NH Photography

Rachelle & Michel

2009-09-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

August 8, 2009
This summer I had the great pleasure of being the photographer for Rachelle and Michel's beautiful outdoor wedding. Although the skies where announcing rain for most of the day, it luckily never came. The remote location for the ceremony and reception allowed for a starry night full of dancing and dining. The night finished of with an amazing fireworks display, truly symbolizing the passion these two individuals have for each other. I would like to thank Rachelle and Michel for allowing me be to part of their special day. I wish them the best of luck in their future life together.

Movie reviews

2009-02-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

Well I saw three great movies last week for our shoot week Moviestravaganza.

I Am Cuba
The one that was the most visually stunning was I am Cuba. This black and white film was very impressing with the extremely long shots, interesting angles and the use of infra red technology. The story itself consisted of four different short stories that told one larger story of the revolution of Cuba. Though visually stunning I am the type of person that likes to have a good and final ending when I watch a movie so for me that was an aspect that was very lacking in this movie. So to sum it up... good movie, good popcorn, extremely long, no closure. I give this film 3 Stars.

Pecker
This is a movie about a young man who goes around his town taking pictures of the people around him and pretty much gets accidentally discovered by a New York art gallery. This film covers Peckers quick rise to fame and the consequences of it to him, his family, his friends and everyone around him. He has a really hard time getting people to pose for him at this point because they are angry with him for selling images of them and not getting any profit from it. This film raises a lot of questions about a photographers rights and the subjects rights. In the end Pecker chooses to open up his own art gallery while teaching the ''New York art snobs'' a lesson, everyone loves him for it and the world is right once again. This was a pretty funny movie with a good moral. Fame isn't worth anything if it destroys your relationships with the people around you therefore destroying life as you knew it. I give this film 4 Stars.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
This was by far my favorite movie from the moviestravaganza. This star studded movie starts off with three men who escape from a prison work farm and follows them through all he adventures they have on their way back home, from becoming music stars, to one of them possibly turning into a frog, to them being robbed by a bible sales man, to them all being pardoned and then almost dying. This has to be one of the best movies I have ever seen with the catchiest music I've ever heard (it's still stuck in my head a week later). Being so great in the first place I was able to appreciate this film even more after watching the documentary about how this was the first digitally produced movie. Just seeing all the work that went into creating the color and the mood of the movie was amazing. I give this film 5 Stars.

Starting up again...

2009-02-06T21:46:00.000-08:00

So, I've recently made a resolution to start up this blog again. I talked to Amanda O a little while ago and she inspired to to do this. So here goes, in the spirit of the season of headshots here are a few that I recently took of a friend of mine's children. Kids are quite a hard subject to work with but that just makes it all more challenging and fun for me.

My potato

2008-10-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

I started off the week really hating my potato but the more the week went by the more I came to love him. Here are a few of my potato shots. I dare you to try and guess which emotion is associated with each potato.

Transformation

2008-10-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

So I figured since I got my pictures back today that it would be o.k. to post a few of my favorites for my transformation assignment. I had a lot of fun doing this one.

IS3 - HDR photography

2008-09-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

This year I would really like to learn more about a technique called high dynamic range (HDR). Its a technique used to show tremendous detail in a pictures highlights, midtones and shadows. This is used in situations where you have a very bright area and a very dark area in the same image. Because the camera can only expose properly for one of the areas HDR is the perfect solution to get the detail back in all areas of the photo. This is a technique achieved by bracketing different exposures and combining them in Photoshop. This is very difficult to do because when taking the pictures nothing in the frame can move, the camera can't move at all and the photographer also has to have an understanding of a program like Photoshop CS2 or CS3. The final result is a picture that looks like the human eye would see the world. The whole HDR process seems like a hard one to achieve but eventually I would like to take the challenge on and learn how to produce amazing HDR images.

A few websites that I found that had pretty good information on this technique are ;
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm
http://www.popphoto.com/howto/3038/how-to-create-high-dynamic-range-images.html

Another good site that also gives a history on the technique and explanations is ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

The first photo I chose to demonstrate this technique can be found at this link;
http://flickr.com/photos/seim/474840647/in/set-72157600174238421/

The reason I chose this picture is because it demonstrates that HDR, which is usually seen in landscape shot, can be used in portraiture, wedding and fashion images. It's a lot harder of a process this way though because the people in the image can't move at all. I would like to eventually master this to be used in my own images as I prefer to shoot people and find that this technique with people photography has quite an interesting look.

I really like the next photo which can be found at this link;
http://flickr.com/photos/seim/2145985264/in/set-72157600174238421/

I really like it because normaly in a shot like this you wouldn't see all the detail in the sky. Obviously some burning was also used but now with the HDR technique you can see the detail in everything.

I chose this photo because of the unbelievable detail in both the sky and the land. It is a very good example of HDR imaging

Here is the link;
http://flickr.com/photos/m_o_f/2855654367/in/pool-hdr

Link to a site

2008-09-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is a link to a guy I know's flickr album and website. He does all kinds of people photography from kids to the elderly, pinups, weddings etc... I just like his style of photography.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/latsch/
http://www.latschstudios.com/

IS2 - Lines

2008-09-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

This assignment was alot of fun for me. I got out of class and right away went downstairs in our locker room to look for lines. Because of the big window lighting wasn't an issue and there were many lines there to shoot. I did find it a challenge though to shoot the last few pictures since I was in a low light situation and had to get a tripod. It took me a few tries to get it right but in the end I got the shots even though a few have a slightly yellow cast to them. The part I enjoyed the most about this assignment was that it forced me to take pictures of things I would have never thought of photographing.

AT1 B&W Film Shooting Assignment

2008-09-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

DT1 Shooting Assignment Slideshow

2008-09-16T08:51:00.001-07:00

IS1 Group A Blog Assignment

2008-09-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about this the other day and I used to be really into videography. I took extra-curicular courses in high school (with Productions Rivard) and helped film and produce an award winning film (people's choice). Really photography isn't that different from that I'm still getting to tell a story. I guess what changed the video to photo was when I had my first child and was constantly at the photo studio's to get his pictures updated. I always came out of there hating my pictures so I decided that I could do better and got my first DSLR. Last fall I decided to take an evening photo 1 class at PrairieView and thats when I knew for sure that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was and am hooked.

By the end of this course I hope to know everything there is to know about photography ( I know thats ambitious but thats my goal). I am also really looking forward to working in the darkroom (something i've never done before).

Here's my little secret... I like to dance when no one's watching and I love to sing when no one's listening.

Photography I enjoy...

2008-09-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

My passion is to take pictures of people. I love taking pictures at weddings and of children and babies. I enjoy it because it's a challenge and it keeps my adrenaline pumping. I also really enjoy taking environmental portraits of people from all walks of life. My cat and my children are my most frequent models and have all started to either pose or hide (depending on the mood they're in) when they see me approaching with my camera.

Photo by: Duncan McNairnay