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.

http://www.kurtknock.com/

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! :)

Making it happen.

I like to take time to talk to people when I'm doing what I do. You never know where the conversation will go. I did a photo of a popular local photographer, Paul Fletcher, a while back and we had a chance to talk. He's instrumental in the conservation of the Somenos wetlands in the Cowichan Valley as well as being a City of Duncan councillor. Busy guy doing things that positively impact us. Thanks to Paul's work, there is a great boardwalk at the Somenos marsh where you can view the wildlife and nature. I also found out he was behind the new dock on the marsh that I had taken a photo of last fall.



A couple weeks back I met with Damon Griffiths, a business student who was working on an assignment and wanted to interview me. He had to pick someone who had been in the news lately and contacted me so we met and talked. It ends up that Damon is learning all he can about business as he's one of the new owners of the Canada Building in downtown Duncan. Some of you will know this building has seen better days but Damon and his business partners have great plans for the site. He was kind enough to tour me through the building and he showed me a suite where there had been a legal office. It had a cool little board room with a skylight and a glass block wall. I had to get a photo of that! I'm hoping to go back there and use the room to do portraits for others. See the Damon sample shot below:

And this is why I love taking photos of people. You never know when you'll meet someone with a cool story or learn something great or just make a good connection. You just have to take the time to listen and learn.

A year of firsts...

2010 marked the year I got serious about photography. It definitely wasn't the year of first place finishes on my bike. I was ill and had back trouble so much going into 2010 that I was almost afraid to race. I hated not finishing where I once had and my ego took a beating! However, my camera was more understanding of my situation. It allowed me to be as creative as I could imagine. I have compiled some of what I consider significant points of the past year.

My first self-assignment was to do a kind of journalistic day of photos riding along with my brother in a logging truck. It was super fun and I actually sold some of the photos I took. I was hoping to shop these out to some industry publications. I had interest but they were not willing to pay for the images. Too bad for them...

My second challenge was a portrait shoot for some friends (Chantal S.and Chantal W.) from Coffee on the Moon. I was nervous as I had never directed people in this situation before. Luckily I knew them and they were great to work with. Had I been working with strangers it would not have been so easy.

Cyclo-cross season was super fun for me as a spectator this year rather than being pack-fodder in the race as I usually am. I love the action of the sport and I try to catch this in my photos. I'm really looking forward to the start of the mtb and road race season. I'll likely do a bit of mtb racing but I want to catch some great shots too.

The coming of winter marked the start of indoor portrait season. Indoor portraits take way more practice than I would have thought. You'd think a good camera will just do it all for you. Not... It takes a lot of experimentation with lighting and really getting to know how to work with you equipment in the environment or setting you have to work with. I love doing these shots as you get as much out of them as you put in. I know one could just set the camera to the auto mode and use the little pop-up flash, but then you'd have a shot that looks like they could have been taken by any amateur. It takes time, some lighting equipment, some research and experimentation to get an understanding of how to produce the type of shots that look professional.

My first exhibition of my work came a year early and I was so nervous as I wasn't ready. I had one week to decide which photos to show and get everything printed and mounted. It was stressful. But it worked out just fine. I sold several pieces which was great! I made new contacts and this leads to more showing of my photos around town and more clients. Thank you Dan and Leeanne from Coffee on the Moon!

For 2011 I have lots of goals and projects in mind. I love what I'm doing and am very thankful for my lovely wife Nina for putting up with me!

Time to get schooled!

Today I learned a lot. I learned that experience goes a long way. I learned this from Daryl Griffith, a friend and professionally trained photographer. Today when we were having coffee at the Moon, he offered to come over to my little studio and give me some pointers. That was the sort of offer you don't get every day - Professional advice from someone with years of experience! He even sat there as my photo subject while helping me along. I thought I new a bit about lighting. I was wrong. Almost all of my work has been outdoors thus far. Not much lighting needed there. But now winter is setting in and the studio will be seeing more attention and other indoor photo shoots are coming up so I am glad I had this chance to sharpen my skills.

This is the setup we were tinkering with today:

Here's to good people who share knowledge just for the sake of furthering the art! Thanks Daryl!

Going old school (film)

Today was my lucky day. I was having coffee with an old friend of mine and he mentioned his late father had an old SLR camera and he didn't know what to do with it. Just the past couple of days I've been looking at and considering a film camera to experiment with and now this comes up! Pete (my friend with the camera) offered the camera to me and I gratefully accepted. I really feel honored to receive what was surely a treasured camera to Pete's father. It is a beautiful circa 1985 Olympus OM-PC with 50mm, 1.8 and 70-210mm zoom lenses with filters.
I hadn't used a proper film camera since the Pentax K1000 back in 1988 school art class so there is once again a learning curve. Funny thing is, my last DSLR was an Olympus which had a unique way of displaying the light metering and this camera is no different. In truly quirky Olympus fashion the actual light metering is not shown but instead you get the suggested shutter speed. It works - just different from anything else.
This afternoon I went for a little stroll downtown and snapped a few test shots with some very old film that was provided with the camera so we'll see what happens. All I know is the camera sure feels nice! It is so small compared to my Canon 7D. It also takes me forever to set the camera up for a shot. I'll get faster but there is no way I'll be as fast as I am with the Canon. Also, it is strange not getting the instant gratification of seeing your photo on the camera display. I have to go get the film processed to see if anything worked. How archaic, yet it makes me look forward to seeing the results, somewhat like looking forward to see what is in your Christmas stocking.
I'm sure this camera will enjoy it's new home. And thank you Pete!