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Edmonton wedding photographer

I have moved the blog from here to here

So If you are looking for a professional photographer, check out my latest work via the link above.

Thank you,


Jeff
Trident Photography

CASA Auction

I was at the CASA House charity auction this weekend, and I was astonished by the venue, which is a relatively new facility for hosting events. The Oasis Edmonton Conference Center will be high on my list of recommended locations for events in the future. The decor is beautiful, from the large Koi pond at the front entrance, to the stately conference rooms upstairs. This will undoubtably end up being one of the hot spots once word gets out. The other thing that really impressed me though was the courage of a young girl who spoke before the full house about how CASA helped her turn her life around. I mistakenly assumed that they only treated those with mental illness, the kind that was uncurable, whatever that may be. However they deal with all kinds of issues that affect us all. Depression is one of the highest causes of death in the 15-40 age group. Not to get too sidetracked, but the story this brave young lady told about the self destructive path she was on, of hard drugs and crazy living shocked me. She was only in Jr. high. Now, with the help of CASA, she is living the life of a normal teen again, getting great marks, and looking forward to highschool. She has her sense of self respect and self worth back, and that is the greatest thing that anyone can have. To those who were there, thank you for your generosity to this worthy cause. As always, Danny Hooper was a brilliant and hilarious auctioneer, a great time was had by all.

Jewelry Photography

I recently shot some pieces for a local jewelry designer for her upcoming web sales site. She will be promoting her custom jewelry via the Etsy site under the name of Red Ginger. Lighting for this type of work is considerably intricate when you think about it. I had the items on a piece of glass above a white cyclic, then I had a piece of black material for the immediate background below the item. To ensure the light wrapped the pieces effectively, I had 2 soft boxes on either side, plus a soft source underneath for seperation. Then I also pushed a hard source in from one side to model the piece slightly.

Childrens Miracle Network

I will be donating my photography services on Saturday, May 30 to support the Childrens Miracle Network. The Southside Costco will be hosting me somewhere near the front entrance, and I will be doing individual portraits from 9:30-6pm. This is the best way to get a $150 portrait session for only $20! That’s right, a mere $20 donation gets you a sitting, and an 8×10 print. All of the images from the day will be hosted on my website in the client area, so you will be able to see what images were taken, and order your print. I will also be offering additional prints online at a very reduced rates should you need more.

Edmonton Family Photographer

I went to do an in home family portrait session today way up on the north end of Edmonton. As usual, I had a great time making some wonderful images for the family, and making a new friend. I was trying to get a nice photo of an 'I'm tired of having my pictures taken' boy who is just about 2 years old. Fortunately, like everyone else in my family, he seemed to like it when I pretended to get injured. We were having a pillow fight with the cushions from the couch, and he would laugh and laugh when I would 'accidentally' drop the cushion on my own head as a cocked it back to throw at him. Somehow with all these shenanniggans, I was able to get some great expressions. I even brought the cushions into the kitchen where I set up a makeshift studio to do the family portraits to hold his attention. Thank you for the fun day, I see you have already marked 10 images as favorites in your online gallery. That is great.

Commercial Photographer

I was contacted last week to do the photography for the board of directors, and some stock shots for the annual report for AIMCo. So I went in today and spent the whole day photographing the staff and the board members as they arrived. As luck would have it, a couple of them managed to get in without me seeing them, so I had to wait until their meetings were complete to get the last few headshots. The real pressure came in when I had to get the group shot at the end of one of the meetings. Their meeting was running late, so I got a late start, and to top it off, the next meeting was already 15 minutes behind schedule. This left me no time to really set up a shot with everyone, so I quickly set up the tripod, and made this image (which is a composite), so that anyone who had to go could leave after I took their photo. The end result is fantastic. I know the client will be pleased with this one.

Photographing Realtor Headshots

I have had the pleasure to work with a bunch of realtors over the years while doing my photography. One thing I find that seems to hold true for most is that they like their photos on plain white backgrounds. I always suggest this for them as well, since it allows them to easily remove the background should they need to drop their image as an overlay onto a listing or other material. The key thing when shooting on white, is to ensure that your wrap is not too harsh. Many people think that it is easy to shoot on white, but in actuality, it can pose a few challenges. If you blast too much light on your background to make it white, and the subject is too close to it, then the wrap (that is the light comming off the cyclic and wrapping around the person) is so strong that it can blow out the details in the hair and near the edges of the subject. The other thing is making sure that the background is not left underlit, and therby going to an off white, or grey tone which can make the subject harder to separate from the background in the future. So here is a portrait I made for Nadeem last week just befor I headed out to Ontario for the Easter weekend.

