Recent Portraits

This is our friend Jeff.  He asked me for a portrait to use as part of an award he's getting from the U of A Faculty of Pharmacy.  We took a lot of photos but this is my favourite, photographed on the steps of the grand Pharmacy Dental Building on the U of A Campus.

Recent Projects

The football shaped lines in this photo are provided courteousy of the Canon 15mm fisheye lens; appropriate for a football teams training facility I think.

Recent Projects

Here's another photo of the new training facility at Commonwealth Stadium.

Scenes with multiple light sources are a challenge - in this case there is daylight from outside coming into the scene from two sources and the indoor lighting over the running track.  Further adding to the mix is the orange running track that gives the image an orange glow.  All the interior painted surfaces are white; there is also some corrugated steel that tends to take on the colour of whatever reflects off it.  So the goal is to make it look natural and take out some of the weird tints and hues that result in this chaotic milieu of light temperature.

Recent Projects

The start of the Canadian Football season is upon us - this is the new indoor training facility of the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium.

This is a joint venture project designed by HIP Architects  of Edmonton and MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects [MJMA] of Toronto.

Recent Portraits

These three engineers work on various projects together and they wanted a group shot for marketing purposes.

Recent Portraits

This photo was a test shot to ensure lighting and exposure was appropriately set up.  I processed this image so as to soften it and convert it to black and white.

Canon 5DII with 85mm lens at f8.  Elinchrom Bx 500 strobe with umbrella modifier and Canon 580EXII flash in the background.  Off camera strobes fired using pocket wizard transmitters.

Recent Portraits

Next up in this short recent portraits series.

Recent Portraits

Here's another recent portrait taken for business marketing purposes.

Canon 40D with Canon 24-105 lens and Canon 580EX flash.

Recent Portraits

Here's a sample of the many portraits recently taken of senior people who work for a major engineering firm in Edmonton.

Action in the Sky

I took this photo with my blackberry while out walking the dogs.  There was a tornado warning this night but the air was still - at least it was when I took this photo.  Moments later the gusts arrived and it began to rain.  Double-time back to the car; we got there just in time before the rain really started to come down.

Jasper Event Photography

I am always amazed that whenever a public figure is photographed by media photographers that despite the hundreds of photos taken the one that appears in the paper the following day makes the speaker look like a buffoon.  I was determined not to present such images of the speakers who I photographed during the course of my event photography assignment.

Turns out it is harder than it looks.  When we speak our mouths take on contortions and the moment people pause in their presentation they tend to look down at their notes.  I thought this photo was a fair representation of the Hon. Gene Zwozdesky, Minister of Health, photographed as he addressed the AGM of the Alberta College of Pharmacists.

Canon 40D with Canon 70-200mm f2.8L lens, Canon 580II EX flash.

Jasper Event Photography

Here's another sample photo taken with the Canon 25mm f1.4 L series lens.  The lens is focused on the title of these stacked booklets.

For their 100th anniversary the pharmacy association identified 100 pharmacists to be recognized with a Centennial Award of Distinction.  Very proud of my wife Terri who is on that list.

Jasper Event Photography

Every time I use my 24mm f1.4 L series lens I am delighted with the results.  The images are so clear and the depth of field control is astounding.  In this case I had it aimed at this Northwest Territories Pharmaceutical association license granted before Alberta and Saskatchewan were provinces.  This certificate is in the care of the Castor Pharmacy Museum.

The 24mm lens really ought to get out more I think.

Jasper Event Photography

It's kind of fun to slink around the room with a camera during an event.  There was a trio that played at the conclusion of the Saturday night banquet and they put up with me hovering about.  This is my favourite shot from those I took of them.

Canon 5DII with Canon 24mm L 1.4 lens.  ISO 100, f1.4 at 1/100 sec.

At f1.4 the depth of field is incredibly narrow - it's not possilbe to see this on the blog version but at 100% magnification you can see the fine detail in the metallic parts of the head of this double base while everything else is soft focus

Jasper Event Photography

This is Donna, outgoing President of the pharmcay association.  For the Friday night '100 years' event she wore her 'Pharmacy Club' jacket from her university days.  I wanted the crest on the jacket to be prominent in the photo.

