Power Smart

I was recently contacted by BC Hydro to do some photos at the local mill. For those of you outside my local area, the Catalyst Pulp and Paper Mill in Crofton is the largest employer in the Cowichan Valley. The energy manager, Edinson (Ed) Mahecha has brought the facility in line with ISO 50,001 certification, and BC Hydro wanted to recognize this effort. This means better energy management and efficiency. This is a good thing, since this mill uses more electricity than any other business on Vancouver Island!

For me, this was an exciting assignment. I had never been on the mill site before and once there, I was amazed by the scale of the operation!

I met with Ed for a few minutes before setting up to take photos. I wanted to get an idea of what gear I was going to be able to carry with me as this is a potentially hazardous work site. Lots of big equipment (even their own train and railway!) and things to look out for. So I went back to my van and packed light. Really light! I grabbed one camera, two lenses, two speedlites, and some spare batteries, and that was it! I really had to make it easy to move from location, to location quickly and without disrupting the work of others around me. 

The resulting photos are a mix of ambient light, in some cases natural outdoor light, and in other cases fluorescent, incandescent, or whatever they were, mixed with my speedlites.  

This shot gives you and idea of the size of the site. And this is just about one half of the site as seen in the photo! And this was one of the reasons I packed light. It was a six story climb up to the viewing deck...

This room was super loud! The sound of two, 14,000 horsepower electrical engines powering the pulp pulverisers.

This is one of the control rooms I got to take a look at. There's a lot happening in the mill for these guys to keep an eye on!

If you ever have the opportunity to go on a tour of the mill, I highly suggest you do it!

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Talkin shop.

Lately I've been thinking of some commercial sort of shots I'd like to try in a shop setting. I wanted to do something that looked more interesting than what you'd expect to see in your average car dealership shop. Lucky for me, my friend Todd has a Chrysler dealership here in Duncan and he was keen on letting me do as I liked as long as I didn't cause any trouble. As you might imagine, there are countless ways to get into trouble in an automotive shop, not to mention getting injured. There are power tools everywhere, splatters of oil and fluids here and there and big lifts with heavy vehicles being raised and lowered when needed.

So I promised to be good and made sure to communicate with the mechanics of what I was doing and to be sure that my gear was not going to be in their way.

Like most shops, the doors had nice big windows to let a lot of natural light in and there were big high pressure sodium lights above which just happened to be balanced to daylight Kelvin (warmth) level to make things easier for me.

One mechanic asked me why I was taking the photos of a shop and that he thought it was a rather boring subject. I told him that was the challenge. Make something really normal look interesting. Hopefully I met my goal. In the photo above you can see a nice tropical house plant riding shotgun in the passenger seat. The customer was having cooling troubles. Not good when you have a plant as a passenger...

Three of these photos were taken with a flash (speedlite in a softbox) to create a bit more contrast and detail. Two used natural (ambient) light to capture the mood. Here's the challenge: guess which are lit with flash and which are lit with ambient.

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It's the final countdown.

Yesterday Nina and I managed to get away for a lunch date. This was the first time in at least a month as she had been on bed rest for the past three weeks. Just last Sunday she was released from her bed rest confinement and now we can resume a more normal lifestyle. That is, until the baby does decide to show up.

So we headed off to Zanatta Vinoteca for an incredible lunch. Fatima da Silva is the chef there (when she's not busy at her own restaurant, Bistro 161) and she creates the most incredible food! The setting of the restaurant is incredible - a vineyard in the country, only five minutes outside of town, with rolling hills and views of the mountains. Not to mention, the weather was perfect - sunny, warm and a nice breeze.

I asked if I could come by later in the day to do some photos of Nina and Kole and was given permission to use the vineyards and farm.



I wanted to get one more maternity type photo shoot in with Nina since we don't know exactly when this baby is going to come out plus I wanted a nice summer look and to include our son Kole.

After lunch we came home and the weather changed. It became very windy. Actually the strongest winds so far this year. I was a bit concerned that this was going to pose a problem with blowing my lighting gear over but I was able to weight it down and all was fine. I have to give some credit to my light stand which was given to me from a friend at the local hospital. It is an old video camera tripod and it is incredible. I'll post pictures one day. It has a very wide stance which gives great stability. At least it was able to keep my speedlite and softbox from toppling over in the gusty wind.

Kole was having a great time running around through the vineyard. It was a challenge trying to keep his attention long enough to get him to cooperate for the photos but it all worked out. I just wish I had the energy to run around with him!

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Work with what you've got.

