Self-pouring Coca-Cola bottle
For the past few days a photo idea has been brewing in my head. My portfolio has been lacking product shots, and that's something I'm working on fixing.
I went to Canadian Tire and bought a very thin fishing line (.20 mm), a glue gun and a bottle of Coke. After that I went to London Drugs, where I bought some different coloured poster boards to use as a background. That was the extent of my shopping spree.
When I got home, I set up some lights in my living room (one of them being a snooted flash under the dining table), clamped a red poster board to a backdrop stand, taped and clamped a broomstick on half a table (don't ask), tied a piece of fishing line just below the Coke bottle cap (having already glued a length of copper wire to the bottom of the bottle) and put a glass on the table.
After some time practicing the pouring of the Coke, I put ice cubes in the glass, unscrewed the cap, and started shooting.
And just to make it look like an ad I placed some silly text on there as well.
My mock ad for a self-pouring Coke bottle.
Food photos from Nautical Nellies Restaurant
In the spring of 2010 I was working on my graduation portfolio. I had decided to shoot food, and my instructors (Andrea and Mitch) mentioned a few restaurants that I might want to contact. One of them was Nautical Nellies Restaurant. They graciously let me come in to shoot, and prepared eight different dishes for me. I used three of them, and they then got the photos for their own use. A win-win situation.
One of the photos even ended up traveling around Victoria for a few months on the back of a bus.
Fast forward to November 2011. I'm back at Nautical Nellies, and this time shooting at their request. Five different dishes - and a big portion of the two sushi dishes got eaten afterwards by me and Carrie, who was my assistant for the assignment.
If you ever get a chance to eat at Nautical Nellies, don't waste that chance. The food tastes as good as it looks.
Steak, crab cake and jumbo prawns with prosciutto wrapped asparagus, roast garlic crushed fingerling potatoes and shiraz reduction.
This seafood tower contains smoked oysters, crab claws, sushi rolls, steamed mussels, clams and more.
Lobster sushi roll with Atlantic lobster, baby shrimp, tobiko and scallions, topped with warm unagi and avocado.
A different view of the lobster roll.
DITL Esquimalt and Peninsula
I thought I'd start the new year by posting my last Day in the Life of 2011, this time a combination of Esquimalt and Peninsula, which I did last summer. Shooting a DITL series is always fun. Doing one in Esquimalt is completely different from one in, say, Saanich, if only because of the size of the area you have to cover. And then you have the Saanich Peninsula with the airport, the BC Ferries terminal, and a big, big dairy farm.
Oh, and happy new year to all!
Victoria International Airport, Thursday July 14th, 2011. 20:12 - Jenny, Jared and 18 months old Roland Cook needed a snack before taking a flight to Ontario to visit family.
North Saanich, Thursday July 14th, 2011. 17:53 - Michael Holst, manager at Pendray Farms, tube feeds a 12 hour old calf, who earlier that day had escaped out into the field.
Esquimalt, Tuesday August 23rd, 2011. 17:45 - James Ferguson, produce clerk at Country Grocer, enjoys the sun during a short break from work.
Sidney, Thursday July 14th, 2011. 18:36 - Constable Vanessa Fields, of the Sidney / North Saanich RCMP, signs in to the laptop in one of the RCMP's vehicles.
Esquimalt, Tuesday August 23rd, 2011. 16:14 - Wayne Young, apprentice mechanic at Lyall Street Service Station, replaces a tire.
Esquimalt, Tuesday August 23rd, 2011. 15:52 - Bill McCabe tees off at the 10th hole on Gorge Vale Golf Course.
Swartz Bay, Thursday July 14th, 2011. 19:14 - David Burrowes was waiting at the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal for the ferry to Mayne Island, and was killing time by solving a crossword puzzle and watching baseball.
Esquimalt, Tuesday August 23rd, 2011. 20:37 - Yan Demeules was playing pool at Tudor House.
Narnia: Taking photos inside a wardrobe
Near the end of October, Langford, BC's, communtiy theatre, Four Seasons Musical Theatre, opened their latest show; Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
They had gotten me to take promotional photos and headshots for them, and as it turned out I ended up shooting a fair bit during rehearsals as well (one of the reasons for that was that my son was in the play, so I was driving him there and picking him up anyway).
