To everything there is a season .....

I haven't added a blog entry for a while because I've busy with other things like a new website for my refocused photography business.  I say refocused because I think now that I am far enough advanced in my skills to embark on a path towards a photography business.  I've been circling the idea for too long.  A few months back I decided it was time to either fish or cut bait .... so I'm fishing albeit still off the company pier so to speak.  I'm not full-time yet but to everything there is a season.  

I engaged Gloria Roheim and Ricardo McRae to help me plan my social media strategy and develop a new website .... www.jimdawsonphotography.com TA DA :)  Ricardo amongst his many inestimable talents (he arranged the website development/hosting) also designed the graphics and my first email mailer, which some of you may have received.

The first graphic is for the website while the second one if designed for my news letters which by the way you my avid readers can sign up for here newsletter subscription link.

Gloria has been perfect for me with her mix of ardent task master and gentle and requent encouragement.  I'm like a piece of rope ... you get further by pulling me than pushing me.

I have a lot of work ahead of me as I build awareness in the community about my business and what I can do photographically speaking.  Gloria has set out a strategy for me and a list of tasks that I need to execute every week ... such as increase my social media presence on Facebook Jim Dawson Photography  and Twitter @jimdawsonphoto http://twitter.com/#!/JimDawsonPhoto where I need to sustain a concentrated effort to gain more followers.  As they say "there is an app for that" and it is called Hootsuite.  Think of it as a social media dashboard where I can monitor everything to do with me my followers and I :)

Now all I need is more customers ... HINT :)

BUT before I go I'll leave you all with a warning -- This blog will soon be defunct as I move to my new blog.  If you go there now you'll see all of the previous blog entries.  

I'll also leave you with an image that I did of my friend Alan who graciously lent himself to being photographed, because one cannot live by images of beautiful women alone.... :)

LG Fashion Week ... Beautiful Women and Haute Couture

Yes I'm back shooting LG Fashion Week from the riser with all the rest of the media types ... Media Types yes that includes me with my shiny media badge.  I'll be shooting on behalf of a fashion magazine devoted to all things fashion especially the creations of Canadian Fashion Designers.  It'll be a tiring week.  Going to work early so I can get away early so I can be on the riser for the 6pm show.  This will be a push since I work at least and hour and a half commute away from David Pecaut Square where the event is being held this year.  It is much better for me than last year when it was on the Exhibition Grounds.... YIKES.  I only shot one show last year.

This year I also have an invitation from Desia Brill of Brill Communications to shoot the Korhani Show.  Sweet.

This years line up includes Adrian Wu, Amanda Lew Kee, Anu Raina, Arthur Mendonca, Jay Manuel, Baby Steinberg, Bustle, Caitlin Power, Caroline Neron, Chloe Comme Parris (Sisters Chloé and Parris Gordon), Cydelic by Choryin (Choryin Choi), David Dixon, Denis Gagnon, Golnaz Ashtiani, Joe Fresh (Joseph Mimran), Joeffer Caoc, Judith & Charles, Juma (Jamil and Alia Juma), Krane (Ken Chow), Korhani Home,  Label (Shawna Robinson and Natalie Sydoruk), Lala Berlin, Lauren Bagliore, Lovas (Wesley Badanjak), Marie Saint Pierre, Melissa Nepton, Micalla (Camilla Jørgensen), Michi, Pink Tartan (Kimberley Newport-Mimran), Sid Neigum, Tosca Delfino, and Vawk (Sunny Fong).

I'm hoping and am looking forward to seeing some great designs brought down the runway this season.  Umph who would have thought that the skinny kid from Churchill High School in Winnipeg would be so excited to have the opportunity to photograph beautiful women in gorgeous designs.  I wonder what the washed up jocks thinking of their glory days are doing now ;)

Here are a few images from past Fashion Weeks.  Stay tuned for more from this years Spring Summer Collections. 

 

A few more images from Ireland

kind of a low energy day today.  It has been cold and rainy here and to top it off I'm fighting off a cold.  I think it may have been all that canned air on the trip back to Toronto.  There were a number of people coughing in the general area of my seat.  Oh well.  It'll be gone in another day.  Today I should have been working on images from a shoot I did before I went away.  Tomorrow I'll put the push on to finish them up.

