A week ago, my good friend Liz stopped by the studio and had short hair.
A couple of days ago, she came back for a visit, with long hair this time.
Not a wig, but just very cool extensions. I’m thinking maybe I should try that as well. It looks like fun.
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A lot of people ask me why I photograph so many women and not as many men. I don’t really know why. I guess it’s mostly because more women ask me to photograph them, so the ball started rolling that way and my portrait portfolio now mostly consists of female models.
But, recently, my photographer friend Chris Thorn asked me that question again, so I decided to have him at my studio and show him that I could photograph good looking dudes as well.
To my female followers, that one is for you… ;o)
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Could you imagine the blind spot on that baby…
How do you even park that thing?!
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Last month I spent a few days in Edmonton on several projects.
One of them consisted of filming the 2013 First Nation Conference for Sustainable Buildings and Communities.
And at some point during the conference, the bands REDDNATION and Asani joined forces to perform their latest duo “Take a Stand” for us.
So as I was filming by myself, I had 2 options on that one:
Either leave the camera on a tripod and catch the whole thing, wide angle style (did anybody say “boring…”?), or grab my camera off the sticks, and run like hell around the singers and dancers while they were performing in order to get as many different angles as possible.
Good thing I like running…
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I am currently working on 3 different projects…
Two of which are about the Aboriginal Communities and the First Nation culture in Alberta and all over Canada.
Every time I get the privilege to work with my Aboriginal clients, I get the chance to witness a little bit of their traditions, round dance, chicken dance, pow wow, bannock testing and such.
And every time I am surrounded by those amazing dancers, all colorful, full of passion, moving with such energy and grace, I think about the odds of a guy like me, who grew up in a small town in France, ending up in Alberta, doing what he loves the most for a living, learning first hand about a culture that, when he was younger, didn’t even know still excited.
Pretty slim…but still, there I was.
Amazing world we live in!
More about these projects very soon.
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Snow and Ocean….? Yes please.
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Looks like we’ve just passed 250.000 views for the “My Song” video series!
If you haven’t seen any of it yet, you are missing out.
But the good news is that you can catch up here or by clicking on the big photo above.
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Last week I spent 3 interesting days in Edmonton.
On Friday I climbed an oil rig for the first time, but Wednesday was another first for me.
I actually walked in on a murder scene (yep, you heard that right) with my fellow friends from Martyshuk housing. Therefore ended up being filmed by CBC (if you watch the first minute of this video, you’ll see me minding my own business, doing what I was there to do, witness and film the everyday life of Martyshuk Housing’s team and their tenants).
Drugs, violence, and unfortunately death, is part of the everyday life for the homeless community of Edmonton (and in all the other big cities of the world). And the more I work with them, the more I learn about it and I realize how the work of Martyshuk Housing is important.
For the past 6 years now, Dave Martyshuk’s team has been working extremely hard, night and day, with all the agencies and Government departments in charge of taking care of the homelessness situation to house hundreds of people they are working towards eradicating homelessness in Edmonton in the next 5 to 10 years.
This project sounded completely nuts a few years ago, but it is now in full speed and it’s safe to say that if all those incredible folks keep going this way, homelessness might just be a souvenir in 5 to 10 years in Edmonton
In the meantime, even when you are surrounded by drugs, violence and alcohol, at the end of the day, there is always someone there with a big smile on his/her face to make you forget about all this and realize that there is hope.
I made a lot of new friends amongst the Martyshuk Housing tenants, but RJ was by far the happiest to see me film and photograph him. (You have no idea how excited he was about the hockey season finally starting too!)
If you’re in Edmonton, you might see him walking in the streets with his snow shovel, just helping out. If you do, go and say “hi” to him.
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You saw, the version of that photo with August sharp and Ruffle blurry here a few days ago, here is now the photo taken about one second later.
You guys have no idea how much I enjoy shooting with my new 85mm. That lens is so fast and soooo sharp at f/1.2!
I haven’t actually used it at any other aperture so far, and I am not about to, as it is so bokehlicious! (as my friend Thierry M would say.)
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If you know me a little, then you know that I can never resist trying something new and fun. Especially when it comes to climbing stuff to get a better point of view.
Whenever I arrive on a shoot, I have a mental routine that I go through. Where is the main light coming from, how much light do I have, do I need to add more, do I need to diffuse, reflect, where am I gonna put my subjects etc…
And a question I always ask myself when shooting outdoors is: “How can I get higher?”
Well, when you take photos of an oil rig, the answer to that question is pretty simple.
Just climb the 140 foot (43 meters) derrick.
I love it when I tell my clients where I wanna go and they ask me:
“Are you sure you want to that!? It’s -25 degrees on the ground, and it gets pretty windy up there so it’s gonna feel like -40 and it’s gonna be pretty slippery…”
As they saw the smile on my face get bigger they knew what was going through my head.
The beauty about working on a rig like that, is that all the guys around you are professionals and they don’t mess around with security.
In order to get up there, you have to put a harness on and the whole system makes it impossible to fall, and I mean impossible! The worst that could happen to you is that you could wet your pants because you’re scared of heights.
And in this kind of cold, you might not wanna do that.
Anyway, I did get all the way up, took a few photos and after a minute or two, the buttons of my camera started to freeze so I had to go back down.
What a view though…
More about this shoot very soon.
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Meanwhile, in Edmonton… I’m just trying to cross the street.
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As I mentioned last week, I don’t really do Christmas and I really don’t expect any presents from anyone. But what I didn’t mention was that I love treating myself with a nice new lens every once in a while.
Let me introduce the latest addition to my kit. (I’m talking about the cute piece of glass in the middle.)
So, this blog won’t be called “A life at 85mm” but you are about to see a lot more photos shot at this focal length.
Oh, and for those who know a thing or two about aperture, that baby opens at f/1.2, so if you think I had a pretty shallow depth of field before, you should hang on to your boots because backgrounds are about to get very very blurry.
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Last week I got contracted to film a “behind the scenes” for the latest Build Direct Christmas Video.
The whole shoot was taking place a the Vancouver Christmas Market.
Usually, the first thing I think about when I have to film something like that is: “How can I get higher than ground level…?”
I asked the people at the market if I could access the building next door’s roof top, they said “no”, but they did mention that the Christmas Markets Huts roofs were solid enough to hold a guy my size… (Mmmh…)
So I grabbed the closest ladder I could find and jumped on one of the roofs.
Some of the shots I took from up there actually ended up being used in the final video, not in the behind the scenes. As nice establishing shots.
I’m honored.
Also, while I was up, the amazing Aimee Makris (from Moi Photography), who was in charge of the photo behind the scene, grabbed a pretty cool shot of me doing my thing.
Thanks Aimee!
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It snowed quite a bit today in Vancouver. Like at least 8 to 10 cm. So people freaked out and crashed their cars everywhere and all. (I can hear my friends in Alberta laugh pretty hard right about now.)
So anyway, before going out in the craziness and the cold this morning, I decided to take a little “nature morte” and enjoyed the quiet for a few minutes…
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This is where I spent most of my time last week.
The big green building is Martyshuk Housing “Loft” where they house some of their clients (who used to be homeless) and above it is the view from the south facing units. Pretty cool view isn’t it?
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