PULSE: Nightclub Photography

Did a job shooting PULSE with Laughing Buddah on Friday the 13th. Great party with great music and great people. The focus of my “assignment” was mostly to capture the vibe of the event rather than the typical photobooth style shots that most nightclub photographers do.

Since my 50mm broke when I was moving I was running with my 28-105mm and 10-22mm both of which worked well despite the low light and use of fog machines. Also used the monopod as a boom pole to get some cool overhead shots of the DJ and crowd.

Post processing in Lightroom saved me from the noise inherent in shooting at high ISOs but I’m definitely going to be replacing my 50mm ASAP as well as adding a strobe or six to my arsenal. I’ve got some neat ideas for rockin’ these kinds of events even more in the future. Stay tuned.

SPARTA!!!

This summer I took on the job of being an official shooter for the Montreal and Toronto Spartan Races for Nuvision Action Image. For the uninitiated a Spartan Race is sort of like a triathalon, only instead of riding bikes you have to jump over bonfires, crawl under barbed wire and battle past gladiators with foam staves. I hear at one event there were even paintball snipers. Its pretty extreme, but also in a spirit of great fun. Lots of people get dressed up in costumes and for every extreme warrior out to win there’s probably a dozen others who just want to have a good time doing something physical.

The first day in Montreal it poured rain for almost the entire race. They went ahead anyways and I shot, squatting in the mud with my camera in a plastic shopping bag. I think I endured about as much as the runners, muddy, wet and sore as hell after six hours of continuous shooting. At the end of it the sun broke through, we had a BBQ and headed home. Toronto was better weather, but there I got a sunburn after forgetting my hat at home. Still, great fun and great events.

Now because I was sub-contracting with another company and because they sell their images to the racers I can’t post many photos, but I’ll give you a teaser, just so you get an idea of what it was like. I plan to shoot them again next summer.

PoeCirque!

Just did a shoot for PoeCirque today and I’ve gotta say, circus people are always a blast!

Portraits/headshots are often an awkward, somewhat stressful affair, even for experienced performers. Its hard to know what to do with that unblinking glass eye staring at you. If people are nervous or unhappy it shows in the photographs. My job is much more than picking the right settings on the camera and snapping the shutter, its all about putting the subject at ease and making sure that everyone has a good time. Fortunately PoeCirque was all about having a good time.

Its was a simple, casual shoot, just the way I like it. A big piece of paper as a backdrop with plenty of natural diffused light from the windows of the dance studio. I brought my portable lighting setup but it was hardly necessary. My 50mm f1.8 gave beautifully sharp images within a nice shallow pool of focus. Shooting so many photos in RAW did tax the T2i‘s single processor a bit and I did have to switch memory cards at the very end to snap the last few pictures, but all went smoothly and we’ve got some killer images for their website.

All in all a great time! I hope I get to work with them again!

RealSign Shoot Finished!

I just finished a pre-holidays project for some old friends launching a new product called RealSign. Its being marketed towards Real Estate agents but I’m pretty sure it’ll break beyond that niche fairly quickly. It a cool little product that lets you sign and modify PDF documents securely without having to print anything. I was kind of amazed there wasn’t already something like it on the market when I found out about it.

The shoot went quite smoothly and I must say the Realtors turned actors did an amazing job and were very fun and professional to work with all at once – always a blessing. Doing a promo video for a computer product did throw me one or two curveballs though. Coming from a narrative film background I’m used to telling actors to “just type whatever, look like you’re doing something” when in this case it was actually important that they do the right thing consistently. Once we figured that out though things went smoothly (minus a blown bulb, but that happens).

This also marks the first time that I’ll be finishing a project in HD 1080p. To that end I bought myself a new 2TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive and I’ve gotta say I’m glad I did. HD plays off of the RAID 0, Firewire 800 enclosure even smoother than it does off of my computer’s internal hard drive. The huge space will also save me the constant frustration of having to clear my hard drive to make room for the next project, this will give me a lot more flexibility and soon I’ll be buying an external BluRay burner for finishing and backups. If anybody out there has any recommendations, let me know!

TED Done!

TEDxMcGill was a resounding success by all accounts. The room was packed with curious people, the stage graced by wonderful performances and fascinating speakers and a lot of my photos came out pretty well too.

It was fun running back and forth to get different angles, trying to anticipate the movements of the presenters and capture them just at the right moment. When you click the shutter and freeze someone in mid-speech you can end up with some pretty unflattering faces. It takes practice and concentration to each presenter’s natural rhythm and idiosyncrasies to capture the best moments. The 2.8mm lens I rented was amazing and it was great to get better acquainted with it in a real life situation. I think overall I underestimated its ability to produce sharp images wide open and shot too conservatively early on making it harder to freeze the motion in the speakers. By the end of the day I’d gained a new confidence in the lens and was shooting crisp shots with a huge aperture. I’m amazed at what this lens can do!