When life is taking you in the direction it chooses go with it and make the most of it. As my wife is now released from bed rest, we had a routine tests at the hospital just to see how things are coming along. Lucky for us this time, we had the testing done in a birthing/surgical room. Right away I noticed these cool lights hanging from the ceiling. They pivoted all around and you could focus the beam of light from wide to super tight spot light.

So I went about playing with the lights. Really I was getting some more maternity shots as we didn't get a chance to do that while Nina was on bed rest. With these lights I had fun adjusting the intensity and came up with a couple shots I kinda like.

This room had a great '70's vintage look with these light turquoise tiles and this wall clock. Again, all the lighting in these photos is from these surgical lamps and have not been photo shopped or re-edited at all.

I came away with a new respect for continuous lighting. However, I also came away understanding the limitations, such as heat they radiate and the squint factor (having a light shining in your eyes).

What could have been just another visit for tests provided some interesting shots that I would have missed completely if I had not packed my camera. You just never know what opportunities you may stumble upon. 

A couple evenings ago, while Nina was still on bed rest, Kole and I snuck into the back yard for a little fun. I just wanted to play around with some lighting using a speedlite and my softbox and get some silly shots of Kole and myself. I know the photo above is a touch out of focus and I'm over-exposed, but who cares. The photo is about me and my son having fun together.

This was Kole's turn to be a star.

And my turn for a great facebook profile shot...

So what if you are in a situation that you might not think is optimal for pumping out stellar photos. Work with the situation and you will come up with something. And chances are, the situation will be unique and you'll have more interesting photos as a result.

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All lit up.

Sometimes you hit a mark you've set and you get to check that off your list. Last week this happened for me. I was able to create this look I had been hoping to for some time. It came with some practice, a couple new tricks and another little bit of gear for my camera.

You can see in these shots of Ashley and Bryan that the background is under-exposed (darker) and they are lit to normal exposure, which makes them really stand out as the focal point. I also processed the images with a really warm tone which I am really liking right now. I think it helps to convey the emotional of the image.

The cool thing here is you can adjust the background exposure as dark or bright as you like. Darker is more dramatic and that works well for some images. I think its good to have a range though. You can easily over-do things with all that drama... 

The day before doing the portraits of Ashley and Bryan, my friend Daryl helped me get some practice shots as I didn't want to be testing new equipment and ideas with clients. The new gadget that makes this shot easier for me is a flash tether cord or ETTL cord. This allows your camera to control the flash from a distance and operate up to maximum shutter speed. Normally a flash will only operate up to a shutter speed of around 1/250th of a second. Not much good for outdoors in the sun. I had been using radio transmitters to signal my flashes but that requires running back and forth to the flash unit to make adjustments and they didn't allow the high shutter speed flash either.

Unfortunately the test shoot was short lived. The wind picked up quickly (see photo above - Daryl is holding the flash from blowing over) and the rain soon followed. So we packed up as fast as possible and I got a couple shots to make sure I was going to be ready for Ashley and Bryan. Now that I know I can achieve this "look", I have a lot of projects in mind!

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The long road.

Last Thursday I left for a little solo road trip to Seattle to catch a photography seminar from a couple of the best in the industry. Joe McNally and David Hobby were presenting the Flashbus Tour. A 29 stop tour across the USA in just over a month. I can't imagine how exhausting that is going to be!

Since it takes forever to get to Seattle from Duncan, on Vancouver Island, I had to give myself a day for travel time. The seminar was actually on Friday. I lined up at the Duke Point ferry terminal in Nanaimo and waited. So I set up my camera on the tripod and put on a ND4 filter to catch the motion blur shot above. Better than just sitting there zoning out...

Once on the mainland the next stop was the Peace Arch border crossing. I was happy to see a very short line and it only took about 15 minutes to get through. I took at shot of the beach as the sun was creating a pretty nice light and a shot of the border control station because it is so pretty...

After about an hour the weather got a little crazy. Strong winds, insane sideways rain, super darkness and the sun found a little hole to poke through to create this strange scene out the passenger side of my van.

Once in Seattle I located my hotel which was right downtown and very close to the convention center that I'd be visiting on Friday. The wind in Seattle was crazy! I have never seen anything like it. Stoplights were blown completely horizontal and my van was swaying in the gusts. When I checked into the hotel, the clerk said this weather was pretty normal and had been like this all day.

After settling into my room I didn't really feel like watching TV so I played around with my camera and a speedlite and came up with the photo at the very top and this one below. Guess where the speedlite is hiding...

Friday morning I got up early and went to the Washington State Convention Centre to get a good parking spot and walk around. I founds this interesting scene from the convention centre gardens. Looks like a bomb went off and the insurance wouldn't cover it. Really strange to see this urban decay right downtown Seattle next to multi bizillion dollar high rises.