In the meantime in the last post I mentioned that I would post a few more images from the trip.  Here you go.  I hope you enjoy them.  The first image is of the Harbour Lighthouse in Howt, a fishing town on the east side of Ireland.  The second image is of part of the ornate fence that surrounds Trinty College In Dublin.  I snapped this while waiting for a street light to change

Back from Ireland ... again

The time spent in Ireland either the North or the Republic is always too short.  This time was unlike other times since we spent most of our time walking around Dublin or joining in on a Hop On Hop Off bus tours of the city.  We also went on a small day trip along the 'south coast' of Ireland and then the 'north coast'.  These are misnomers considering on the south coast tour we never traveled farther south than County Wicklow.  The point of the tour to Wicklow was to visit Powercourt.  Powercourt is one of Ireland's and indeed one of Europe's great treasures.  It is Ireland's most famous House and Gardens.  I'll post some of the photos from the grounds and gardens in another post.  We also visited Marino Casino located oddly enough in Marino, Dublin.  The casino (the diminutive form of the 18C Italian word 'Casa', meaning 'House', thus 'Little House' and not a gambling den),was designed by Scottish architect Sir William Chambers for James Caulfeild, the 1st Earl of Charlemont, starting in the late 1750s and finishing around 1775.  It is a marvelous piece of architecture and perfect example of Neo-Classical architecture.  More to come here too, although the photos aren't more than average so perhaps they won't be posted... we'll see.

On Saturday we traveled up to Belfast by train to visit with a whole gaggle of cousins... had wonderful 'craic' and food at the Fitz William Hotel.  Nice place.  I'd recommend it.  We stayed overnight in Belfast and traveled back by train again.  I'd highly recommend the train if you have time.  I'd also recommend using the train as a great way to get around both the North of Ireland and the Republic.  Both also have a wonderful bus system that caters to people who want to do day or overnight trips to various places.  Hmmm perhaps I could pitch this as a travel assignment ... hmmm.

While I am pondering that you can ponder the photographs below.  The first is the Ha'Penny Bridge, officially the Liffey Bridge.  It is a pedestrian bridge built in 1816 over the River Liffey in Dublin.  The other image is on an interesting portion of the new Samuel Beckett Bridge designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava.  The shape of the spar and its cables is said to evoke an image of a harp lying on its edge.  The bridge was officially opened to pedestrians on 10 December 2009 by Dublin Lord Mayor, Emer Costello and to road traffic on 11 December, 2009. 

Hope you like the photos.  I don't have many from the trip but I'll post a few more.

Off to Ireland ....Once again

Once again we are off to Ireland.  First Dublin and then Belfast.  Whilst in Dublin we'll hit the National Gallery and a number of walking tours through Dublin.  I'll be able to indulge in my passion for street photography.  Hope they don't mind :)

We'll also go to the bus depot in Dublin where there are any number of return day trip tours that can be taken... all at a reasonable price. We'll select a tour and go. It is a great way to see the countryside and some of the local tourist traps if you don't have a car or want to drive yourself around. 

Whilst in Belfast we'll meet up with some of the cousins, have dinner and generally get caught up.  The internet and skype are great things but just can't match  having a pint in front of you and a face to face with the usual suspects.  

I am hoping to grab some new images while I am there.  In the meantime here are a few others.  The first one was taken in Galway and the second one in south County Londonderry near where my father grew up.

can you spell Paparazzi

I couldn't so I had to look it up.  This weekend was a bit of an anonmoly for me.  In Toronto the Toronto International Film Festival is happening.  It began on Thursday and runs through until Sunday of next week. A buddy of mine convinced me to come out on Friday to a premiere of Brad Pitts' Moneyball and stay for the premiere George Clooney's Ides of March with Canadian Ryan Gosling.  We didn't actually go to the premiere of either movie rather we stood on step ladders with our cameras and waited for the stars to arrive.  The step ladders were needed even though we were less than 5 feet away from the fence separating the fans from the stars.  The step ladders gave us a chance to shoot over the top of the heads of the screaming and fawning fans who had been camped out there since about 8AM.  The first movie started about 6:30PM so that tells you how dedicated these fans were.  They brought with them clipboards filled with photos of their favourite stars and handfuls of Sharpy Markers.  It dawned on me afterwards why they had so many pens.  One girl who managed to get an autograph by George Clooney immediately stuffed the been into her bra.  Guess that pen will never be used again.

All in all it was an interesting experience and I was able to snap some photos that I'll share with you below.  We I return later in the week to see if I can snag an image or two.  Don't know.  I'll have to see how bored I am :)

I have a bunch more images ... a little less than 1000.  I go through them when I have some time.

