I have driven by this old gas station, now an auto repair shop, for years. Each time I thought to myself I wanted to photograph it. Finally on a leisurely drive to and from Victoria I saw the shot.

Put together using 4 separate exposures and tone mapped in Photomatix.

Remember to stop and smell the roses.

“Finding my way”
Illustrating Text: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” by W.B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

It has been some time since I last updated the site. The holiday season has been a time of reflection and concentrating on re-prioritizing as well as re-organization. When certain things happen in your life that bring to light both your loved ones and your own mortality, things like updating a website seem to take on little importance. Some of you may remember that in November I had started working on a portrait project. The idea behind the project was to find 20 or more volunteers to be willing to participate in being subjects for a video essay of sorts.

Like most of my ideas it was stuck in my head and releasing it seemed impossible. I turned to my local camera club and asked the membership for their help. The response was amazing and I ended up photographing 28 volunteers. Initially I only needed 20 people to create a 20 image essay. But in the next few weeks I will be creating an extended version that will incorporate 28-30 total people.

The following video is the result of about 3 weeks of work. The first week and a half was dedicated to travelling to each of the subjects homes to get to know each of them for an hour while I set up my lights, photographed and then packed up. The experience was immensely enjoyable and each of the people I photographed were a joy to spend time with. The following week was spent searching for the perfect music and then production. The music was found on an amazing site called Jamendo, and the song I eventually settled on is called Parade by AKAJULES. It has been shortened to 2.5 min for the 20 image essay but will be used in its entirety for the extended version.

I wish to thank everyone who helped in the video’s creation by volunteering and their enthusiastic support. Please enjoy!

Not everyone has a dedicated studio to shoot portraits of our clients in. Maybe your just starting out and feel that without a studio you can’t do any sort of portrait work. DIY is a growing trend these days so I present to you my portable, set up anywhere in 15 minutes studio. First off you will need Some PVC pipe. Then a backdrop, something like a sheet, canvas, muslin or even a shower curtain. A really good description of how to make your own PVC backdrop has already been done in this great post on DIYPhotography.net, so I am not going to get into the gritty details on exactly how to put this together. PVC pipe is not that expensive, it’s modular and light, allowing for quick setup and breakdown. My little setup includes the PVC pipe backdrop stand, two shower curtains, two or three light stands, three Vivitar 285 HV flashes, ball bungees, umbrella(s) and a set of Alienbees CyberSync remote flash controls.

Note: I recently had a chance to try out the LumoPro LP120 Flashes available from Midwest Photo Exchange. I highly recommend these over the Vivitar HV flashes because they are much more versatile, compact and quiet.

Here are all the goodies setup in my very small front room. (can you tell I don’t watch much of my ancient TV)

The two flashes on the sides are used to light up the backdrop and bring it as close pure white or over exposed as possible when shooting. The third flash with an umbrella is set up quite close to your model because the closer your light the softer the shadows. If you look below at a sample shot taken with this setup, you might notice that even the TV played a part in how the scene was lit, the TV reflected some of the light back onto the side of the models face. This effect could also be achieved with a reflector or white card.

Just after playing football

There you have it, an inexpensive portable yet effective setup that most anyone wanting to get started in portrait photography can do. In the end it’s not about the tools that you use it’s the results that you achieve using what you have at your disposal. I would love to see what others are using as a DIY solution to a backdrop or if you have any other cool inexpensive ideas for photography, send me a message via my contact page or via twitter (see top right).

A lensbaby gives you freedom.
freedom to have fun,
freedom to create,
freedom to enjoy the passion of photography,
freedom to share.

Today’s LBOTW is a reminder to not be crabby. Enjoy life to its fullest, you only have 86400 seconds each day to live it. It may seem like a large number but before you know it your second is gone. Capture at least one of those seconds each day to share with the world. You will feel better for it.

It’s all about the blur baby!

BIG NEWS! ~ Lensbaby is releasing two new optic swap optics for their line of lensbabies see a sneak peek here: –> http://slnk.ca/lbotw3

~ Click on the photo above to see it larger