Prelim.

Preliminary Portfolio was due yesterday at 4. I put a lot of work and hours into it, but as I was editing I was getting more and more unsatisfied with the results. The only images I truly like are my opens, but I am most likely going to reshoot them so they fit my theme better in my Final Portfolio which is due at the end of the year. It's not that I think they are bad though, it's because i'm learning so much new shit everyday in class that images I shot a month ago I know I can reshoot better today. 

I learned a stuff load this semester though. I got a lot more comfortable with portrait lighting, and because of it I love portraits more than commercial. Which was the complete opposite of last year, where I loved commercial work but despised portraits. In post we got used to a ton more paper, and in digital class (as well as from one of my friends) my mind got blown with some portrait editing techniques. I also think im going to re-try to shoot my self portrait on 4x5 (I focused to much on the 4x5 aspect of it, and the lighting was shit), as I love the results a lot better than digital. I'll post my portraits from this year, but my Arch. And Food layout are definitely staying hidden in my hard-drive, as they are absolutely abysmal. Funny how much work can be summed up into 2.2 gigs worth of data.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait.

A portrait of yourself created by yourself.

Today our teacher decided to change that, and for our in-class exercise we had to take a portrait of a friend in class, with you directing them as if they were you. So more of "A portrait of a friend of yourself created by yourself."


Im usually a happy kind of guy, when im not insanely tired as I have been lately, so I decided to get Arthur to smile in my picture. I also wanted a picture of what he is like normally, so I told him my first few shots were "just to check out the lighting," even after I had finished it. I also used the same lighting setup that i've been using a lot recently, which is a strip in the back to light their back for separation and creating a highlight on their face on the opposite side of the main, while using either a Mola or Medium soft box high& pointing down to create rembrandt or short lighting. The first shot is Arthur relaxed, the second is me directing him to be "me." I found it to be a pretty fun exercise, and it was not to hard to direct Arthur as he is usually laughing about as well. In my opinion this assignment should have been given us in first year once we learned how to use the flashes as sort of a icebreaker, because even though I've known the people in my class for a year and a bit now, I learned a lot about them during this exercise.


I'm probably going to revisit this concept later and do a better job, as I only had 20 minutes to shoot, tear down, edit and submit. I really like the idea. Good fun. Thanks to Justin for assisting and Arthur for modelling.

4x5.

During my first year at algonquin College I hated the 4x5 with a passion. It was bulky, slow, and the pictures we took of still life and stuff didn't really show to me how awesome these films were. It was when i shot my architecture that I started to get a feel of how awesome it was. During the summer I was looking at some 4x5 portraits and was completely blown away, so when I got back to school the first thing I did was take the 4x5 out, and fell in love. The funny thing is, now some of the reasons I hated it are some of the reasons I love it. It is really refreshing taking one shot of a subject and location and making it good, opposed to 100 shots with my 5d and hoping as least one is good. Here are some of my first portraits with it this month. More to come... 

Richmond Fair.

Richmond Fair

         Finally back at school, which is super exciting. Get to see all my mates & profs, get to use all the gear in the ER & studio, but also getting some assignments. My first assignment was to shoot at the Richmond fair a few weekends back. It was pretty fun, talking to some interesting people, some goats, and just a day of having fun while doing "homework."

Beginning of the Fair.

Mr.Goat

           A couple friends from the program and I just ran around taking pictures of interesting things, sometimes breaking off, to go see different things. I personally got drawn to the whole bmx event. To be honest, when I first saw it in the distance I sort of laughed, thinking that it would be 14 year olds falling all over  but when I started watching I got put in my place rather quickly. The riders were doing flips, jumping over another rider that was standing, long story short: they knew what they were doing. It was really fun to watch. 

       After watching the BMX we went on the ferris wheel, took a couple pictures, met a few more carnies and other carnival goers. Including one guy who was very determined to show us his tattoos. (They were pretty cool though.) Took a couple more shots of the fair at night and decided it was time to head home after a success outing.

 Good food, fun rides, rad events, 10/10 would attend again.

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