For the promo shots I brought in a white seamless backdrop and two strobes. I set up in the hallway of the middle school housing the theatre, and that gave my quite enough room to work in. The kids who played the siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy were a treat to work with (as were, in fact, all the members of the cast and crew), and the assistant director, Heather Senkler, made sure the kids' poses and facial expressions were according to what the production team had envisioned.
The Narnia logo as used on an insert for the show's program.
The siblings: Edmund (David Underhill), Peter (Harrison Kwantes), Susan (Veronique Beaudet) and Lucy (Lily Cave).
When it came to the headshots, there was one thing I knew I did not want to do: traditional school portrait style photos. Not for this production. Instead I went for a slightly darker approach. Or maybe a bit more than 'slightly'. I lit up one side of a person's face while the other half remained in the shade. And I had them turn the shadow side towards the camera. The producers liked the idea right from the start, Narnia being a bit of a dark story and all. Some people were a bit taken aback when they saw their photo on the back of my camera, but when all was said done, and the photos had been printed in black and white and put on display in the lobby before each performance, I think they liked them (at least most of them did).
Brian Thibodeau played the part of Father Christmas.
Erika Pryer was one of the trees. The part of a tree may not seem like a glorious role, but these were no ordinary trees.
Deanna Callander choreographed the show.
One of my favourite parts was shooting the dress rehearsal. I was able to move freely around the auditorium, stand on the armrests of the seats, roll around in front of the stage, and even stand on the edge of the stage (only on the sides, as not to cause too much of a distraction to either the cast or director Terry Rowsell), without worrying about obstructing anyone's view.
Shooting a live theatre performance like this one is a challenge. The stage is sometimes gloomy and almost dark, while at other times it's ridiculously bright. And I won't even go into the different colours of the lights. I set the white balance to 3500K about two (very orange) minutes into the play, and if I'd pick out a random photo from that night, it was probably shot at ISO 2000, f/2.8, with a shutter speed of maybe 1/125.
I loved every minute of this. Being involved with a group like the one around Narnia is... energizing, for lack of a better word. The cast and crew were about 60 in all, which is a huge production for a community theatre, and they did a fantastic job of entertaining each and everyone who came to wander the woods of Narnia.
Aslan (Dwayne Gordon) and the White Witch (Faith Bergevin-Beilin).
Mrs. and Mr. Beaver (Kathie Hunwick and John Cave).
Lucy (Lily Cave) has some tea and biscuits at Mr. Tumnus' (Jonathan Hunwick) place.
Aslan (Dwayne Gordon) and Edmund (David Underhill) talk things over.
Edmund (David Underhill) is scrutinized by Fenris Ulf (Amy Rose Hamelin).
Father Christmas (Brian Thibodeau) brings Christmas back to Narnia.
The White Witch (Faith Bergevin-Beilin) and Aslan (Dwayne Gordon) engage in a heated discussion about the deep magic of Narnia.
The white stag (Katelyn MacKellen) prances around the forests of Narnia.
I told you the trees of Narnia were no ordinary trees.
Some of the people behind the scenes: Roger Traviss, Marie-Andrée Rowsell and Michelle Buck.
Canvas prints and website changes
A little over a month ago I sold two printed copies of one of my favourite shots - the black, young ram, soaring over a flock of white sheep. Funny enough, they sold only two days apart, one was shipped to Germany, the other one to Florida. Those were the first "fine art" print sales I've had through my website, and nothing has come through since then.
So it got me thinking (which is, most of the time, a good thing).
Perhaps my photos, which I've put up for print sale, weren't visible enough. And then I found out that some people had actually had a hard time finding the images they wanted to buy (because they're not included in the gallery portion of my website - my fault entirely), and that's never good for someone trying to sell products to others.
So that made me remember that I used to mess around with websites. For a living. For at least a decade.
And I started messing around with my website. I ended up mainly changing the front page, so now visitors get a mini-gallery of ten randomly selected images, some of which are clickable, taking the visitor straight to a sales page. Whether or not that will work to increase sales, only time will tell. At least the front page looks better than it did (and that's a fact, not an opinion).
I also made some changes to the print site, adding a gallery with photos not from Iceland, and I decided to add canvas prints to the mix.
Oh, and here are a few photos that I haven't shown you before, all of them available in the printshop:
A couple crossing a bridge over Reykjavík's pond.
Sunset from the top of Haleakala.
Horse grazing with Snæfellsjökull towering in the distance.
Mt. Baker seen from Bear Mountain on Vancouver Island.