I’m happy with the results that I got but as always came up with a few things for future shoots that will make my life a little bit easier. For one I’m going to get a quick release plate for my monopod. Switching from shooting speakers up on stage to navigating the crowds in between sessions was a bit of an adventure with the monopod. I also bought a new 500GB hard drive for my laptop since shooting rapid fire RAW images on the T2i’s 18MP sensor fills up space pretty quick. I had to transfer a bunch of older files to my external hard drive before I could download and edit any photos which killed my workflow. Now I have room to breathe.

NEW PROJECTS!

Already I have a couple of new video projects in the pipeline – coming up fast! Old friends of mine from Calgary have developed a new gizmo for real estate agents, lawyers and the like to make their paperwork a bit easier. They’re launching the device in January and are hiring me to produce the video loop that will be playing in their trade show booth. We might make some other related videos as well for the website and other media. That’ll take me back to Calgary for a few days but I’m happy to do it, especially for old friends.

On the more creative edge I’m also working on a music video with the Montreal band ‘Ol Savannah. This is going to be a real treat since music videos are one of my favourite formats to work with. Its going to be a relatively simple 2 or 3 day shoot, next to no budget, but I think we can produce something pretty slick if we plan it out right. I’m working on storyboards right now and we’re hoping to have shooting done by the end of the year, though with this other project in Calgary also due by the end of the year I may have to stretch that a bit. We’ll see how the schedules for both the band and the guys in Calgary mesh up. It might not be a problem at all.

Finally this afternoon I’m having another writing session for a web series with my co-writer/producer Keith Waterfield. We’re working on story outlines and the script for a pilot episode. Both of us are pretty excited about this project and dedicated to seeing it come to fruition early in the new year. With any luck we can get some funding to produce the whole series, or maybe we’ll start playing with new Internet marketing and revenue generating strategies. I’d be very interested to hear peoples’ thoughts on that. Would you pay $1.00 to watch an 11 minute episode of a funny and well produced show? Would you rather watch ads? How about each episode is only released after a certain dollar value has been met in pledges? Let me know what you think, its a whole new ball game out there.

Pre-Show

Getting ready for my gig at TEDxMcGill tomorrow. Its a pretty prestigious event so I want to make sure I get everything right with the best images possible. I rented a 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens for the event and I have to say its pretty amazing. Incredibly sharp and incredibly fast. Already impressive at f2.8 throughout its range the Image Stabilization makes it possible for me to get detailed images from across the room in very low light. Its also produces great Bokeh which isn’t a big deal for an event like this, but means I can have a lot of fun with depth of field. I’ll also be packing my usual lens kit which I think will be more useful between sessions and during the reception.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to scout out the venue this evening with the rental lens and took a bunch of test shots to get an idea of my angles and the lighting. It was a bit intimidating at first, but once the stage lights were powered up things started to look a lot better. It’ll still be challenging to get a nice variety of images given the limited shooting angles, but I think it’ll be a great challenge. The foreknowledge of the space will be extremely useful. I can have all of my settings dialed in from the very first shot based on today’s tests so I can spend more time engaging with the speakers and finding the best way to capture them instead of messing around finding the right settings for the room.

I’m charging my primary and secondary batteries tonight, clearing memory cards and making sure that my pack is full of everything I could conceivably need. Hopefully I’ll come out of the day with more than a few great shots for TEDxMcGill and by extension my professional portfolio. I also get to keep the 70-200mm for the remainder of the weekend so I think Sunday might be a bit of a photo safari!

Looking forward to the talks. While I’m shooting I’ll be listening. There promise to be some very thought provoking talks.

Shooting at TEDxMcGill

Its a great honour to be chosen as one of the official photographers for the second TEDxMcGill conference. The TEDx series are independently organized events modelled after the highly successful TED lecture and performance series that takes place every year in Long Beach California and has gained a worldwide reputation thanks in large part to its website that provides videos of all the lectures and performances that take place at the event. This is only the second time that there has been a TEDx event in Montreal but already things are looking quite exciting.

I’ll be photographing presentations during the afternoon of the event on November 20th at Marche Bonsecours in Old Montreal as well as at the closing reception. This is the highest profile event I’ve photographed and I’m very excited to be rubbing shoulders with some of the best creative minds in Montreal. Its going to be a hectic day, but also a lot of fun. Once the event is completed keep an eye on my Flickr feed for photos.

TEDxMcGill is happening all day on November 20th. More information and advance tickets are available on their website tedxmcgill.com.