Thursday evening represented  a bit of a first for me ... shush, don't tell any one, but I did my first beauty shoot.  The shoot was with Melissa who I have known for a few years now.  Melissa is a fitness instructor and a graduate of Ryerson School of Fashion with a major in marketing, hmmm perhaps I should leverage that :)  I've been wanting to do this sort of shot since I saw it demonstrated by Scott Kelby at a seminar he held back in June.    The lighting set up is quite simple and gives a rather distinctive look to the images.  The technique is called Clam-Shell or sometimes referred to as Pumpkin-Seed because of the orientation of the lights.  The light that is placed above the model and tilted downward at a 45 degree angle towards the face is a beauty dish.  The light that about mid-drift high relative to the model is generally a small soft box, again angled to a 45 to the model's face.  Generally the beauty dish is attached to a boom arm to as not to interfere with the camera's line of sight.  In this case I didn't put the beauty dish on a boom arm and one can see how the light drops off on Melissa's camera right face -- lesson learnt.  Just the same I think for a first attempt it came out 'okay'.    Below are a couple of images from the 250+ that I took on Thursday.

Sometimes progress is like frost ....

My progression towards becoming a full-time photographer seems to have become a game of inches and painfully slow.  But like the sea pounding the shore or the frost settling in between the cracks the craggy cliffs are slowly being eroded away.  Last week or so I met up with a couple of people to discuss what it would take to create a unified approach to establishing my web presence.  This would mean new website, new blog site (which would be an adjunct to the website), and a revamped FaceBook landing page.  When I mention unified I that no matter by which channel you arrive at TorontoStreet Photograph you will know where you are because each channel will look and feel like every other channel.  Included in this discussion was the topic of Social Media.  Social Media is rather fascinating once one gets into how it can be used for marketing and extending ones reach and 'foot print' on the web.  Aside from brushing off the marketing strategy I am working on a Social Media Strategy.  More on that later.  That is it for now.  In September I am off to Ireland and Northern Ireland to do some touring and to visit with the usual suspects.

Below is a photo taken during a Steam Punk Shoot that Michael Zahra organised a year ago last November or was it last November.  Hmmmm

This and that ....

Lately I've been doing some head shots for a local actress who has agreed to be a muse for me.  We all need practise and for a photographer it often helps to have a regular 'go to' person who fill that need.  Below is a photo of Jen.  I met Jen while she was looking after the bar at my gallery exhibition last May.   Since then we have gotten together a couple of times to shoot.  The image below is from our latest outing.  For those who are into techniques and such this is a dead simple shot.  Jen is actually in broad daylight (abt 7pm).  The make up artist who was with us was pressed into holding a diffuser that I have.  The diffuser was used to soften the light as it came down onto Jen.  What you don't see is that it only covered a spot immediately around her.  Ahh the magic of the unseen :)

The image here was taken a few weeks before the one above.  We met up on the grounds of Victoria College at the U of T Campus.  I didn't have anyone to assist during this shoot and had to kind of fiddle with a reflector to bounce some light back into her face.

All in all I think that they came out reasonably well.

Future planning ..... working the plan now

Backwards, yes and no.  Every plan for a future plan begins with actively working a plan now.  In August of '09 and in an entry earlier this month I wrote about getting into the engagement/wedding photography business.  More recently it is with a friend and fellow photographer.  We've kicked around the idea considered how we may approach the work... in stylistic terms.   Most of the wedding photographers whose work you will see adopted a photojournalism style.   It is a good technique and I won't say anything against it except that everyone does it.  What I want to do is to bring a fashion editorial feel to the images.  For the engagement photos that means employing a make up artist and a stylist for the couple.  It will also mean selecting venues that speak to a particular theme and working with them to create poses that also fit that fashion forward style.

Last evening I met up with Ben and Tori.  For those who follow the blog you may recall Ben from the January shoot that I did with him for his website http://bendietschi.com/ and publicity materials.  The website designer decided to place an orange colour cast over all the photos.  At first I didn't like it and thought I'd say no to the change, but it kind of grew on me.  Which brings me back to last evening.  Since Tori recommended me (I knew Tori from a shoot I did during my first year as a wishful photographer) I told them during the shoot that we'd squeeze in a few images of them.  I didn't like what I did so I said we'd get back together once the weather was suitable.

Last evening it was suitable and my engagement/wedding portfolio has begun.  This is an image of Ben and Tori from last evening.  The green cast you see over part of the last image was intentional as I was shooting through foliage.  I was trying for a 'dreamy' look and feel.

