Awhile ago I was contacted by a student in the UK wondering if she could use one of the photos I’d taken for a student magazine project on pregnancy. The image was used in an article written by Aastha Gill and was part of a coursework project for the MA Journalism degree program at the University of Westminster. Aastha was kind enough to mail me a hard copy and I must say, I was very impressed! A lot of work went into the project and it looks great. The picture they used appears below, the placement in the magazine appears as the main image of this post (so click through if you are on the main page of the blog or viewing this through a news reader).

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I had the pleasure of shooting Ryan, Nina & Bella a couple weekends ago at the Alberta Legislature. The weather was absolutely perfect for the shoot.

Ryan “The Real Deal” Ford is a local MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter and I’m really excited to shoot for him at his upcoming fight at TFC 8 in September!

Here’s a few of the pictures from the shoot. If you are on the main page of my blog or the RSS feed, don’t forget to visit the actual post to see the larger sized header image! I’ll be fixing that soon I hope.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I’ve been busy shooting a wedding, a family, processing images and dealing with color calibration issues on my laptop.

Anyways, I noticed in Lightroom they have a merge images to panorama in Photoshop feature and I thought I’d try it out with some pictures I took in Jasper in June. I was pleasantly surprised with the results, for the most part Photoshop did a great job stitching it together. Be sure to check out the larger size image on Flickr (800x4000px roughly).

Stay tuned, working on my “HDR: Start to Finish” post using my HDR of Canada Place from Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk as the subject.

Wow what a busy week! I’ve spent the past week slowly editing pictures from last weekends Worldwide Photo Walk and I’ve ended up with around 100 or so. I must say, I sure do miss that fisheye lens! I’m also preparing an HDR tutorial based on my Canada Place HDR shot that I took and processed from the photo walk. Fear not, it’s coming!

This weekend will be just as busy, shooting a country wedding tomorrow – going to be hot though, the forecast high is 32C! On Sunday I’ll be doing up some family pictures for a local MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter and (hopefully) in September I’ll be shooting his fight at TFC 8 at the Shaw Conference Centre here in town.

I found out today that one of my shots from the Photo Walk (image above when viewing full post) was featured over on Paul Stamatiou’s blog in an article title How To: HDR Photography Basics (Part 1). Thanks Paul, glad you liked it enough to use it.

Next up, I’m also featured over at Kimberly Rose’s My Alternate Reality blog. She emailed me some questions which I responded to and posted with some of my images from the past year or so. As well, if you comment on her post a random winner will receive their choice of an 8×10 or 8×12 print from my site or Flickr stream. Go check out the article and comment for the giveaway!

And with that, I leave you with a pooch I shot on the Photo Walk.

Pooch in B&W HDR shot with a fisheye lens

I know, I know – the Photo Walk was last Saturday, why haven’t I blogged about it yet? Between the Photo Walk and Sunday/Monday at Edmonton’s Capital Ex, I shot over 800 pictures. I managed to narrow the Photo Walk pictures down to about 100, I figure I’ll post around 80 to Flickr over the next couple weeks.

As for the actual Photo Walk, it went well. The weather was great – hot, around 28C by the time we finished. We had 32 photographers show up. I only knew a couple beforehand, and although I didn’t get to talk to everyone in depth, I did make a few new photographer friends/acquaintances during and after the walk. As I’d walked most of the area we were covering numerous times before, I rented a Canon 15mm fisheye lens for the day – and man, I loved it! I’ll be reviewing it at a later date.

Worldwide Photo Walk 2009 - Edmonton Group #2

I had the route planned out but not five minutes into the walk, we were approached by Huey – the owner of the apartment complex squished between the Hardware Grill and the old Jasper Hotel on Jasper Ave. He was curious as to what we were doing and then offered us access to the roof of the building for some shots of the city we might not have otherwise had the opportunity to take. It was pretty cool to be able to capture the entire Canada Place building bordered by Jasper Avenue and 97th Street in one shot. I’ve processed it in HDR using seven exposures from a single RAW file and due to interest I’ll be doing up a tutorial on my exact process for that shortly.

Canada Place (HDR)

After the rooftop, we headed further on Jasper Avenue towards Gibson Block, then worked our way up 96th Street, down 103A/104th Avenue, back down 104th Street and back up Jasper Avenue ending up just south of Sir Winston Churchill Square at the Second Cup. There about half the group chatted about photography, swapped pictures and cooled off to iced cappuccinos and the likes.