Once inside the convention room I realised this was not going to be the most comfortable place to be for 8 hours. Shoulder to shoulder with 400 other people, mostly men, who all had their own personal smells and I can tell you they didn't smell better as the day went along. I'm sure I didn't either though.

The setup was pretty impressive two large projection screens and a large stage area to display everything nicely.

Maybe I should explain what the seminar was about... The Flashbus Tour is hosted by Joe and David who are considered lighting experts in the realm of speedlites (the small, battery-powered flash you ad the top of the camera). These lights are really great once you take them off the camera and use them remotely. This is when shots start to look professional. And who better to learn from than two of the best?

Joe McNally (below, left) is a photographer for National Geographic, Time, and Sports Illustrated. He has the credentials. He also uses a lot of equipment. But he gets the results!

David Hobby (below, right) was a news photographer for 20 years who is now specializing in portrait work and other high-end photography. He has a knack for innovation and using a small amount of equipment to get big results.

Between the two of these guys I came away with so much information I just can't wait to start shooting! The stuff I learned is definitely going to improve my game and help me take my work to the next level.

I highly recommend taking in some courses from these guys, or other top-end professionals to get your skill-set a little extra boost!

So even though it was a long drive, it was worth it.

Product photo art...

Product shots are sometimes boring to look at. For this reason I was happy to work with local potter, Hilary Huntley, of Trial By Fire Pottery. She's an artist who wanted an artistic way to show her fine pottery in print form. I was interested as I had an idea of what she wanted and how to go about doing it.

First consideration was to have the pottery look natural. Not floating in space like lots of product shots give the impression of. Hilary showed me a book with photos of creative teapots that had backgrounds that were really not flattering. Sure your eye was drawn the the subject but the background was so artificial looking. OK, so a black or white backdrop was not going to work here. We needed something more organic. A nice woven material worked just fine!

Then I had to ask - what level of detail to show? A shallow depth of focus looks more artistic but shows less detail of the whole product. Hilary chose shallow depth of focus. Cool!

I got to play around and arrange the items as I liked and it was fun! I've never dabbled in still-life shots but now I can see how it could become interesting. Some of the shots I got, in my opinion, looked like a print you might hang on the wall, more so than a product shot. This made me super happy and Hilary was happy too.

Another nice thing about product photography is the ease of taking the shots once you have the camera, lighting and other stuff set up. You basically put the product on the table, focus, shoot, and repeat. Well, it may not be that easy, but it's a lot easier than catching portraits of frisky dogs! :)

I could have gone into more detail of how the lighting and camera was setup but I'm not sure if that's what people want to read. Shoot me some feedback if you'd like more tech!

Is there a doctor in the house!

Today started off with a bit of surprise. Snow was falling and it was coming down hard! Then as I was about to run my son off to daycare, I received a phone call from my doctor friend, Maggie. She was wondering where I was. I guess there was some miss-communication and she and 15 others, doctors, nurses, techs and a mom with two little ones were waiting for me at the hospital for a photo shoot. The docs needed some stock photos to put in the Medical Post, the National medical magazine. Cool.

I had it in the books to do this tomorrow morning but one has to be flexible! So I rushed to pack my gear and my son in the van and hit the snowy roads.

I quickly realized I was not going to make time driving fast on the fresh snow so I slowed down and kept my cool. That is until I got to the hospital parking lot and ran with my gear bags in up to the new maternity clinic.

Once I arrived I was happy to see some familiar faces and everyone was relaxed. The room on the other hands was tiny. Maybe eight feet wide at the most and I had to fit 15 people in the shot. Hmmm... How to do this. The shot above is an idea of the confusion while I was arranging the lighting. I ended up using a shoot-through umbrella with my speedlite on maximum power which was just enough. The top photo is the end result.

Once I was satisfied with the group shot, Maggie asked me if I could do head-shots of the staff. Why not. So I had her as my test subject while I set up the lighting again. She was getting fidgety about the time as it took me about 5 shots to get things set the way I wanted. Then I had it. And after that I had the rest of the staffs' shots done on the first try and in about 3 minutes. Woo-hoo.

After I had finished packing my gear, another doctor asked if I could do the maternity shot for the clinic. But of course. I can't wait! There are going to be some great shots of moms to be, and moms with babies on display there soon...

So even thought the photo-shoot happened a day early, I made the best of it, people liked what I did and I made connections, leading to more great photo work. And to top it all off, I got to spend the rest of the day with my lovely wife Nina and have a nice lunch date! :)