Last week .....

on Sunday I did a shoot with a local actress, Jennifer Polansky. It was just a little bit of fun and nothing too dramatic. Jennifer like most working and aspiring young actors works a few different jobs to make ends meet until Fame comes to touch them with her magic wand. I met Jennifer while she was bartending at my gallery exhibit back in early May. We got to chatting while the crowd had yet to arrive. She mentioned that she needed to have some images done of her but because she was a struggling artist... she wasn't able to pay. So we kind of sort of worked out a deal whereby if she would be my muse for a few shoots I'd do a shoot and give her some of the images from it. So last Sunday we met up and went into grounds of the U of T campus and Victoria College in particular. That part of the campus has an artificial waterfall and an ivy covered wall that I've always wanted to incorporated into a shoot. What you see below are some of the images that came out of that shoot. 

Last Wednesday evening I went to see a screening of the latest movie release in which she acted. If you'd like to see the trailer you can see it here www.moviestrailer.org/neverlost-movie-trailer.html. I'm no movie critic. I thought that the movie was OK, but Jen's character could have and likely should have been developed more so the audience could see more of what motivated her to behave in the way that she did. Most of the movie was focused on the central character and his behaviour to the exclusion of developing the supporting actors.

I've been told by a number of other photographers that I shouldn't give my work and time away for nothing. Generally I would agree with them, especially if the people I am creating images for can afford me, but in order to get better one needs to be constantly practising. Now how am I supposed to get better at photographing people if I always need them to pay me?

The project is moving along ....

Perhaps not as quickly as I had hoped by I am making progress. Friday evening saw Peter Bregg pictured below come by the studio with his wife so that he could have me take his photo as part of the series I am doing and calling 'Portraits of Canadian Photojournalists'.  Peter has been a supporter from the very beginning and a person who has been able to push open a few doors for me and make me known to other photojournalists.  I am grateful for that.

So far I have photographed Andrew Stewicki www.photosensitive.com/drupal/photographers/andrew-stawicki and Peter Power who works for the Globe and Mail.  Later this month I hope to be able to photograph one of the best women photojournalists this country has produced, and that woman is Patti Gower.  Patti is currently teaching photojournalism at Loyalist College in Belleville Ontario.  I am also hoping to be able to photograph Fred Chartrand when he comes down in July to Toronto from his post as an Ottawa photojournalist.  He has a busy time coming up covering the visit of His Royal Highness Prince William and his Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge and of course Parliament and the goings on there.

Also in July I'm looking forward to photographing photographing Andy Clark. Andy began his career with The Canadian Press as a copyboy in 1970. In 1974 he was promoted to photographer and transferred to the Ottawa bureau. Since the Andy has worked for the Hamilton Spectator, United Press Canada, Reuters Newspictures and as Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's official photographer. In 1987 Andy re-joined Reuters, based in Brussels, London, Toronto and now Vancouver where he now lives.

I am looking for industry sponsorship.  At the moment I have a feeler out to a few photography related companies.  Taking the photos is the cheap part of the project.  The expensive part will be getting the images printed and then exhibited.  Oh well to everything a time.

The image below is of Peter Bregg.  Those familiar with my blog will have read Peter's story, but if you are new to the blog, just search on his name and you'll get the back story.

Update .... it has been a while since my last blog

The gallery exhibit went well enough... and my images have been held over for another exhibit for the later part of this month so that is good.  The more eyes who look at my work the better.  I took on a bat mitzvahs for a photographer friend of mine who had 'outsourced' the work only to have that photographer dump the job at the next to last moment.  


That job was rather interesting and gave me a lot of insights into how if I decide to shoot weddings what I would need to do.  I hope that part of what I do never changes.


On the wedding photography front I've been kicking around some ideas with another photographer whose studio she has graciously allowed me to use.  We are thinking of entering into that market as well as possible the 'senior' market.  Not senior as in senior citizens, but seniors as in young men and women in the graduating year of high school.  It is a huge market in the US but not so much in Canada.  We are hoping the reason for that is that no one has properly marketed to that demographic.  We do know that for both the wedding and the senior market we need to find a way to differentiate ourselves from the hordes that already ply this market space.  But I think we have an angle.  


Tomorrow evening I am photographing Peter Bregg who has graciously agreed to participate in my Portraits of Canadian Photojournalists project.  A couple of weeks ago I photographed another Peter.  This one was Peter Power of the Globe and Mail.  One thing that can be said about these people is that they are story tellers.  They all have a wealth of stories to tell.


