One of the hardest things for photographers is effectively figuring out what our services are worth. There are numerous factors to ascertaining what you are worth. I think the most obvious factor – and often times the only factor – that most clients consider and care about is the quality of the finished product. What a lot of people don’t realize is the work that goes on behind the scenes – the time spent shooting and the time spent processing. (more…)

After much thought and consideration – not to mention a kick ass domain name being available – I have decided to split pixelens photography & design into two entities. I’d like to introduce TKO Photography⁺: sports photography + design + marketing. (more…)

The past year has been a good one and a busy one for pixelens photography. The latter part of the winter and spring started off slow as I was still working up in Fort McMurray, but the summer picked up a bit when I went back to an old job and ended up shooting three weddings.

In July, pixelens led one of three Edmonton legs of the 2nd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. It was an enjoyable experience, meeting with other local photographers and playing around with a rented 15mm Fisheye lens in the downtown Edmonton core. Looking forward to the 3rd Annual walk this year. (more…)

If you are a returning visitor, then you’ll have noticed I’ve changed up the look and feel behind my site. I didn’t mind the old look, however it was a bit too “bloggy” looking. (more…)

I’m sure most of you have seen my “thank-you” messages for voting for me in the Globe & Mail Journalism Dream contest, but I wanted to do up a post anyways. So, thanks again – it was because of your support and votes that I was able to finish in 10th place (by two votes!). No small feat considering I entered about 4 weeks late. It’s now up to the judges to pick their top ten now from the top 50 entries with the most votes and then choose one lucky SOB to shoot the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in February 2010.
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As most of you have probably heard, I’ve entered the Globe & Mail contest to try and win a chance to be a guest photographer at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Thanks to all your support I’m VERY close to reaching the top ten, roughly 20 votes away at the time of this writing. I’d like to thank you all for your past support and ask for your continued support over the next few days as the last day to vote is November 22nd. You do have to register, you do have to have a Canadian address, but each time you vote you also get a chance to win a laptop/dslr prize package from the Globe and Mail.

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As some of you may have seen, I asked for your help in picking 5 images I could submit for a really kick @$$ contest that I would LOVE to win. For those of you who responded, thank you very much for assisting me with my selections.

The Globe and Mail has a contest and the prize is for one writer and one photographer to be “guest journalists” for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. As some of you know, I’ve been delving into the realm of sports photography and this contest/opportunity is really exciting.

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The Globe and Mail has a contest and the prize is for one writer and one photographer to be “guest journalists” for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. As some of you know, I’ve been delving into the realm of sports photography and this contest/opportunity is really exciting. I need to post 5 images (which I will be doing later tonite I hope) and I’d like to ask your help to pick the BEST 5 images below. Send me an email at jbouwmeester at gmail dot com (or via Twitter – @pixelens, or Facebook if a FB friend, or leave a reply in the comments section below) with the numbers of your picks. Alternately if you have an image in mind from my Flickr stream, feel free to include that number – the 5D###### should be a tag on the Flickr page.

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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!