Sorry for the delay posting this, summer has it's own time zone.
Every year I try to get out to Image Explorations for some intensive professional development. The school is held out at Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island - enough said. This year I took a program put on by Arthur Rainville. It's kind of difficult to describe what the course is all about, a lot of it is understanding your creative process and why you shoot the way you do. I have to count myself fortunate for taking Arthur's program as he won't be teaching again for a while. Joining me in the class were several PPOC colleagues and classmates from previous years.Despite the long hours and frequent shoots, I did manage to prep a few files while on the course.
We worked a lot on "unconventional" approaches to artistic portraiture, working with available darkeness, continuous lighting technique. Sarah was patient with all of us.
Many times I find myself looking for the perfect conditions to create a portrait. I learned that envisioning the final product first and then using one's post-production skills to facilitate that vision does have it's merits. Sarah again.
Shauna was leaning against the wall waiting for a few people to finish photographing her sister. Dancers just know how to stand the right way all the time.
Another example of creating portraits in the worst light of the day and completing the vision in post. OK, it helps that the school has so many great places to photograph. Shauna again.
Sophie is a friend of one of the guys in the class, so she came out and our group photographed her all over the campus. This was shot with an 85mm f1.2, an amazing lens to work with.
Sophie at the front gates, she is being lit by handheld portable lights.
This is a really tight crop from the original capture, the text works well in the negative space. Sophie had so much fun with us that she came back the next night for the Super Shoot Out for all 150 attendees at IE.
As is typical after going to IE, I came home with my head spinning full of ideas. I did get to try out some new stuff on Daneka's portraits, I'll get those up soon. So, to Don, Carol, Rocky, and the team that makes IE the special place it is every year; and of course to Arthur Rainville whose gift is beyond words; I offer you my heartfelt thanks.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with my colleague John Beesley. John made his way up from his home in New Brunswick to show us some techniques used in creating artistic portraits, basically extending your artistic vision beyond what you have in front of you. We all dove in to some of the new tools included in the latest version of Photoshop that are going to make our lives so much easier - Adobe listened this time out!
This portrait of Charlotte was shot in studio, then the creative process was unleashed to get it to this final result.
Allie was also shot in the studio, but the rest of the image was created after - not too many doorways like that round here.
This portrait of Brian was shot with just the modelling light from the soft box using a Canon 85mm f1.2 lens, incredibly sharp piece of glass
This portrait of Katie was done at Smeltzer house, we were combining natural and artificial light sources. Further proof that you can make nice portraits on the crappiest light of the day.
Another portrait of Katie, slightly different approach taken to the artwork.
For me, one of the most inspiring and energizing things I can do is to work with other photographers. The flow of knowledge, skills and vision running rampant in a workshop is amazing, everyone shares techniques. You can learn as much from the person beside you as from the instructor.
I am already planning to create some portraits using the techniques I learned at John's workshop, and I will be incorporating the new styles into my client work.
Recently, I was informed by the head office folks at the Professional Photographers of Canada that I have been awarded the designation Master of Photographic Arts (MPA). Hard to believe that only two years ago I received my Craftsman designation. The formal presentation of the hardware will take place next April at the PPOC National convention, but I get to use the designation right away.
So what does MPA really mean? It reflects the work of thousands of photographs, days upon days of intensive training, countless hours of service helping other photographers across the country, and the committment to always improve. It means that the calibre of my work is consistently high enough that my peers recognize me as a Master Photographer. It means that all of the investment has paid off, a signifigant milestone has been reached.
These are the four images I entered into the PPOC National Image Salon this year, and all four were accepted!
"This is Home" was done for the Zender family last summer on their new acreage. They have this fantastic fence around the property, and this spot overlooks a little valley and had great afternoon light.
I titled this image "The Blue Hour of the Day" inspired by a Lorna Crozier poem of the same name. This is two rows of aspens in the ice fog after the sun had gone down. It was a rather chilly when I photographed this.
"Pretty in Pink" shows what happens when you leave the photograph behind and make something else with it. I used a program called Painter to transform the image into a watercolor style. This is a lot of fun to do, albeit time consuming. All of the detail is brought in brush stroke by brush stroke, but each piece becomes a unique work of art.
This version of "End of the Line" is slightly different than the image featured in an earlier blog entry. For competition, I removed the edge effects to keep the impact on the image itself and not the treatment of the image. I still like the other version, I have it hanging in my hallway.
The judging at this year's salon was pretty tough. All of the images that were accepted had to be a cut above the work we normally deliver to clients. Participating in salon competition pushes you to create better work, stronger images, and that ultimately means the clients get better work from us photographers!
I have been making Art Cards with my aurora images for a very long time. In the last few years, I have offered four designs at a time - usually two horizontal and two vertical photographs. The presses would run, and when I ran out I would print up a new set.
I am now able to print in small quantities fairly economically, so that means I can change out the images faster or even produce art cards with specific images for one client. There is now a brand new batch of Art Cards featuring images 99S10055, 00S10038, 00S10105 and 04N214. Go back to the Northern Spirits gallery to refresh your memory. Also, this time I changed to overall design to the cards. The fronts have background images faded back behind the featured photograph. Yes, the insides are still blank and envelopes are still included.
This is what they look like:
If you would like to purchase Art Cards, or carry them in your store, drop me an email.
This is one of the images I am preparing for the PPOC Alberta Image Salon at the end of February. I have titled it "End of the Line". This photograph was made in Ensign, AB - just a little bit north of Vulcan. The railway car had been left on this siding, the tracks were in pretty rough shape. Typical of many rail lines in rural areas, this one is soon to be forgotten.
I really enjoy getting out and exploring back roads and small towns, I just wish I could do it more often. I usually seek out the forgotten and neglected, places and things long past their prime. There is a responsibilty to record and document our history before it vanishes from our collective memories. That is why I like old churches and cemeteries - the history.
"End of the Line" was created on the same excursion as "Left Behind", that's the grain elevator in the Fine Art Gallery. It too is located on a forgotten rail line in village that no longer exists. I often wonder where everyone went, and who remembers anymore. One day, I will finish following the tracks on this abandoned subdivision to record the remnants of once proud towns and lives. They deserve a voice, to know that someone still cares.
I've been shooting a lot of corporate portraits recently, plenty of folks updating their headshots. Many are repeat clients that will have new portraits made for new marketing campaigns or they have a new hairstyle. They realize the importance of that "first impression" image and how it should actually look like them.
Yet, I can look through real estate company directories and see photos that haven't been updated in years. I know of one company that has been using the same shots since 2002 - why is that? I know you don't look anything like your portraits, why are you confusing your clients?
So - when should you have new portraits made? If you have changed your look or style, changed companies, or are launching a new marketing program you should be getting new portraits. If you haven't had your portrait updated in the past couple of years, you should be making an appointment. It's fast and fairly painless, I try and have people out the door within an hour - I know how busy you get. After you choose your image, I will do full artwork and retouching on the image, and prepare a set of files for website, newspaper and print media usage.
