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