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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Back from the cold, head full of dreams and camera full of amazing photos… More about this trip very soon.
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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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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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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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When your client asks you to wear a vest like that for your shoot, you know you are about to have an interesting day.
As I knew my mom was not really gonna love the idea of me having to wear a “Stab Vest” to work, I waited a bit before blogging about it. But I am now back in Vancouver so all is well.
This type of vest is what the security men of Martyshuk Housing have to wear to work.
It is designed to stop any punch, knife, baseball bat or crowbar. And it will also keep you seriously warm when you are working by -25 degrees.
Working amongst the homeless community is an incredibly intense and rewarding job, but it has its risks as well. Most of the time Martyshuk Housing tenants are very calm and friendly, but sometimes, people are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol and become agitated or violent. That’s why the security team has to wear those vests when they are doing their rounds. Better safe than sorry.
The fact is that a few of the security guards can attest, first hand, that those vest can stop a knife.
Anyway, I flew back to Vancouver last night and I had an absolute blast with Martyshuk Housing’s team. We shot a lot of interviews, security interventions, smiles, tears and various war stories. We’ll start editing this very soon, as I can’t wait to share the footage with you all.
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For the past 5 days now, I’ve been back in Edmonton to work with the incredible people of Martyshuk Housing.
I’ve worked with them several times before and have had a blast every time.
This week was no exception. Once again, I got to spend time with people who are so full of love, warmth and happiness, even if life hasn’t always been so kind to them.
As I have been hanging around the halls with my camera for the past few days now, all of Martyshuk Housing clients know me pretty well. (Either as Brice or “camera guy”) And every time I show up, I am welcomed by big smiles, which make my job pretty sweat and easy I gotta say.
Learn more about what Martyshuk housing does here, we definitely need more people like them in this world…
I am shooting videos this time and you’ll get to see them pretty soon, but in the mean time here are 2 of my buddies.
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My ride to work is here. Once we make it through the clouds we should be fine…
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I love reading a good book when I’m flying.
This time, my partner for the trip is “Trust me I’m Lying” (Confessions of a media manipulator) by Ryan Holiday.
I heard about that book while watching one of Chase Jarvis’s latest CJ Live.
To quote Chase: “Ryan is a media genius who hires and fires creatives–photographers, filmmakers, designers and more people just like us– AND he promotes, inflates and hacks some of the biggest names, celebrities and brands in the world. Ryan Holiday is all these things, he’s also the Director of Marketing for American Apparel, and he’s just 24 years old (yes you read that correctly – he took the job after he turned legal drinking age…). Mind blowing responsibility and million dollar budgets, plus the brains behind all those risque American Apparel ads you’ve seen…. Want to know all his secrets? How to create content that gets noticed? How to get hired as a creative? How to get your name in lights? And then hack the system to get results? It’s more than you think, and it’s not all fun and games.”
Definitely a good read in my opinion if you are a creative and you are trying to get your work out there.
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Guess who’s going back to Alberta.
This trip is gonna be an interesting one, get ready…
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Guess what…
When I’m not filming cool models for the “my song” series, I am filming cool models to promote “High Street” in Edmonton, Alberta.
Here is the latest video we shot there a few weeks ago, for the great people of Regency Developments.
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A very dear friend of mine just sent me a message about this photo and it made me realize that maybe I should share it with you as well.
I shot this photo during Aboriginal Day in Edmonton on June 21st 2012. I was working for the great people of Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and was covering an event put together by the fantastic Lisa Baroldi of Progress Unlimited.
I know I have said this before, but I will say it again because it’s worth remembering:
I am extremely grateful to be able to do what I do for a living, which consists of witnessing and taking photos of amazing people, events and discovering new cultures, communities and traditions every time I am on a new shoot.
Not everybody has the chance of enjoying his/hers work the way I do mine and it’s pretty easy to forget how lucky I am. Specially when working like crazy on 5 different projects at once.
But I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s not really work when it’s the only thing you wanna do when you wake up in the morning. (After having coffee of course.)
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Last week I got the chance to hang out on stage with “A Tribe Called Red”.
“A Tribe Called Red” is an all Native American DJ crew from Ottawa, Canada. They remix traditional Pow Wow music with contemporary club sounds.
I have been around quite a few Native round dances and pow-wows lately (and I’m talking about the raw version with just drums and voices) and this is already extremely powerful.
So when Bear Witness, Dan General and Dee Jay NDN bring the computers and electric beats in on top of it, it gets pretty freaking intense.
And guess what? Their album is available FOR FREE here: www.electricpowwow.com
So check them out.
Also you can listen to their music here, and visit their blog here.
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