Haitian-Canadian

There has been a lot of work in Ottawa following last months earthquake in Haiti. It even shook the Conservative Government out of it’s prorogation-induced,  mid-winter slumber. Canada’s Governor General Michaelle Jean is Haitian born, so the response from her was very emotional. Haitian orphans arrive in Ottawa a few times per week (or so) and are bundled into the arms of their new parents.

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Absent in Ottawa

I didn’t realize it had been so long since my last post until Nick Iwanyshyn gave me shit on my FB page. Not much has been happening and I didn’t want to be constantly boring you with Ottawa Senators’ pictures. Things have gotten even slower in the Nation’s Capital now that Harper took our ball and went home (or prorogued parliament) so work is pretty scarce. As I rock climb and snowboard away my idle days this winter, enjoy another image of Parliament Hill. I will try to get some interesting stuff up soon, I promise!

This image ran across the Country in a few dozen newspapers earlier this week.

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Home in Five

The Senators are in Boston tonight after winning their last five home games. Here is an image from each of those games. This post isn’t too inventive, but it’s all I got right now.

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Competitive Portraiture

Pho(blog)raphy has officially had over 20,000 total views! Thank you all for taking the time.

Back to the subject. I photographed Canada’s new Competition Commissioner  Melanie Aitken for the Globe and Mail earlier this week and was pretty happy with what I walked away with. She was a gracious and beautiful subject, even if she was a bit nervous. I had about 20 minutes after a bit of location scouting to get down to business. We used the boardroom, which can be tough to make a clean and contextual photo in, but the square patterned wall caught my eye as did the light design above the boardroom table. Repeating patterns and textures are one of the things my brain sees really well, so I tend to use them a lot. I used my trusty softbox was my main light source and left the rest to her!

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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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