and their system linked the page to the wrong image. The untouched, straight out of camera file and Flaherty is looking a little red and bright. That being said, I was not expecting a full page so it was still a welcome surprise. I can’t wait for my next shoot with CBM!

Aside: Flaherty was just named Finance Minister of the Year by a European magazine.

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Afternoon with Atwood

Maclean’s Magazine hired me to follow around Canadian author Margaret Atwood for the afternoon and into the night. She was launching the Canadian leg of the tour promoting her new novel ‘The Year of the Flood’ in Ottawa at the Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities. I followed her through the dress rehearsal and into performance itself.  The issue is on newsstands now!

Maclean’s Magazine used this image (in colour) full page inside.

This was my favorite frame. I was hoping for some one-on-one time for a cool portrait, but it didn’t happen. This was the frame closest to my idea. It was tough getting a clean background.

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Tombstone

I shot this image when the Nortel-Ericsson deal was going down this summer. I was much happier shooting the signage than shooting the committee meetings that ensued. I spent time lurking around the Nortel Carling campus trying not to get nicked by security, but didn’t make much more than the standard images. I liked this frame because it felt ominous with the sign rising from the ground like a tombstone as the last vestige of Ottawa’s high-tech scene died away. Luckily a schwack of the laid off Nortel employees have been offered new jobs from Ericsson.

Ps,  I got stung by a bee making this picture. That’s the last time I lay in a ditch topless.

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I have also posted a few more images from the summer to my Flickr account.

No News, Not Good News

So, yeah, yeah. It has been a while. Stop with the angry emails and harassing phone calls. Let’s say it has been a slow couple of months (re: very, m’er f’ing slow), like two jobs a week max slow. Thank goodness that people still get married in Ottawa and I am able to trick them into hiring me (http://weddingsbyblair.wordpress.com).

Here are a couple of news jobs that I had this week. I had to remember how to function as a news photographer and use a 300 again.

Sarah LaRochelle kisses her unidentified daughter during the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s annual memorial service on Parliament Hill in Ottawa September 13, 2009. LaRochelle’s partner Mathieu Emond died on March 4, 2008 when he became trapped in a burning basement in Varennes, Quebec. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper lays a wreath with Maureen Basnicki, who’s husband Ken was killed at the World Trade Centre, during a 9/11 memorial service in Ottawa September 11, 2009. The ceremony commemorates the eighth anniversary of the attacks against the United States that killed thousands of people on September 11, 2001. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

Hockey and political season are ramping up, so posting should become fruitful once more.

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Re-Patriots

This was my first repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton. Two soldiers were killed in a freak-helicopter accident in Afghanistan. All the other Reuters shooters were otherwise occupied, so they sent me down from Ottawa. Luckily I was able to steal a 300 mm 2.8 (the one I normally use was on vacation in Italy) from another photog while he was out of the city. I sat in my car on the wrong side of the base before I was finally pointed to the media staging area, then I got yelled at my a military police officer when I went into the wrong parking lot. Geez. Thanks to Luke Hendry and Peter Redman for walking me through the protocol and to the nice ladies at the Holiday Inn for letting me steal their wireless.

Honour guard carry the casket of Corporal Martin Joannette during a repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Trenton, Ontario July 9, 2009. Corporal Joannette was killed when a Griffon helicopter crashed during takeoff at a base in Zabul Province, Afghanistan July 6, 2009. Joannette was based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier near Quebec City. REUTERS/Blair Gable (CANADA)

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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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