What can I say? This shoot has a special place in my heart! 

There's quite a lot of rule breaking happening here. I spent endless hours being taught to systematically remove colour casts, and here I am throwing them in. Well, that's the thing about rules--you know them, you acknowledge them, you give them a nod and then you do what you want. 

I am particularly fond of this one. Marita reminds me of Kirsten Dunst and it seems like the kind of pose Kirsten Dunst would do. It makes me think of that Liebovitz shoot (wait...I swear there were horses in that shoot...where are the horses?) or Melancholia (but much less serious and on a much lower budget). So if I think Marita looks like Kirsten and I always thought I resembled Marita, does that make me look like Kirsten too? No, I guess it doesn't quite work that way. 

I love the vintage look of these.
Something tells me Oma would really like them. 

There is always a lot of prep to do before shoot--technical prep like charging batteries and cleaning lenses, getting everything together. Then there is the prep that the model has to do. But then there was this whole extra step of prepping Khomille, Marita's horse. Brushing her down, trimming her whiskers (or not), cleaning off her feet, toweling her off, putting her "pretty" harness on.

Animals are always a fun challenge to shoot. They're never too sure why we are making them do things, and more often than not, have plans of their own. The best thing though, is when they do something that makes their own personality assert itself--like when a horse sticks its tongue out at you, or gives its owner a little headbutt.

It's the eyes, right M?

Congrats on graduating Marita! I'm very proud of you little cuz!

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4:24 PM

Just noticed I haven't posted anything yet for 2013. That doesn't mean I'm not shutter active. I am finally completing the final class of the photography program at Algonquin and shooting like a maniac. I've got the studio cleared out again after it became (..ahem) temporary storage. I'm looking forward to really turning it into a dedicated space and sprucing it up and hanging some work on the walls. Picking the ones to go up will be a challenge!

I'll probably need to create a new website for my class. While I like the blog format because it allows you to see what's new, it's not great at showing a full body of work.

One of our assignments is self-portraits. I've done lots of these (hey, when there's nobody else around, who's left to shoot?) but I wanted to go for something different, something odd and quirky...like me. I took the first shot in the tub, and I've been playing lots with superimposing and layering, and put some icy frost from winterlude over the top. I prefer the B&W but the bottom one went over better in class. I find it a little Avatarish (wow...that was a few years ago now!). Do you have a preference?

Next post will be less me and more other stuff...promise :)

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4:10 PM

A joy and pleasure to capture this beautiful family. The symbolism of the three of them holding each other hit me later...they are pieces of a puzzle that fit perfectly together.

Some people you can look at and just know they are happy. It shows and that makes this so beautiful!

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6:45 PM

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10:33 AM

You may or may not know that I have been geocaching for a while now. It's a hobby that combines a lot of things I like--puzzles, gadgets, nerding out, being outside, finding hidden treasure, being in on something that other people aren't in on.

I guess I should explain a bit so those who aren't in the know can follow.

Geocaching involves using GPS receivers to find hidden containers, or "caches" all over the world. People like you and me hide them, and people like you and me find them. Really, they are almost everywhere. You most likely pass by them everyday without knowing it.

This is where my project comes in. Some people own "trackables"; that is, something that they release by putting in a cache for someone to find and move to another cache. Its movement is trackable on the geocaching website. People often attach items to the trackable tags, like figurines, which they call "travellers." I guess it's a way to "travel" without leaving your house.

So I decided as an experiment to make a disposable camera as my traveller. The instructions are for the finder to take one picture and to move the camera to a new cache for someone else to find it and do the same. Once all the frames have been exposed, I'll arrange to have it returned to me so be developed and for the images to be posted online.

There is a lot that can go wrong here. Here are just a few:
1. It could go missing. Trackables often go missing if someone decides not to move it, or hangs onto it, or just plain loses it.
2. It could get wet/too hot/too cold. Which may result in interesting exposures, or might ruin the film. I decided not to get the waterproof camera because I thought the quality would be worse and it didn't have a flash....we'll find out if that was a mistake!

I'm going to release it very soon in a cache nearby. I'm really excited to see where it goes and what the results will be. Remember the anticipation of waiting for your film to be processed? This is like that but 100x better because I have no idea what the pics will be of. I can't wait to see how the film turns out!

If you are interested in tracking the progress of the camera, you can do so on its geocaching page:

(TB486YK) Travel Bug Dog Tag - Strangers Click Camera

I'll post the pics on here, when/if I do get it back, so stay tuned! It might take a while though...

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10:30 AM

Hey guys...is anybody still out there reading this? If there is, I'll consider it a minor miracle (and owe you a huge thanks) since I've totally been neglecting my blog. Here's a composite I put together the other day--one shot from the garden and one shot from just outside my work. Nothing too special, but I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can make my work look different from the next person's. And I've set the bar pretty high for myself so that I won't post anything anymore unless I really like it.
I know I can't promise much....certainly not a photo a day like some people do...but I am going to try to be a little more consistent!

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11:07 PM

Lightning is one of those things I have been wanting to shoot, but it's kind of hard to arrange, you know?
Last night was a bizarre night; there was lightning and huge clouds but not a drop of rain...perfect. I was a little worried about the camera getting a jolt (stand outside with a metal tripod and camera during lightning? smart?), but it was pretty far away. I would still like to shoot lightning again with some nice big fork lightning, since the one I got was just a teeny tiny little lightning bolt!

Sorry, I know the light trails are getting a little cheesy, but the foregoround was definitely less interesting without it.

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10:50 PM