NEW WORK TOY.

About a month ago I made the switch. I sold my Nikon gear to purchase a Canon camera. Couple of reasons for this, mostly cause I like what Canon has produced and want to inch myself closer to have a camera that also does video. The first real test for my new toy was a bachelor party at a cottage. Nothing like a stag weekend for a dummy test proof.

Driving out to the cottage playing follow the leader.


When we got there the party had already started.


But we wasted no time to bring it up a notch.




Something was funny or just the fumes from the chair.


Trip around the lake was a nice way to wake up.



I sat in front to get a good view.


Working weekend?


We had a better plan for a morning adventure.


Much needed supervisor.

Let's get us some wood. (cause we burnt it all the night before)


Man with his tool.



Supporting cast.


Weekend mascot. (And yeah, we're French)


We didn't start the fire, but the fire...

...and this little piggy never made it home.


A little self promotion.



Also took a couple of minutes between sips for one handed portraits. The other hand was holding my beer of course.












Conclusion: I have great friends and love the new full frame camera.

ARRRGGHHHH!!!

Here's a really quick look at what was happening at the studio last night. Much more to come next week.

MAKE ME LOOK GOOD.

Last month I got a call from Mike Tarp looking for photos. He's a pretty great actor and was hoping to get some photos for a website he'll be setting up. Mike has worked on films like Fear of the Living Dead, Family Biz and Seeds. Here's the old website, I'll post the new one and show more pics when it's all finished up.

We had exchanged emails a couple of times before the shoot and got a good idea of what he was looking for, nice, clean photos. I also had Ashley from The Dinner Jacket to help me out with make-up and styling.

BLAH! BLAH!

As a kid I always loved Halloween. Not really for the candy, but for the dressing up! Who am I kidding, I still love Halloween. Only a couple of days left and I still don't know what I'm wearing...a stress builds.

I was thinking of how I should start this post, as I knew I wanted to show pics from a collab with Dinner Jacket. We had a ball creating this creepy to psycho cereal killer theme. Looking around the web I found this costume...wonder if I have enough time to pull it off.

Thing is that I always out do myself every year, and I have to say last year was my best outing. Don't believe me, just check one out. Frank the baby model for Anne Geddes.


Enough about embarrassing myself, here's the photo with Matt for the Diner Jacket.

BACK TO BASICS.

So haven't blogged in a while, cause shit got busy. Work had been a bit slow for the fall, then all of a sudden the phone just started ringing. Which is always a good thing cause I can cut back on the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and head out to have a nice burger or two.

And had a scanner at the house, which meant get stuff done. Stumble upon these portraits I did in May 2008. Like of my personal work, it's sits on the shelf way too long. Here's a quick look of the photos before I start doing some post on them. Doing some fancier commercial shoots (which I love to do), it's good to have stripped done photos. Just an old camera, reflector and misses mother nature offering nice lighting.







And did one colour, just cause.

AD CAMPAIGN. OAIF.

Just got an email about the latest ad campaign I shot with Eric Shallenberg, Clare Brennan and Ian Driscoll (also Mayfair Theatre) at HBS Marketing for Ottawa Intertional Animation Festival. We had met late summer and they came up with this great concept, wanting to make people look boring, "Because life minus cartoons is just life". We did the photos during the fall, then handed them over for the crew to finish up the work.

Figured it would be a good time to show a couple of the ads about seeing this from Cartoon Brew. OIAF ran ads in all the local papers, postered the city, on the back of city buses and huge banner across Rideau street near Chapters.

These people we're all great, not that boring at all!!!

I'M A ROMANTIC.

So this morning, doing my little routine of waking up to music and reading up on some blogs. I've been thinking about writing up about this in a while and when I came across a recent interview with Sam Jones by Rob Haggart. For me this is a must read, LINK. Rob and Sam talk about digital to film and his tendency to use Canon's 5D Mark II. Here's my favourite quote from the interview:
"The percentage of bad pictures to good pictures is still the same and it always will be"

I don't usually give my opinion, but wanted to say something for while. Sometime I think there's too much hype about film. I don't know if it's this town or what, but I don't shooting film makes you a great shooter, or just because the photos comes out on a tangible piece of film it will make it better. By any means, do I think I'm a great shooter no matter what medium I use, I've only been at it seriously for a couple of years and been spending more time improving what I do than making the perfect pic.

Don't get me wrong here, I shoot film on a weekly basis. When someone ask me why I still shoot film, I say it's cause it feels more romantic. For the most part, I shoot all my personal projects on film and spend a decent chunk of change on it too. I'm actually planing a my travels to Normandy, where I'll probably only use my 4x5, Blad and some Polaroids. My mind just works differently with film.

Might seem like I'm contradicting myself, but there's also two reasons I tend to use film as of lately. One, is the price of getting a decent camera. I've been eying a 5D Mark II for some time and will still have to wait a year or so to make the purchase. The video option is something appealing to me and after playing full frame digital, I like the format. It feels more comfortable. I've never been real happy with the cropped sensor. Two, is the type of personal work I was doing, but as time is coming around I'm thinking of making bigger shoots with more lighting and production. Taking more time at seeing the scene in front of view away from the camera rather than behind it.

Recently I did a personal series on both digital and film, KISS fans. Digital won. I had shot both with my d300 and Hasselblad with the same lighting, compensating for ISO changes, etc. The film was flat and the expressions of the fans wasn't what I was looking for. Say what you want, but my somewhat good, somewhat shitty dslr was able to give me the right tools to work my models to get the expressions I wanted.

What I'm saying is that technology is changing and quickly. I probably won't stop shooting film anytime soon, but as gear gets better I will be leaning more and more towards digital. I'm really keen on the end product. Doesn't matter if it's film or digital, I look at what looks good at the end, if it's for web or printing. I shot medium format digital and 8x10, I like my photos to look good

I might prove myself wrong in a five to ten years.

couple photos I like and been posted before. Busy making stuffing for thanksgiving. I'll post new film and digi pics next week.

MA ROULOTTE.

Depuis que mes parents sont déménagés en France, tout ce qui me reste de tangible (à part d'la famille) à l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard est une petire roulotte à Abrams-Village. C'est un coin bien chouette, mais disons qu'en hiver ça risque d'être. Tout de même, j'ai aucun plan de la visiter cette année, à part de peut-être vérifier si elle est encore là.


D'ailleurs, je participe à une exposition assez spéciale vendredi. Un bon groupe d'artistes seront en monte à Canteen. Visitez l'invitation pour avoir plus d'info. Voici les photos que j'aurai d'exposées.

PEOPLE WITH TALENT.

Ottawa Magazine had asked me to portrait different individuals for the Fall issue that's out now. Every so often, I tried to freshen up my pics. Shooting horizontal a little more often, bringing flash outside, or just going crazy with fluorescent tubing. Sometimes I get the chance to do all three on the same gig.

CHRISTOS PANTIERAS


JACOB BERKOWITZ


STRAYOTIC


Couple extra options.

TREASURE HUNT.

I needed to find a photo that I did last winter. Well trying to find an old film photo in my house is like finding a banana in a monkey cage. Not sure if that makes sense although I do like monkeys very much now wonder how it would to spend a couple days...

So this is me trying to organize film. Finding what I want to scan in the next week, what should be properly showed online, if anything is worth showing in an exhibition.