Jasper Event Photography

To mark their 100th year of regulated pharmacy practice the Alberta College of Pharmacists commisioned a new logo seen here on the cover of of these brochures.  The 'CP' part of the logo is a spin on the the greek letter 'Phi'; first letter of the greek word 'φαρμακείο', or 'pharmacy'.  The logo was designed by Edmonton graphic artist (and my friend) Wei Yew who told me 'the ancient Greeks handed me a gift with this logo'.  Wei choose the colour purple for the logo because in ancient times it was a color that could only be attained by grinding and mixing pigments - often with a mortar and pestle.

Jasper Event Photography

For the Friday night reception the conference delegates were asked to come dressed in period costume.  This couple looked great - even better rendered in sepia tone using Nik Silver Efex pro software.

Jasper Event Photography

Here's one of the many context photos I took for the Alberta College of Pharmacy event.

Jasper

I'm not too sure what I think of this photo.  The colours are nice, good rendition of the rocks in the water, appealing placement of the 'lookout' at the lakeshore in the distance....but I'm not sure about the overall composition.  So it's for you to decide!

Jasper

Here's another context photo from the Jasper Park Lodge; canoes waiting for guests who fancy a paddle 'round Lake Beauvert.

Canon 5DII with Canon 24 TSE lens.  f13 at 1/13 sec at ISO 100.  Singh Ray LB Polarizer and Singh 2 stop soft edge graduate filter over the sky.

Jasper

I stared at this image for a while trying to decide if it had any merit.  It wasn't shot as a panorama, I just cropped it this way which seemed to improve things immeasurably....

Jasper

This photo was taken along the highway as we departed Jasper; a scene we;ve driven past countless times.  This day there were people all around, cooling their feet and generally just taking in the grandness of it all.

Jasper

The purpose of my trip to Jasper in late May was to tackle my first serious event photography assignment.  My client was the Alberta College of Pharmacists who were marking the 100th anniversary of regulated pharmacy practice in Alberta.  I wanted to provide some contextual photos to go along with the finished package.  This photograph -a view of the boat launch at the Jasper Park Lodge - was taken before the start of Saturday's meetings.

Jasper

This is a photo of one the boat launches at Miligne Lake. First day of fishing on the lake for 2011...reminds me of the line from the movie 'Jaws' when Chief Brodie says 'We're gonna need a bigger boat'.

Jasper

There was a stand of trees that had burned near the turn off to our hotel in Jasper; this is one of the many shots I took there.

Impromptu Hipstamatic Action

 Here are two photos taken of the same subject at the same time and day, just for comparison purposes.

The Hipstamatic's Jasper Visit

Here's a detail photo of the ramp of one of the Mailgne Lake boat launches - once gaing with the iPhone Hipstamatic app.

The Hipstamatic's Jasper Visit

As I've stated before, the iPhone accompanies me pretty much everywhere these days, not so much for use as a phone but as a camera.  This photo of the bottom of a row boat waiting the return of open water at Mailigne Lake was taken with the Hipstamatic app.  The app allows for different 'lenses' and types of virtual 'film' - in this case the 'lens' was set to 'Chunky' and the 'film' was set to 'Kodot XGrizzled'.  Minor contrast adjustment only in Photoshop.

U2 at Commonwealth

I took many photos with the iPhone at Wednesday night's U2 concert at Commonwealth Stadium - this is my favourite.  This is right out of the camera with no edits - taken using the Hipstamatic app.

Landscape Abstracts

I had a little 'play time' while attending to a photo assignment in Jasper recently and I took a run to Maligne Lake.  En route to Maligne one passes be Medicine Lake which is filling at this time of year.  This shot is handheld with the Canon 5DII and 70-200 f2.8 lens.  ISO 100, f11 at 200 mm; shutter speed was 1/125 sec - no filters for this shot.