My 2011 at a Glance- North Bay Photography and Video

Today I quickly scanned through my year in pictures, and if I talked about each of the shoots I had, this post would go on and on. Instead, I thought I'd just pick a few here and there and put together a random little collage of a few of the photos I was asked to take in 2011... Click on the image to get a closer look!

When Life Hands You Lemons... And Limes & Oranges

This post is the result of nothing more than needing a break from the project I was working on. I wandered around the house for a minute, until a bunch of lemons caught my eye.

I just happened to have a sheet of plexiglass in the basement (a leftover piece of hardware from a movie set), so I put it down like a bridge between two chairs, placed one of my softboxes underneath it, one above, sliced up some citrus and had some fun.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time experimenting with different light levels and placement, but here are some of the results of my citrus break

Where did summer go? - North Bay Photography

The past few months have been really crazy, which is great. Business is going really well, and I can't complain. What I'm most happy about is that on top of my usual web and design work, I've been getting a lot of photography jobs lately.  This welcome addition to the workload has been partly responsible for my lack of posts, and my lack of regular sleep.

A lot of this photography has been for the City of North Bay's Tourism and Economic Development departments. There have also been some athletics, coins, political figures, an author, and a wedding thrown in the mix... oh, and a pretty cool dentist too!

I could say, and show a lot about each of these, but there just isn't enough time in the day for that right now. Instead, I'll just say how happy I am to have the opportunity to work on such a wide variety of projects from one day to the next.

Here's a little sneak peek at some of shots I've taken over the past few months (click the image to open it in a new window, then click it again to enlarge)...

Food! Food! And More Food! - North Bay Food Photography

I'm falling behind on posts again! Time to get back at it, here goes...

Earlier this week, we had the chance to go to Jake the Grand Master's house, where we were treated to great hospitality, and a sampling of chef Glenn Sheridan's menu.  Glenn will be opening a restaurant (Le Bon Marché) in North Bay soon, so this was a great opportunity to get a little taste of what's to come, and of course to get a few pictures of the dishes in the process.

I've known Jake for ages, so it was nice to finally get our families together for a little visit, even though I was a little distracted with the photography, and getting the shots just right. I tend to get a little crazy when I'm taking pictures. I can keep shooting for hours, and take hundreds of "the exact same shot" until I get exactly the one I want. It doesn't bother me at all, but I guess it gets annoying for those around me. hah.

In the end, the food was great, and I think the shots worked out well too! Have a look at a few of them... 

Wedding Cake... Times Two

Last week was a bit overloaded, and I'm so glad it's behind us. There was all kinds of the regular craziness and running around, but that wasn't really the problem. I had a huge editing job to wrap up, Thursday was Nicole's birthday, and on Saturday, we needed to have two wedding cakes done.

Our original plan was to start working on elements of the cakes a few weeks ahead of time. We wanted to have the flowers and other decorative pieces done so that when the weekend came around, we would just need to assemble everything. Of course, things never go as planned. Time flew by and the next thing we knew we only had a few days to go and nothing was done.

We've worked with fondant quite a bit in the past, which you can see in our other cakes, but this time we thought we'd use gum paste to make the flowers, leaves, branches etc... It's supposed to dry very quickly, and become hard as a rock, so it seemed like a good idea. It worked out fine for the tiny flowers, but when it came to the big lilies, that was a different story. The flowers just wouldn't harden fast enough, and when we tried to attach them to the cake with royal icing, a lot of them lost petals and just crumbled in our hands.

After a week of too many sleepless nights, having the main element of a cake fall apart at the last minute was a bit scary, and very discouraging. Fortunately, I had made way more lilies than we needed, so even with the issues we had, there were still enough flowers to get the job done, and everything worked out just fine. After a few stressful deliveries on some of the most bumpy streets in all of Ontario, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Have a look at the end result...

The Old Obsession is Back!

I spent most of my teen years playing basketball, watching basketball, playing b-ball video games, dreaming about basketball, covering my walls with any basketball imagery I could find. Well, you get the idea. I was obsessed.

I stopped playing when I was 18 or  so I guess. I'm not sure why, but I'm assuming alcohol and self-induced teen drama probably had something to do with it in the beginning. Then came college, family, work, business, etc... No basketball. A few times over the years, I tried to get into the routine of going to the nearest schoolyard and throwing the ball around, but it never stuck.

At about six this morning, I was laying in bed and decided to hop out, go for a little jog, then throw the basketball around a bit. A bit turned into 2 and a half hours, until I figured it was time to come back home and get some work done. I went outside of a school nearby where I spent a lot of time playing back in the day, and it felt great. I definitely wasn't moving quite as smoothly as I once did, but there's something that just felt natural and comforting about being there. Like visiting an old friend.

Back in high school, the only place I was comfortable was on the court. Well, the outdoor court anyway. When it came to playing for the school team, I was so preoccupied with the fact that I was not well liked (short, scrawny, shy geek who didn't know anyone... easy to make fun of) that I was nervous and even afraid to touch the ball. I don't think I ever even took a single shot in the two years I played on the team. I've always regretted that.

Anyway, when it came to street ball, it was a different story. I was very confident, in control, and enjoyed making people look bad. It was the complete opposite of the rest of my life at the time. Being there today I found myself remembering a lot of the moments and shots & passes I made in the games I played so long ago. I don't know why I remember it all so well, but like I said I was obsessed, and those were some of the only moments I didn't feel like an idiot back then.

I guess you could say those were my glory days... with absolutely no glory because there were no fans, crowds, or any record that any of those matches ever took place at all. hah. Maybe I dreamt it all up.

Here are a few pictures from this morning. It really took me back, but I wish someone else would have showed up to play. I miss the competition. 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hipsta-fun!

I love lomography, and I've posted about it a few times now. Something about the low tech cameras and the unexpected result is just exciting to me.

A few days ago, I saw a post from Amanda Palmer (who I follow on Twitter) about the hipstamatic app for the iPhone. The picture she posted had that lomo look I really dig, so I jumped all over that app right away. It did not disapoint. The app is slow, and a bit glitchy, but overall I love it.

Looking into it a bit I discovered that the hipstamatic was actually a camera that was produced a while back. The interesting thing is that there were only 200 of them made. I'd love to get my hands on one.

Until then, I'll just keep using the iPhone version. Here are a few shots I took with it today...









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Food for thought

Here's sone food for thought: always get an advance on payment before starting a job. The photos posted below are from a shoot I did for a local pub. They were revitalizing their food offerings and needed some photos, and a menu design that would show the dishes at their best. I was brought on to make this happen and everything went great! Everything but the fact that a few weeks after the new menus were produced, the owner closed up shop and proceeded to ignore all my calls and emails. Needless to say I never got full payment on the job. Oh well, I'm still happy with the photos anyway.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone