After months of waiting the extended version of “face” is finally available for public viewing. The video had it’s debut last night at the Nanaimo Joy of Photography show. The show was an amazing collection of videos brought to you by The Harbour City Photography Club. I wish to thank everyone who volunteered to help in the making of “face” and also all the hard working people who put the Joy of photography show together, without all their hard work the evening would have been without joy.

The music is titled Parade by AKAJULES.
For more details on the making of this video read the original short version post here

This post is not about photography directly, but how the world around us has changed and continues to do so. Why should you care? You could always just not use Facebook or Twitter. If you are going to be marketing yourself in any way you owe it to yourself to at least listen.

What are your thoughts on why you should be using social media? Is it just a big waste of time? I think it really is all about how choose to use it.

If your a photographer that likes flowers, plants or gardens then this is the place that you will never want to leave. In the last few years taking photos of flowers and fauna is not my first choice when deciding what to take a picture of but I was asked recently if I wanted to join a group of friends on a trip to capture the fall colors that are so prevalent at the gardens right now. I always keep an open mind and love to explore new places, plus the chance to have a great day of photography with friends, that all like taking pictures, is just not something I am willing to pass up. Spending quality time with like minded people is very enjoyable and rewarding. It will do wonders for your creativity and growth as a photographer.

The Butchart Gardens is a place that will not fail to please you just about any time of the year. Even if you are not a photographer I am sure you will absolutely love visiting. The gardens are immaculately maintained and offer some of the most peaceful and beautiful manicured scenery I have seen on the Island. For more information about the gardens go to their website.

Here is a gallery of some of the pictures I took during my visit. I want to thank my friends for inviting me to join them on their beautiful adventure.

Some of you may have seen the image ‘inner journey’ that was shot both for my own enjoyment and for a challenge entry at dgrin.com in the DSS challenges forum. What I have never revealed are the behind the scenes preparations and thoughts behind the creation of the image.

inner journey

The challenge was to shoot an image that represented either Chaos or Serenity. I chose to shoot serenity mainly because it comes much more naturally to me, an immediate image that came into my mind was a yoga practitioner surrounded by nature and peaceful elements. My vision included candle lit lanterns water and reflections of those things in the water.

The first challenge was to find a model that I felt fit the role perfectly and as luck would have it that person was close at hand. Maria a good friend and leader, readily volunteered to help me out. Second challenge was to find at least 40 tea light lanterns. This challenge was met by deciding to make the lanterns myself with the help of my wife. Two days and four really sore hands later we had 60 paper lanterns with coat hanger wire stands.

The lanterns are created by cutting a sheet of 8.5×11 paper in half and folding it into a topless cube. For the bottoms, a small square of corrugated plastic (coroplast) is used for stability and a straightened coat hanger is stuck through the plastic square and bent at a 90 degree angle. You can see the bottoms near the pliers on the table. Then the bottom is stuck through the paper cube and is stuck down with a small loop of masking tape. Finally a tea light candle is placed in the center of the cube with another loop of tape.

Once the lanterns were ready the final challenge was to find a suitable place to set them up and do the shoot. We wrestled with several ideas, from creating a pond in my back yard to a lakeside private Zen garden that had its own network of artificial streams and ponds. In the end another good friend who owns a forested section of land that borders a local creek, was happy to let us setup in a section of the creek where the water was calm due to large log that acts as a dam and slowed the flow of the creek down considerably.

The depth of the water near the log was about 16-20 inches but quickly became deeper as the lantern path moved out from the log. The water was almost 3 feet deep about 4 to 5 feet in front of the lanterns, so moving from the log to my shooting position was an exercise in careful stepping through silt, fallen sticks and leaves at the bottom of the creek. I was wearing hip waders to protect myself from the icy water. To give you an idea of how cold this shoot was it was shot on March 08, 2009 at around 10 am and it snowed a light dusting of snow that morning. Maria was an absolute trooper and was very cold by the time the shoot was over (about 30 minutes).

I started out by using several remote flashes to try and achieve some dramatic lighting but ended up just using the natural light filtering through the canopy of trees above. I went back later in the evening to take a few pictures of the lantern path with the tea lights lit up in the dark.

One of the reasons this shoot was one of my favorites this year is the amount of preparation and work involved in bringing it to fruition. It wasn’t just me that went out and shot something it was a collaboration of many friends and their generosity. Working with the people involved was both very rewarding and fun. The more I am involved with photography the more I realize that it is the people you meet and work with that make it such a worthwhile passion.

Incidentally the image did take first place in the challenge. My regular participation in the challenges have given me a great reason to explore my creativity and find out who I am as a photographer, I have made some great friends along the way as well.