This coming Sunday I have a shoot planned with an up and coming actress who has a movie in which she acted premiere this coming Wednesday at a downtown theatre.  I'm looking forward to both of those events.


And lastly the photograph below.  This is an image of Shannon who I worked with a few weeks back now.  We were just kicking around ideas and not looking to create anything specific.  I wanted to try out my speedlight flash unit to create an outdoor portrait.  To take this photo I mounted my speedlight on a Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 that was mounted onto a tripod and tripped using a Mini TT1 on my camera.   I am generally pleased with the result.

Exhibitions and other types of flagrant self promotion

This past Wednesday was the first day of thirty-one days of of vane exhibitionism.... say what?

Yes last Wednesday was the first day of a thirty-one day exhibition of the works of seven artists, myself included.  The exhibition is part of this year's CONTACT 2011 Photography Festival.  The largest such festival in the World.  Kind of the World Series of Photography -- where the entire World is open to submit images unlike other World Series that are restricted to a very small and perhaps increasingly insignificant part of the World.  But I digress....

This year the theme celebrates Canada's world renowned media theorist, Marshall McLuhan and his concept of figure/ground, "borrowed from the Gestalt approach, to examine the influences that permeate and change social structures".   But this doesn't mean that the photographs from more than one thousand artists shown in one hundred and sixty-two venues around the city conform to the theme.  As the Artistic Director of the festival wrote "Artists from around the world expand the concept of the theme as a metaphor, allegory, theoretical platform, and compositional device. "

If you plan to make the rounds of the venues, and I highly recommend that you do, can be seen hanging at the IX Gallery at 11 Davies Avenue.  The Saturday hours (closed Sunday) are from 1pm to 3pm.  Monday through Friday the gallery is open between 1pm and 6pm.

Last weekend we drove to Manitoulin.  The image below is a one of the many small rivers that intersect the island.  I'm calling it Northern River because it reminds me somewhat of the painting I have by Tom Thomson of the same name. Except I wasn't standing behind a bunch of Tamarack or Black Spruce.

Some of what I did on my winter vacation .....

Right now I don't have much to say but I thought I'd share with you some of the images that I made while I was on vacation.

Hope you like them

Preparing for reality .....

Which is now only two days away.  Tomorrow afternoon at about now this time I'll be looking out the airplane window rather than doing as I am, looking out onto the Caribbean with it's multiple shades of blue.  Monday morning I'll awaken and wonder like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz if the past two weeks were nothing more than a dream.  Photographically speaking I was very very lazy opting instead to stay close to home and just take photos of the sea in its various moods.  This side of the Caribbean is rather like photographing someone on Prosaic ... a lot of Prosaic.  Somedays it skips its medication and one will see a little of its underlying character, but otherwise it has the serene calm of some sedated denizen of CAMH.

I wrote earlier that myself and two others were considering throwing in together and finding a retail store front we could use as a commercial studio.  We three are now two and back to the original studio space .. for now.  In a way it isn't too bad since it provides me with the opportunity to slide into the full-time aspect of photography that I want to have as my future.

I'm still waiting for a couple of my 'anchor' photojournalists to respond to my emails with an affirmative to my 'Portraits of Canadian Photojournalist' project.  Right now two are nibbling on the line.  If photojournalists were like TV anchor types then all I'd have to do is chum the water and stand back.  Instead photojournalists are kind of like the dock bass I'd fish for in my parent's boathouse.  I would lay on the floor boards and gaze through the gaps at them as they'd cautiously nibble around the edges of the bait.  It was almost as if they knew that the hook was there and what it was there for.  I didn't catch many since it was more fun just watching them.

Sometimes life can be like Mrs Bell's junk drawer or Forrest Gump's box of chocolate.  You never really know what you'll find when you open it up and peer inside.  Although in Forrest Gump's case all HE had to do was look at the drawing on the inside of the lid to know what he was getting.  But then if he did the story would have lost some of its charm.  Perhaps like Life his box of chocolates didn't come with one of those neat little drawings.  Mine certainly hasn't.

I suppose I shouldn't say that I was lazy in the photographic sense.  As I mentioned above I took a lot of photos of the sea.... most of them out of focus and hand held at a very slow shutter speed just before or after sunset.  As a result I have a lot of 'abstract' pieces that may or may not be saleable.  A person I am occasionally mentoring is an abstract artist.  I'll let her decide.

In the meantime here is a photo that I took just after sunset, a little out of focus using a shutter speed a little slower than I can hold steady.

Three days to go and then ....

it is back to the daily compression and decompression of the subway ride into work..... oh well it pays for the passion doesn't it.

Not much to report except to say that I am making progress with the latest project and have signed up a few more influential photojournalists... yippee.

I've decided to take a bit of a departure from the normal landscape and people type images that I normally take down here and play with the abstract ... I'll blame it on the rum.  Here is one of the latest attempts at being artsy ....not sure it it is any good but hey it helps kill the time after the sun goes down :)

A week in ...

and another week to go.  I've been in Barbados for a week now and have done a lot of nothing.  I've been busy sending off emails to the Canadian photojournalists that I want to include in my portraiture exhibition project.  So far I have three confirmed out of the twenty some odd names that I have on my list.  Larry Towell has turned me down, but I'll come at him again later in the year.  Chances are, and I am hoping, that he is simply too busy.  I am told too that he is a rather shy person.  Surprise surprise a shy photographer … part of the reason I'm trying to get them out in front of my camera.  It is so easy to stay behind the camera rather than become the subject of it.  

This time down I decided not to arrange a shoot while I am down here.  I thought I'd give poor Michelle a break.

Can't say that I've done a lot either since I've been down here… mostly just kick back, relax.  I've begun a habit of mid-afternoon naps.  Now that is going to be hard to adjust to when I get back into the real world.  I haven't even dragged my camera out of its bag much this time down … except yesterday when I decided to get my ass moving.  I had begun to read an e-book titled The Evocative Image by Andrew S Gibson.  I am always inspired by these sorts of books …. typical me I look through the images and then go back and read the accompanying text.  Kind of like how I read the newspaper in the morning …. I flip to the comics page first and then go back to the front page…. and yes I always lick off the icing on an Oreo cookie before I eat the rest of it.  I also soak my ginger snaps in my tea until they have the consistency of baby barf before I let then dissolve in my mouth .. TMI for sure !

I've been thinking of wandering down to the Weston Fish Market one morning and see if they'd mind me hanging around taking photos … or perhaps two depending on how things go.  You might see images of dead fish and smiling people next …. in the mean time here is a photo of yet another sunset … I have to admit that I intensely dislike images of sunsets … OMG can they be boring, but people keep putting them up saying isn't this wonderful this was the sunset at my cottage last summer ….. aaaah gag me with a spoon !  Okay now that I've said how much I hate seeing yet another sunset photograph … here is mine.  I apologise for being a sunset snob.

Three days to BRI

In just over three days time I'll board a plane to warmer climes and for the first time In four years I've not organised a shoot while I am down there.  I'll give the ladies of the island a break.  Instead I'm thinking I may hang around the fish market and photograph the people there ... if I can.  Bajans are notoriously camera shy.

I have a couple of new projects in the works.... one is still tentative but I have faith that I can pull it off. The other is long-term and involves two other photographers.

The first project involves photographers, primarily in Toronto. Last week I bounced an idea off of a friend of mine, Peter Bregg (former photo editor of Maclean's and Hello), and he thought that it might have some legs. The premise of the idea is to create portraits of Canadian photographers whose work has included images of social or political significance.  These portraits will be larger than life waist up images.   I'm not going to reveal the style that I'm going to go with in making the portraits, partially because I'm not settled on it and partially I don't want to reveal it :-).  At least not yet.

The second project is a venture with two other established family and lifestyle photographers, both women, in the city.  I can only guess that they like my work.  One of them Bev, I met through Ruthie Lamb.  Thank you Ruthie.  I've made use of Bev's studio in the past and have done a lot of post processing work for her as well.  The three of us have started to sketch out a business plan.  More on that once I get back since that to is in the very early stages.

It is nice too see to that both of them make a decent living without shooting weddings ... I have no desire to shoot weddings even though they can be very profitable.

Well it is time to toddle off to the job that pays for the passion.  In the meantime this once again is Michelle standing at the cliff side at Harri Smith House in Barbados.

And now for something completely different ....

A few weeks back I was contacted by a model who I had worked with a few years ago.  Since that time she fell in love moved to the bright lights of a major US Mid-Atlantic city and moved back into the Big Smoke.  She said that she'd like to shoot with me again and do something creative.  Something that she really hadn't done before.  Would I be willing to shoot with her.  Of course I said sure.  She is very pretty even if she is a little on the petite side for a full-time model but hey she asked so shyly how could I say no.

