A Simple Portrait

I am a big fan of the Canon 5D camera.  It is a beauiful camera to handle and allows the photographer to produce creative images without being bogged down by poor design or functionality.

The Canon 5D was released over three years ago and Canon have this week released a news released for the long await successor.  I had read many posts about the future of the name of this camera - would it be the 7D or would Canon release two cameras (for example a 3D and a 5D), however they have followed the convention established for the 1D by naming this new camera the Canon 5D Mark II.

It is due in shops in November and I am very excited to get my hands on one.  It’s unlikely that I will purchase one straight away as I am very happy with my Canon 5D original, however, I also like to keep up with new technology.

If you would like to know more about the new Canon 5D Mark II then PDN has a gear guide review here and there is further information from Canon here.

Sharing a studio is a great thing to do and recently I had the pleasure of working with Ryan Dionisio.  Ryan shares my interest in photography and fashion and we set up a day of shooting several models whilst also working with two fabulous make up artists, Alyisa Hamilton and Vera Tsang.

Katherine joined us for the full day and she came fully prepared with a range of outfits, looks and ideas.  It was a pleasure to work with someone who was clearly motivated in fashion and wanting to produce the best images possible.

Check out the fashion gallery of my website for more images of Katherine.

Working with Steve Carty at a Vanarts workshop, I had the opportunity to work with Anna along with a brilliant make up artist and stylist.  Anna’s pink dress was phenomanal and she really carried off the look well.  I was very keen to photograph Anna in a range of locations and in particular I was looking for an old and new style cafe.  I found both and with the parking garage shots I think this small collection of images go well together.  Have a look for yourself in the fashion section of my website.

This morning I attended a workshop at Vanarts with Greg Gorman. Greg is an awe-inspiring photographer, he has great skill and a simple, patient and warm approach to his work. After looking through a slideshow of images (Leonardo Di Caprio, Al Pacino, Grace Jones, Christopher Walken, etc etc) from the late 1960s onwards, he then launched into his style and technique for creating studio portraits with three models.

It was great to see a master at work and to gain an insight into his work process and approach. Greg is incredibly thoughtful in how he lights and poses his subjects and he ensures that they are fully part of the image making process and not just a subject of his photography.

Greg’s lighting is simple and effective; it is the direction and addition/subtraction of light along with accurate exposures that are key his signature images. It was a pleasure to watch Greg at work and to learn from his techniques.

This image of Tuesday has been added to my fashion gallery and shows an excellent use of hard light when a particular style is required.  Tuesday’s image and clothing particular suits this lighting and I feel the triptic of images here shows off how well Tuesday poses for this high fashion look.

Today I have completed my work for Allison.  Allison is represented by the Liz Bell Agency and was an excellent model to work with.  These shots were taken during a workshop run by Steve Carty and in his words I was “killing it” with my lighting setup and photography (that’s good in Steve Carty speak!).  I was particularly interested and pleased with the hard shadows created by using just a single light and a 7 inch reflector.

Welcome to my blog.

My first post is to highlight some of the images taken at the end of June.  The first is a portrait of Joash.

Joash is a Visual Effects Student at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts.  He was on the Night Photography field trip with myself and Mary Jensen of Artisan Photography http://artisanphotography.ca This portrait was taken as I was demonstrating how using off camera flash (via pocket wizards), can change the look to a portrait.  Joash was able to stay very still during this short impromptu session and he made an interesting subject to photograph.  In this image ‘dragging the shutter’ was used to pick up some of the ambiant light in the background.

The second image is of Paola.

Paola is also a photographer and I had been keen to photograph Paola on a day when she was wearing the brown earings as she was today.  I had noticed these earing some time before and had mentioned to Paola how much they suit her and how I thought they would look great in a portrait, she agreed and arrived one day to a photo workshop earing the earings knowing I would be there with a camera.  I was also inspired by some images by a New York Photographer called Paulo Filgueriras http://www.paulofilgueiras.com who often uses small accents such as earings to help show off a persons features or personality.  I feel these earing are a great accent to Paola’s hair and really do suit her.  Paola was a great subject to photograph.  She has an excellent understanding of posing and made my life as a photographer very easy.  Thank you Paola!