Allergy Conference

I have lived with a rather severe nut allergy all my life. I don't worry about it too much, because the nut in question is the Brazil nut. Easy to identify, and not that common. My kids however have allergies to peanuts, which is a real shame. Anyway, when the director for Anaphylaxis Canada called me to see if I was available to make some images at their event, I was eager to go and check it out. There were some excellent speakers, and really good information there. I have always been a bit leery of the whole epi-pen thing, and would rather just 'wait it out' but after going to the conference, I am secretly hoping to have a reaction so that I can try it out. Sounds crazy, but I would have to give it to myself before I would be comfortable giving it to someone else. There were testimonials from kids who had to do it, and they all said it was not as bad as they thought it would be, and they felt better right away. One father who had my 'wait it out' approach but took his son to the hospital said that had he known how fast the epi-pen would make his son better, he would have done it right away. The 15 minutes of suffering his son had going to the hospital was way worse than the epi-pen, and once they gave his son epinephrine at the hospital he was fine in just a few seconds. So let that be a lesson to all of you who do have allergies, don't fear the pen!

Photography presentation

I was asked to speak to a group of people about photography about 3 weeks ago. So I agreed, and was a bit anxious about the whole thing for the last 3 weeks. I put together a short slide show outlining some of my work, then proceeded to get into the basics of photography and the terminology related to it. I have to say, it is certainly easy to speak to people who are engaged in your presentation. I fielded many questions, and had a great response form the group after the presentation. Sometimes I tend to take my knowledge for granted, thinking that if I know it, everyone does. It is nice to be tested sometimes, and come up smelling like a rose. I have had others interested in learning as well, so now I am considering doing more of this sort of thing.

Jeff

Childrens portrature

I was shooting a rather energetic young lady the other day, and it really got me to thinking about the difference between shooting kids and adults. With adults, the first pose or two are generally what I like to consider the warm-up poses. Adults tend to be more relaxed and take better portraits after being in front of the camera for a few minutes. Kids however can go a different path, being great right off the bat, and then tiring after a couple of poses, and becoming cranky and or restless. This is not always the case, some children need some time to get comfortable with you first, but the warm up period seems to be less. The key to children is to get down to their level, and be quick! They will hit an expression and then lose it in 1/10 of a second. Have your light cover a large enough area to be effective through a range of motion as well. They rarely sit still for long. And always have an interesting toy or object of some sort to get the childs attention. Here are a few of the images I did with little Tallia.

Aerial photographer

I think I must be one of, if not the only guy in town who has an aerial mast. What is that you ask? It is essentially a 50' tripod that I can errect, and then remotely trigger the camera which I can tether to a laptop. The top of the mast has a tilt and pan motorized head which is also remotely controlled. This allows for some unique veiws on things for sure. I was using it last week to shoot the new building for Westana Financial in Sherwood park. If you are a landscaper, or realtor, you would benefit from having this type of imagery to promote your product. Give me a call and I can do some amazing photographs for you.

Lens woes

Well, I was shooting a bunch of stuff last week on at least 6 different locations. The last known site of my 15mm lens was some images I took for a custom home builder on Wednesday, but then I was all over the city shooting at about 5 locations on Thursday, and I shot in the studio on Friday. Somewhere along the line I lost my lens. I called the builder, but no luck there, and I don't remember shooting with it after that, though it may have been in my gear bag. Long story short, I am out a $1000 if it doesn't turn up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

*UPDATE* I wrote this blog post yesterday morning, and by the afternoon, I got an email from a client that one of the sites I shot for them had contacted them about the lens. So I did get it back! However....this evening my daughter dropped my camera while we were on the set of a commercial, and broke the mont off my 16-35mm lens. So, I have to send it in for repair. Some things are just meant to be I guess. I would have posted some photos from the set today, but she dropped it 2 minutes after we got there so I have none.

It is official!

We got the parts! Jessica and I will be in the commercial about fire preparedness. So today I got to meet my "wife" at least on the set. Annette came over so I could take a quick "family portrait" to have on the set for added realizim in the commercial. I whipped this off in about 10 minutes. I was triggering the camera via a wireless remote which I am holding behind Annettes back. Why is it that I cant seem to get this good of a shot of my real family when I try this? Maybe I will have to try again.

Cool news

First, a bit of backstory. My daughter got an invite to a casting call for an up coming PSA. So I drove her over to the audition and while we were waiting the casting person asked me to fill out a sheet as well and audition for the part since there is a part for a dad too. I happen to have the same agent as Jessica (why not right) so I did the audition with Jessica. Well we were called back today and told we made the first cut. The director was very impressed with Jessica and her professionalism. So, if all goes well, we will be getting the roles for this commercial. Pretty sweet. I am excited.
Jeff

Copy Photography

Every so often I have to resort to copy photography to digitaize and reproduce a piece of artwork. This is usually when an item is too large for a scanner, or perhaps to textured. Size was the case for these 6 items which needed to be reproduced in a magazine spread. But photography aside, what struck me most was the content of the artwork. They were memorial prints from the Strathcona High School. All of these young men were in their early 20's. We all know that the war took the lives of many Canadians, but when you see their faces and the look in their eyes....it is very sad indeed to know all these young men lost their lives. I have a real soft spot for men who die in the line of duty, be they firemen, police, or soldiers, and shooting this was an emotional experience for me.