Being a collaborative type I asked for her to send me some ideas (photographs lifted from the net) so I could get a sense of what she wanted to do.  When I do a shoot I always but together a 'look book'.  I find that if I share this with the model during the lead up to the shoot the end product is so much better. So I was quite surprised and afterwards intrigued when I received an email with the images.   They were definitely a departure from what I had seen before.  During the course of the week or so leading up to the shoot we traded images back and forth.

Below is an example of one of the images that came from the shoot.  She was extremely happy with the images that I gave her afterwards so much so that she wants to do another shoot.  How can I say no :-)

This by the way was my first nude.

It was a cold and snowy evening ....

Last night I met up with Ben Deitchi and his girl friend Tory.  Tory contacted me a few weeks back to ask if I'd take on a project to photograph Ben for his new website and his publicity kit.  Tory and I go back a ways.  Tory was a model that I shot in the early days of my photography 'career'.  Back then Tory was just seventeen, although at that time I thought she was at least twenty... I'm such a bad judge of age.   Ben is an up and coming jazz saxophonist.

After having a look at Ben's existing website and some of his images I decided that with his 'look' and his style of music (Ben is also a composer as well as a player of Jazz) that something moody and thoughtful would be the right way to go.

Normally when I plan a shoot I research the person, that is if I can, and if they are a musician I download and listen to their music.  Then I go off to various music photography sites and some stock photography sites and start trolling for photographs that will spark the creative juices.  Now don't get me wrong.  I am not there to rip off the concepts put out there by other photographers. I use their work as inspiration and direction for mine.  Kind of like what I do when I spend a lunch hour cruising the galleries of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

All the ideas get scribbled down onto a notepad and the images into a Word document with more scribbles.  Combined, these inform the shot concept.  They place a creative framework around the vision I create for the shoot.

Last night was the culmination of that creative scrap booking.  I have to make a mention in dispatches about my erstwhile assistant for the evening.  Owen McLeod stepped up into the roll admirably holding the shoot though umbrella rig that I put together.  Last week I purchased a set of Pocketwizard radio transmitter/receivers that allow me to take the speedlite off the camera and use it like I would a studio strobe setup.  I still have a lot to learn about using the combination effectively but regardless they worked and mostly did what I wanted them to do.

So I suppose it is time for the reveal.  This is an image of Ben taken along the fence that runs along the Queen West side of Osgoode Hall.  The original image was rather noisy because I shot it at around ISO3200 so I ran some noise reduction software over it.

Drop and give me thirty-eight

Okay so flop and give me thirty-eight. Why thirty-eight? Because I like even numbers. That and I've come up with thirty-eight names of photographers whose work I'll be studying this coming year in an attempt to educate myself. On Saturday someone asked me what photographer's work did I most admire. After mumbling a few names I came up short, because I couldn't remember whose work I really liked. Why? Not because I'm getting old and loosing my memory, but because my own personal education in photography has primarily been drawn from magazine tearsheets, bustop ads, billboards, and cruising on-line photo galleries. Not exactly a MFA curriculum.


To rectify this significant gap in my photographic education I've assembled by list of thirty-eight masters whose work I will pour over during the next year. Hopefully, people might begin to notice their influence in my work. Be warned you all may be subjected to the occasional bursts of insight that an acolyte such as me will find the need to blog about.  I'll try to keep them somewhat contained because there is nothing worse than a born again anything who feels compelled to share the 'good news' with every-one within ear-shot.


Now this list is not exhaustive or perhaps even well picked so feel free to throw names my way.  I've decided to put the list in alphabetical order so don't attach any importance to the ordering of names.

1. Ansel Adams
2. Robert Adams
3. Diane Arbus
4. Eugene Atget
5. Richard Avedon
6. Lewis Baltz
7. Bernd & Hilla Becher
8. John Ernest Joseph Bellocq
9. Karl Blossfeldt
10. Bravo, Manuel, Alvarez 
11. Henri Cartier-Bresson
12. Harry Callahan
13. Imogen Cunningham
14. Bruce Davidson
15. Robert Doisneau
16. William Egglestone
17. Walker Evans
18. Lee Friedlander
19. David Goldblatt
20. Emmet Gowin
21. Lewis Wickes Hine
22. Yousuf Karsh
23. André Kertész
24. Jacques Henri Lartigue
25. Robert Mapplethorpe
26. Irving Penn
27. Eliot Porter
28. Sebastiao Salgado
29. August Sander
30. Frederick Sommer
31. Alfred Stieglitz
32. Paul Strand
33. Christer Stroemholm
34. Josef Sudek
35. Hiroshi Sugimoto
36. Brett Weston
37. Edward Weston
38. Max Yavno

For anyone who cares to take the time to look at the work of these Masters will notice that  the list covers a wide spectrum, from Landscapes to Portraiture, from Nudes to Still Life.  It all interests me, which may not be a good thing because it breaks one's focus.  Enough of the photographic metaphors.... I'm off to start my study plan.

