Lobster on a bus
I was driving in Langford yesterday with my family, when my wife all of a sudden exclaimed "That's your photo! On the back of that bus!" I just caught a glimpse of it as the bus turned, but enough to recognize it. It was one of the photos from my school portfolio.
When I was shooting my portfolio, which was all food, one of the restaurants I shot at was Nautical Nellies in downtown Victoria. When we came there, they conjured up eight different courses, one of which was a delicious looking lobster and steak. And that was the photo that my wife saw on the bus yesterday.
The lobster and steak image I used in my portfolio.
So naturally I went bus hunting this morning, before heading to a meeting with former classmate Devin Milner. And while driving down Douglas Street, I caught sight of my photo on a bus. It wasn't too hard keeping up with the bus, and it finally came to a halt on Humboldt Street, where it seemed to wait patiently while I snapped a few photos.
And here it is, in all its glory, my first bus image. Some of my images are already on Nautical Nellies' website, but seeing one on a bus was a different kind of fun.
Nautical Nellies ad on the back of a bus, featuring my food photography.
Light from an umbrella
This spring we had an assignment for portraiture class. I can't remember exactly what the assignment was about, but my end result was this photo here of my wife Hófí:
My portrait of my wife, Hófí, where she's lit from inside the umbrella.
It was an overcast day, even a bit rainy if I remember correctly. So I decided to tie my flash to the inside top of an umbrella and fire it off remotely, the idea being that the rain was staying outside the umbrella, and the sun was shining inside it. I tried a few different compositions and also had my wife rotate the umbrella so that the flash was pointing at her from different angles. The photo posted here is the one I liked best and subsequently submitted to my instructor.
And I was thoroughly happy about it, because I had done something I had never seen done before, not in that way at least. Of course I might have seen something similar before and that mental picture got stuck somewhere right behind my left ear on its way to the rolodex that is my brain - but that's about it... I think.
And now for something completely... erm... kind of similar. Yesterday, I was trying out Seesmic Desktop, a piece of software which allows me to follow my Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as add some Twitter searches to follow. I punched in a couple of searches, one of which was "pratchett". Now, that search term might not mean a whole lot to people west of the Atlantic, but Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld books, is my favourite author, and I would say that his 65 million copies sold worldwide indicate that I'm not his only fan.
Well, that search term generated quite a few tweets, and somewhere in that haystack was a link to a blog post titled "Why I'm going to the Discworld convention". I clicked the link and to my amazed enjoyment (can I say that?) I saw a photo of Pratchett which reminded me more than a little bit of my own photo from this spring.
Terry Pratchett, my favorite author. Photo by Murdo Macleod, found on blog.dwcon.org.
Since Pratchett is also my wife's favourite author, we both found this quite amusing.
And one Discworld quote for the road, from Jingo: "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Danielle and Clint’s wedding
My good friend Mike Scheuerman offered me to shoot with him and Jennifer Schmidt at a wedding last July. I was happy to do that, if only to finally witness a Canadian wedding ceremony. Apparently they are a bit different from Icelandic weddings - and this one was quite different from what I've encountered before.
The wedding took place in East Sooke, in a backyard overlooking the water. My main assignment was to photograph the groom and the other guys preparing for the wedding, while also shooting the rings. I also shot part of the ceremony, and took on the role of long-range shooter afterwards. Right before the ceremony, I went up to a balcony and shot down on the ceremony, both with a 70-200 with a 2x extender, and the 24-70. The 70-200 and 2x extender combo gave me the opportunity to shoot extreme close-ups without intruding on people at all.
Anyway, I really enjoyed myself, and I hope I'll get a chance to photograph another wedding sooner than later.
Clint getting ready.
The rings.
- Clint on his way to where the ceremony was to take place.
The ceremony seen from above.
Danielle during the ceremony.
The newlyweds walking through the woods.
Just married and already fishing.
Icelander playing hoops for Texas in Vancouver
North-America is quite big. No, really, it is! So, even though there are a few Icelandic talents all over the continent, I rarely get a chance to see them.
So when I read on Helena Sverrisdóttir's blog, that she would be playing pre-season games in Canada I contacted her to find out if she would be in or around Vancouver.
For those of you who don't know, Helena is an Icelandic basketball star, who is now starting her senior year at Texas Christian University. She was league MVP in Iceland three years running, first receiving the award when she had just turned 17 years old. Last year she was Mountain West Conference Player of the Year and an Honorable Mention All-American. So, yes, an Icelandic basketball star - however strange that may sound.
She got back to me, telling me that yes, she would be playing in Vancouver. So I took my family over for a trip, and me and my son Márus (whom Helena had briefly coached back in Iceland) went to see TCU's final game of the trip, against University of British Columbia. Márus didn't know exactly what or who we were going to see. Throughout the day I gave him hints, and allowed him to make a few guesses. When we walked into the War Memorial Gym he asked me one final time who we were going to see play, and as soon as he had asked he saw a purple team standing by the bench. He knew the answer, and he was more than a little happy.
I took two camera bodies to the game and ended up letting my son shoot the second half of the game with my Canon 40D and the 85mm f/1.8. I used the 5D Mark II, and then switched between the 70-200 and the 24-70. The 5D is not exactly a sports camera with its 3 frames per second capability, but it is a lot better than the 40D in badly lit gyms.
When shooting, I discovered that I kind of miss being around basketball as much as I used to, and I also found that I would love to shoot more sports in general.
Helena Sverrisdóttir going strong to the basket after an offensive rebound.
TCU's Helena Sverrisdóttir driving past a UBC defender.
Antoinette Thompson.
Meagan Henson.
Helena going out of bounds with the ball.
Briesha Wynn.
Helena Sverrisdóttir (TCU) against a UBC player. Márus took that picture - not bad for a ten-year-old, eh?