The wind woke me up at around 4am this morning. With only a half hour to go before I usually get up, I figured I might as well take advantage of the day and see what I could find. Usually at 5:30am I am coming home from somewhere, this morning found me leaving my cozy bed and heading to the beach to get some shots. I love the long exposure ocean work that some people are so great at. What I find hard is that we don’t often have big winds in Vancouver, and it’s even rarer to get them right at the time of day when it counts. I got lucky this morning, it all lined up, along with a high tide to top it all off.
Enjoy the shots…
We are trying hard to stay ahead of the trends, which admittedly is probably keeping us just with the trends, and in some cases slightly behind the trends but miles ahead of the competition. What I am trying to say is that the advancements in the use of visuals in advertising and entertainment are so rapid it is next to impossible to keep up unless you are ahead of it and inventing the new ways of seeing. However in the interests of being as close to the technology as we can be, we work hard to continue trying new media and applying our award-winning style to whatever technology emerges. We believe this is keeping us ahead of our competition. If we can’t predict or invent where the next visual trend is coming from, at least we can immediately embrace the new trends and work within it’s constraints and opportunities.
iPads and other tablet technologies have opened a multitude of doors to visual professionals. One of them is the simple application of HD video where still images used to reign. Combining the two makes for a very interesting visual solution to creating imagery that first captures the eye, and then satisfies it with the image morphing into video.
Here’s what I mean:
A quick trip out to Steveston with family. It was cold. It was dark. It was the middle of the afternoon and it was getting darker. BUT, the opportunities for cool shots were everywhere. I love the shoreside in Steveston, very cool. Also, I promise one day to shoot a horizontal image. I just need to work up to it….
I took my camera along with me on a family weekend over to Vancouver Island. It’s not often that I would take the gear with me as more often than not I wonder why I am lugging this stuff along. But every so often something comes up that makes me thankful for whatever brain cell told me to grab the camera and a couple lenses on the way out the door. This past weekend was one of those times. Sunset, at around 4:00pm proved to be spectacular. That, combined with the stunning scenery we live amongst here in Vancouver made for some great pictures.
You like??
A couple days ago I opened a show of my newest photography at Film 2 Frame Studio and Gallery. Mark at Film 2 Frame has put together a great space in New Westminster for photographers who need rental space, darkroom space or want to put together a show. So the idea was that on his grand opening I would also have an opening of my work, and we could combine the two parties. Well it worked like a charm! We had a nice steady flow of people coming through and everyone enjoyed the space, the food and wine, and best of all my pictures! I had amazing feedback from people about all the work. Most of all though I was really encouraged by the positive reviews of my 3D imagery. I’ve already been asked to teach a seminar on the techniques, and people were very excited to hear that I was going to continue on with bigger and better 3D work in the future.
Thank you to everyone who came out, and thanks again to Mark for the offer to show my work! The work will remain up at the gallery until January 25th.
Here are a couple pictures from the show, and please check out my website for examples of some of the art that is up as well as all my commercial stills and motion portfolio.
A while back, when business was booming, and the Beastie Boys were top of the 8 CD changer we had in the studio that I seriously wondered what the H – E – double hockey sticks I was doing. I was a photographer. That’s all I ever really knew, and all I ever wanted to be. We were successful. We had big jobs, good clients, and generally we were rolling along being commercial photographers. We knew no different.
I remember thinking about it at the time. How photography had become a job, and not what it used to be, a passion. I used to purposely leave my point and shoot cameras at home when I went on vacation. I used to justify that to my friends saying that they weren’t bringing their accounting tables or engineering drawings with them on vacation, why should I be bringing my camera with me?
I used to have to set aside time to shoot personal work. I remember making a deal with Paul, my business partner at the time to put aside an afternoon a month to create personal imagery. An afternoon a month??!! I’m not saying what we were shooting was unsatisfying in any way, just that photography truly felt like a job.
Now? Now, photography is an absolute pleasure. It’s what I love dearly, it’s in my soul, heck, it is my soul. What’s interesting to me is that photography right now is finally as rewarding artistically as I always hoped it would be way back in high school.
I feel right now that I am more photographer than I have ever felt before. Thanks to anyone who ever reinforced that. I look forward to many more decades of being a photographer, and I look forward to sharing my art with anyone who cares to see it !!
Same wonderful light today that I see at the school every day. This time I took my real camera with me. Even though they are really just done for this blog, I’m kinda fond of these shots!
Sometimes things that inspire you, beautiful things, are right in front of your eyes, and you don’t even see them. Well, in this case, some of this beauty I see every day. The beauty of my kids school has been making an impression on me for 6 years. I finally took a few shots on my phone. I love the light, I love the architecture, I love the space. I love that place! It’s a wonderful school, and at 8:15am on November 1st, this is what it looked like.
A few will make it into my upcoming show for sure. Nice light this morning….