Jeff

Vacation

Well, I went with the family to Disneyland last week. This was the first time for myself, and the kids to go there. I have to say, it is pretty cool, but I am so glad we went in the off season. There were some rides that must have had about 2000 linear feet of winding line up space. Now fortunately, I just had to run through all that line space because there were no people in it, but I was still amazed at just how many people they can actually have waiting in the peak season. The longest we had to wait, was 1 time at a popular ride for 15 minutes. The rest of the time was all less than 10 min if we even waited at all. A few of the rides we just stayed on for more than 1 go round.

We also went to Legoland (which is where I have always wanted to go since being a kid) and that was really cool. The rides there are for younger kids, I would say 8-9 and under, which is fine for us since my oldest is 8, but the mini downtown they have built is spectacular. The other great thing is that there were even less people here than at Disney. Some of the rides we stayed on for like 6 or 7 times in a row.

Oh yeah, and the best ride ever is the in the California Adventure park, Bear Mountain river raft. What a riot! You do get wet though.

Jeff

Graduation photography

I was called up a couple of months ago to do some graduation portraits for one of the faculties at the U of A. Well, today was the first of 2 days photographing the grads. Things went really smoothly, and there was plenty of spare time. I will have to make a note of that for next year, so I can book more people per day, and do the shoot in only 1 day as opposed to 2. Hopefully I will do more faculties as well.

Jeff

Home sweet home

Last week I did a photo shoot for Canterbury Homes, a custom builder in Sherwood Park. I have to say that these are some beautifule homes and in an amazing area too. The lots here are huge, and provide nice privacy from the neighbors. This first home, at a mere million dollars, is high on my wish list.

Fastest shooter ever!

Well, I knew I was good under pressure, but just how good surprised even me. After getting a last minute call about doing some team photos, we decided the only time we could do it was just before the game. So I drove into the parking lot at 4:30pm exactly, and unloaded my gear, went inside, found the coach, set up some lighting that would make the tiniest and plainest dressing room look cool, shot 15 kids, then went out to the field and got the entire team photo, repacked all my stuff up, and loaded it into the van. I checked the time, 5:00pm. This is a cross lighting scheme I used on the players to make the photos look cool and separate the players from the background, and I knocked down the ambient light to mute the boring change room out somewhat. There is a softbox for the main, acting like a beauty dish to light the front of the kids.

Upcoming wedding

I did an engagement shoot earlier this week, in fact, it was last weekend. (where does the time go) Ben and Michelle came by and we stayed in the studio due to the brisk weather outside. Here are some of the images.

Family Day fun

Although I met with some clients today, it was not all work for me on the holiday. I took the kids to the community hall to partake in the Family Day fun event we had planned. There was tobogganing, hayrides, skating, and even some bread making on a stick, over an open fire. So being the social director for the community league, and a photographer is kind of handy. I got a few images to use in the newsletter, and post on the website. Here is what was going on in Yellowbird this fine day.

Ring Flash

Ahhh, the ringflash. This is fast becoming a favorite fad in the photography world, and there are about 50 posts on the flickr strobist group on how to build your own. I happen to have the Rayflash version, and I was using it to do something other than on axis fill. I was using it as a forground element to frame the photo with. Now this only works when using a really wide lens, such as the 15mm fisheye I was using, and even then, I had to pull the flash as far forward as I could in order to get the entire ring in the frame. I discovered this little idea on my Mexico trip, and I really like how it looks. Sure you could make white circles around an image in CS4, but something about doing it right there in camera is satisfying. These are a couple of shots of me and my wife goofing off in the studio with the ringflash.

On the set

I went with my daughter to her first acting job yesterday. She was playing the role of a child in the back seat of the mini van for a PSA for Alberta Traffic Safety. What I found to be most interesting, being from a similar field of work, was the number of people on the set. There were about 20 people there. From the director to the cameramen, the prop guys, the talent coordinators, the AV guys, and people who I didn't know what their job was. Regardless, I found it quite interesting. I am amazed at how much goes into making things look just right. As a photographer, I too am faced with the challenge of making everything and everyone look just right, however this difficult task is compounded by the fact that we are usually working alone, or with a very small crew. I feel a bit more enlightened, and proud of the fact that even though I usually work by myself or with one assistant, and there is a crazy deadline or the event is taking place on the fly, the quality of work looks like there was a team of people on it. Photographers rule!

Edmonton Wedding Photographer

This is Darwin. He is a fellow wedding photographer and member of the PPOC. We were on a conference in Mexico last week, and Darwin and I were roommates. We spent some time shooting between seminars, and these are a few of the images I made for him. I also discovered a new technique for using a ringflash which I plan to experiment with a bit more.