PEI print is now on display.

Just picked up the final canvas print yesterday from Atlantic Photo Supply and it's now on display at the Dartmouth Chapters/Starbucks for the next couple weeks. After then both the Nova Scotia and PEI prints are headed to PEI for a few months. Plus I just setup a Facebook page for the project here.

GDC Atlantic AGM invite.

I am president of CAPIC Atlantic which is part of a national photographers and Illustrators association. One of the things I am working towards is to form professional networking group of like minded creative organizations. A chance to pool resources, network and talk about changes in the marketplace. One of the groups I have been talking to is GDC Atlantic or the Graphic Designers of Canada Atlantic Chapter. CAPIC was invited out to the social portion of their AGM which happened last night, it was a great time and I look forward to working with them in the future.

Final print is now at the lab.

Took some time to get the layout just right but now I'm just waiting on the proof print to review the color.

Personal work coming soon

I make very little distinction between client work and personal work. I consider them both equal on the To Do list. Client work always wins out when it comes to deadlines but personal work is keys to my business growth. Personal work is a true reflection of your level of creativity and skill. Client work is about meeting expectations and collaboration with clients, personal work is just your vision. January and February are slower then the rest of the year for me so it's when most personal work get done or planned. Finding models, locations and working out lighting all takes time. I have 3 maybe 4 larger personal projects planned for the upcoming months and I am very excited. They are very different direction then what I have shot in the past and I hope will show another side of what I can do.
Richard Avedon was a photographer that was not defined by what he shot last. He created fashion images, and changed the way fashion was photographed. He photographed regular people, politicians and the famous, he shot on-location, in the studio and on the street. From taking ID photos for the military, all the way to Vogue, Life and The New Yorker magazines. Many great photographers were just that, photographers, not calling themself editorial or advertising or fashion photographers. Others might have used those terms but not them. If you love photography and creating images why limited yourself. If I love to eat would I say I just eat cup cakes I'm not a cookie eater, hell no, from time to time I'd have some cookies. If I can point a camera at it and I can do it in an interesting way then I'll photograph it. I'm not putting a flag in it and saying I am only doing one type of photo. I'm in the image making business and that what I plan to do.

When did digital become the medium?

January and February I have a lot of personal work to shoot as part of my new direction with my portfolio. As I plan these shoots while editing film I shot last summer I wonder why so many photographers have turned their back on film? How did digital become the medium and not a medium? How is digital not another option photographers can use? Like saying I'll shoot 4x5 or 120 or maybe digital. There is no question that it has replaced 35mm, in many ways it is what 35mm was when it came out, fast, easy, very portable and easy to handhold. Auto focus did the same game changing thing, the level of skill need to shoot manual focus at a sport event was high. Auto focus come along and now any chimp can stop action. The interesting thing is that it didn't pull people away from large formats. It would have been easier and like too many people say "if you're only going to make an 8x10". Photographers stuck with other formats regardless of how easy autofocus was, but digital comes along and we're told everything is going digital. The first 35mm digital back was about 4mp or so and went on the back of a 35mm camera, forget selling those files today. For that matter forget selling the 6mp jpgs you took with the first round of 6mp digital cameras. You could shoot raw but who wanted to fill up a 512 card so fast or wait for the files to write. I have lots of great jpgs that I can only sell as low res. There was a lot of negatives photographers had to ignore to make the switch. And now that most are in to digital for big money and others don't even know how to load film who really wins? The camera companies (the large ones) selling me a new camera every 2 to 3 years for major coin. The labs, I do all the color corrections and file prep work, they just hit print. The photographer pocketbook supports more suppliers then it ever has. We could have had the best of both worlds but we picked the "easy and fast" option (so we thought).
Now this is just my view and I know some have never even used film and they may not see the point. You might say "Digital is here, I own lighhtroom and some PS actions and everyone on facebook thinks my photos are amazing", fine. That said, maybe you could have taken your work to another level? Maybe you stepped up to the camera and you didn't see the shot in front of you? Maybe if you had seen your subject in a square format, or upside down using a view camera, you might have got something amazing? Who knows what you are not getting?

Working with film.

Last year I purchased a small bar fridge and 120 film to use for some personal work I had planned to shoot. Much of that plan took a backseat to client work as I became busier then I had planned. Before things got too crazy this summer I did get a few shoots in and I shot both digital and film. I am just getting around to scanning the film now and I like the results. Film has a wider range of tones it can see. Digital is easier and produces more images per shoot, but I want the best image not the easiest. I scanned the film above on a Epson V700, I gave it a cooler tone then the digital file. I find the film held the sky and texture of the environment better then digital. This digital file was under exposed by at least 1 stop, which is why the sky detail is there at all.

Happy Holidays

I guess now we say Happy Holidays rather then Merry Christmas just to be safe, crazy. Anyway, for the first time in a long time my Christmas break was a break. I did some much overdue things around my place and went two whole days without doing any computer work. I got some great books for Christmas which I'm already working my way through. First is Avedon at Work: In the American West. This is a book by Laura Wilson who came along with Richard Avedon over the 6 years he work on the "In the American West". I find that I am more interested in how other photographers are as people then learning photographic techneques. I like to know how people interact, how they developed concepts and how they worked with subjects. Nikon or Canon?, how many lights they use?, where they put them? All of which are of really no interest, there are 100 different ways to light someone but only one real personality to capture. I find people get too wrapped up in lighting and flashes, it can be distracting sometimes.
Second book is A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005 by Annie Leibovitz I really enjoyed Annie Leibovitz at Work, which at first I just read a bit here and there, but then I read it front to back, really good.
I also received What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell I have enjoyed his other books just started reading this one, so far I like it. Last book is oPion$ the secret life of Steve Jobs ( a parody by the fake Steve Jobs). I read Inside Steve's Brain, which was really good.
I am working a on couple large projects that I will shoot in Jan/Feb, be sure to check back for updates.