I’m looking forward to leading another walk next year – and I learned a LOT this year about leading walks which I fully intend to incorporate into my plans for next year. First off, even though I had the route thought out it was 1) a bit too long for a group that size and 2) I was the only one that knew it so when the group started to splinter not everyone knew exactly where to go. Second, it is important to have a DEFINITE end point – we had a general area we were going to meet up at but that’s not good enough. A good portion of us ended up in the same spot at the end, but there were a few that didn’t and it would have been nice to chat and share with them as well. That being said, everyone that I spoke with or emailed after the walk mentioned they had a great time and made a few new local photography contacts.

Gibson Block

What’s next? If you were part of the walk be sure to upload your TWO best photographs to the main Worldwide Photo Walk page by July 25th, 2009 11:59 pm EST to be eligible for consideration for the Grand Prize – which is a pretty grand prize if I’ve ever seen one – or one of the 10 honorable mentions! You can also submit your images to the Edmonton Worldwide Photo Walk 2009 Flickr group and/or the July 18th, 2009 Scott Kelby’s 2nd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk group – while you’re there be sure to check out the Edmonton FlickrMeets group as well. If you missed the walk and live in the Edmonton area, be sure to join the Edmonton FlickrMeets group as well – people are always meeting up and arranging photography shoots, and just generally chatting about local photography opportunities and photography in general.

Be sure to check out Saturday’s edition of the Edmonton Journal. Jennifer Fong, a writer for the Lifestyle section came on the walk as well and is writing about her experience for Saturday’s Journal.

I really enjoyed the experience, meeting new local photographers and am looking forward to next year! If you attended the Edmonton walks – or any of the Worldwide Photo Walks – feel free to leave comments on your experiences!

Was downtown for the Canada Day festivities yesterday and managed to snag a shot of the progress of construction on the Art Gallery of Alberta building. It’s coming along and personally I think it looks great as a black and white HDR. I can’t wait for the finished building to grab some more shots!

Picked up an Inspiron 36″ light tent last night, here’s one of the first test shots. I have 2 45W 5500K 120V lights as well – not sure if I need more or what. I’m shooting from the front with the front piece on – I’ll have to upload a setup picture later if I can.

I adjusted curves and levels on this as well… It also came with 4 colored backs – white, black, red and blue – can I iron these to get rid of fold and wrinkle creases?

Anyone have any pointers or tips?

I’ve been following the blogs and forums over at DPS for a couple years now – it’s definitely a GREAT resource for photographers. I think the one thing I love the most about DPS (aside from the friendly and helpful nature of all the people over there) is the fact that they are always trying to keep photographers motivated and give the readers more ideas to attempt. I love the idea of the latest challenge.

Over the next few days set yourself this little challenge.

1. Choose a single focal length. If you have a prime lens use it – if you don’t choose a zoom lens and commit to only using it at one end of its range.
2. Photograph 10 people – with each person only take a single shot.
3. Share your 10 shots with us. The easiest way is probably to upload your 10 shots to a Flickr account (or some other photo sharing site) and then group them all together into one group – share the link to that group in comments below.

Read the full challenge over at DPS!

Had the pleasure of heading out to the Alberta Legislature grounds and area today with Brandon and Lena to shoot their engagement photos for their upcoming wedding in September. Looked like it was going to rain, then the beautiful pools and fountains at the grounds were fenced off for maintenance. However, all turned out very well – the rain held off and there were more than enough places to shoot in the area. Can’t wait to shoot their wedding, a truly fun and genuine couple! Will post more pictures as they’re processed.

Seems to be the season these are finally out in full bloom! There are a few spots in the city that have an abundance of these, noticed a few just outside my office so I snagged a few shots at lunch.

According to Wikipedia:

A cherry blossom is the name for the flower of cherry trees known as Sakura (Japanese kanji : æ¡œ or æ«»; hiragana: さくら) in Japanese. In English, the word “sakura” is equivalent to the Japanese flowering cherry.^[1][2] Cherry fruit (known in Japanese as sakuranbo) comes from another species of tree.

However, this could also be of the ornamental flowering crab apple variety. I can’t tell – can you?