Sep
15
This weekend we did a photo shoot with our friend Jason and Lena from Jaylena Photography. We wanted to do an on location shoot and ended up going to Queen Elizabeth Park. The idea was to do a casual shoot with the “family” so the pooches joined us and we couldn’t have asked for a better day to spend out in the park. The clouds produced an amazing sunset and Jason and Lena worked their magic. Here are the results:
Sep
10
Today I did a shoot with Rhi Yee who is a model and hairstylist based in Vancouver. We wanted to have a raw, grungy street style theme, so working with Clara Chan (makeup artist) we came up with the concept of using an underground carpark with a whole lot of random junk to create a street felt set. The wardrobe was organised by Rhi and Clara complimented it with smokey makeup accented with blue/silver/purple. Clara did an amazing job with the makeup! You can check out her work here. Rhi was a great model to work with and she did the hair styling for the shoot as well.
The gas cylinders proved to be an interesting prop to work with and I love the silver material that I picked up. With some precise (and some not so) shakes and timing, the material caught the light and created a very cool metallic effect. The great thing about shooting underground is I have control over the light and it didn’t matter that it was pouring down rain outside! Kudos to Rhi and Clara for the awesome work!
This was also my first proper shoot with my new Canon 5D Mark II. This is one of the flagship camera’s from Canon and there has been alot of hype behind it. I must say… moving to full frame is an awesome thing, and the quality and sharpness of this camera coupled with the 24-70mm F2.8 and 70-200mm F2.8 lenses is a killer combination! I’ll write a full break down on my thoughts of the camera once I’ve used it for a few weeks.
You can check out the photos from the shoot here. Let me know what you think!
Oct
10
Today I did a collaboration TFP (Time For Print) photo shoot with Alice who was the model (IDÂ 786864), Eman the makeup artist and Victoria who was the hair stylist. TFP shoots mean that each person provides a service whether its modelling, photography, makeup or hair in exchange for prints to build up their portfolios. This was a great group of people to work with and everyone managed to have an equal input during the collaboration. I would highly recommend checking out Eman’s makeup and Victoria’s hairstyles portfolio on model mayhem (ID 771453 and 732652). They both did such an amazing job on Alice. Their attention to detail and creativity is unbelievable… I wouldn’t hesitate recommending their services to anyone at all.
 
This was a back to back shoot and the second one for me this weekend, so I was pretty tired by the end of it. It was a marathon 6 hour shoot which included 3 wardrobe changes and about 1.5 hours of preparation time for makeup, hair and wardrobe. The flow of the shoot went well and I am happy with the results… it’s going to be a marathon to post process all this stuff but here’s a quick sample from the shoot.
Great work guys… looking forward to working with you all in the future!
Oct
08
Today I did a photo shoot with Tash in a studio setup with softboxes and a black backdrop. I was using a pro series Canon lens (24-70mm F2.8)Â that I’ve used in the past for outdoor shoots and wanted to see how well it fares indoors. This is quite a nice lens because it has a decent amount of zoom and is very sharp because of the optics. It’s not too heavy so moving it around isn’t too laborious in comparison to when I use the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS lens! After a few hours of shooting with that lens, one arm is bigger than the other due to the extreme work out!
In addition to using this lens I was using a dual strobe setup with a medium and a small softbox which is used to diffuse the intensity of the flash and in turn wraps the subject in a softer less harsh light (hence the name). Lighting in a studio setup is great because you have the ability to control the environment precisely, whereas in real world environments you have so many variables to take into consideration like cloud cover, shade and reflections of light off windows etc.
For this shoot I wanted to do something colourful and fun so we decided to go with a flamenco style Spanish dress for the first look. I experimented a bit with trying to capture movement in this shot in addition to the traditional portrait style shoots. I must say it’s a very hard thing to achieve to say the least! Not only do you need good direction for the model, you both need to connect in such a way that they are able to connect with the lens and you’re able to snap the shot in the fraction of a second where everything is perfect and in place!
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Each photographer has their own style of shooting and post processing. One person who’s work I’m really fond of is Manny Librodo. His technique is so inspiring in the manner in which he’s able to capture so much emotion, glamour and passion in his work. He’s able to draw out elements of the subject in such a way that it becomes more than just a portrait shot, and more like a story. The vibrancy and colour in his work is just amazing.
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If I every get the opportunity to attend one of his workshops I would be over the moon, but in the mean time the web will have to suffice. I’ve tried to use what I’ve learnt from seeing his work to improve my own techniques in both shooting and also post processing…. And this is the final product.
More photos in the gallery…
Oct
01
Today I did a photoshoot with The Tavakoli Family Clan. Since my brother in law’s mother, Dianne was leaving for Australia on Monday, she wanted to have a portrait photo session with the entire family because they’ve never done anything like that before. The group itself was fairly large in that there was 10 people including the kids so we opted for an outdoor shoot in the George Wainborn Park located next to Granville Bridge. There’s a nice large water feature at the top of the park and it proved to be a nice location since there was a mixture of colourful flowers and an urban feel with all the concrete structures around the water features.
One challenge with this shoot was that the 4 kids were all under the age of 4 and had the attention span of an elephant. In order to made sure they were looking at the camera I had their parents stand behind me and call them to get their attention. Problem with that is each child looked at their own parent and so in some of the photos all four kids were looking at different directions! Having said that I managed to snap a few good ones and the final results are below.
I must say, it was fun shooting Keanna and Mya because they’re so cute… having said that I had to be quick because unlike adults they move so much and won’t hold a pose so if I wasn’t ready, I’d miss the shot!
All in all it was quite a casual shoot which was great because everyone was laid back and there’s less pressure to produce “good shots†in comparison to doing a wedding or fashion shoot. Check out the pics in the gallery!