In the meantime ... here is another image of Whitney by window light.

Afterwards ...

After the gig at PORTS1961 I passed some of the images to a few of the people who attended the event and to the Globe and Mail.  For those curious enough to have a look at the images you'll find them here www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/ports-1961-holiday-party/article1841143/.  I don't know how long they will be up but as of this post they are still there.

One of the people to whom I passed some images was Julia Moulden (www.juliamoulden.com).  Julia, born a month before me (same year too) is a former speech writer for CEOs, celebrities, and Cabinet Minsters. Julia is also a columnist for the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-moulden) and a book author.  Julia's latest work is titled “We are the New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World”, published internationally by McGraw-Hill, New York.  New Radicals (http://wearethenewradicals.com/book) explores the lives of people who while having enjoyed success in their  careers are feeling the need to do something more with their lives – to give something back to a world that is in desperate need of help -- while at the same time earning a living.  Julia explores this concept further in a upcoming book  RIPE: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50. RIPE will be published in January, 2011.

A ago week Friday I didn't have much of a chance to speak with Julia, in fact, I had no idea who she was or what she has done, except Deirdre pointed her out to me and asked me to photograph her as she mingled.  If I had known she was going to be there I would have done some homework, so I could if the chance occasioned itself, be able to ask some halfway intelligent questions.  I'm not much of a conversationalist, in fact I become rather shy in a crowd, but if I have one or two intelligent questions to ask of someone they will normally do all the conversational heavy lifting.  People love to talk about themselves... while most do at any rate. One just needs to get them started.

Julia mentioned that she was looking for people whose story she could add to her upcoming book or her column -- people who have past the 50 year mark and who were finding ways to use their accumulated skills and knowledge to give back.  Someone who immediately came to mind was Peter Bregg (www.peterbreggphotography.com) who if you follow the blog will remember.  Peter is someone who is using his skills, knowledge and connections to do good works.  Peter is currently associated with Photosenstive (www.photosensitive.com) and Water Can (www.watercan.com).  In fact some of Peter's images from the WaterCan projects in Africa are being displayed in Metro Hall here in Toronto.  Go and have a look if you can.

This afternoon I 'e-introduced' them, Julia and Peter.  I suppose I'll see if it bears any fruit.

On the 28th (I think) I'll be working with an up and coming Jazz musician. The date is still a little iffy.  We'll be putting together some photographs that he can use for publicity and for his brand new web-site. So stay tuned to the same Bat Channel at the same Bat Time ... ok forget about the time bit, cause who knows when I'll post next.

This is an image of Alyana who I photographed a few weeks back.  Nothing special here, just normal everyday window light and an attractive young woman.

An evening with Deirdre Kelly and guests ....

This evening I photographed an event for a good friend of mine.  The event was a reading by Deirdre Kelly from her most recent book "Paris Times Eight".  The book is a memoir that begins when Deirdre is nineteen and arrives in Paris "as a starry-eyed ingénue". Each number in the 'Eight' documents her visits to Paris.


Deirdre was the award-winning dance critic for the Globe and Mail before becoming a fashion columnist in 2000, reporting from Paris and Milan. Now a features writer, she has written for Marie Claire, Vogue, and Elle.  


All in all it was a good evening, where aside from meeting Deirdre I met Julia Moulden a an author, speaker, and columnist for the Huffington Post.  I was also fortunate to met Margaret Swaine, who is a nationally published wine, spirits, food and travel writer.  Margaret writes a weekly column for the National Post, the spirit columnist for Zoomer magazine and the spa columnist for Best Health. She's also a contributor to ScoreGolf, Foodservice Hospitality, Travelweek Bulletin, Expressions, Arrival, Nuvo, Wine Access, Elle Canada, Hello! Canada, Fairways, ClubLink NewsLink and national newspaper groups such as CanWest.   As an interesting aside, Margaret stayed in the same cottage on the Bowmore Distillery compound as I did last September.  Small world.


This is neither a photo of Deirdre, Julia, or Margaret.  This is a photo of Whitney that I took a couple of Sunday's ago.  The photo was taken using only light from a window.