Gettin' Ready

Getting ready for a wedding! on 12seconds.tv

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

One of the more interesting shoots I did for a client today... Coconut Mail :)

My clients rock

So lately I've had a handful of clients ask me for my availability before they went out to book their venue and solidify their wedding date. How amazing and flattering is that?! I mean, isn't it just an awesome feeling in general when someone considers your schedule when making plans? Yah. So to have clients book their wedding date around me, when there are a hundred other factors to consider when booking your wedding date, is quite humbling and mind-blasting. Beyond the coolness of just being considered in that way, I'm more excited about being able to work with clients who value photography (seemingly above most other things for their wedding). People who are making photography a priority and understand that if you have bad photos from your wedding, you're gonna be stuck with them for the rest of your life no matter how much you regret it. They understand that the day could have been beautiful with all the perfect details and moments but if the photos are crappy, well then everything in the photos look crappy.

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Happy birthday Wilson!!! For his bday, I got him this Bose mp3 dock which pumps out some crazyyyyyyyyyy sound for such a tiny little thing. It better... for the kind of moolah I shelled out for it. Ack! But it's worth it because now we can work out to nice-sounding tunes instead of ghetto scratchiness from the old system. I also got him the Matrix trilogy on BluRay and we're about to watch it right now so I better peel myself away from the computer :)

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I don't like posting without an image so here's a random image! I'm helping my friend photograph her thesis. haha So random.... hope you enjoy.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

ch

Janey's 25th Birthday

We had such a blast on Saturday for Janey's private dinner which was personally "cheffed" by Mr. Earl Falco. The food was soooo good and you couldn't stop hearing people compliment it. I had some sort of chicken stuffed chicken while some others had a very tender tenderloin. The potato pave round was yumm-o!

I had a lot of fun taking photos of the decor and cool moments. As usual with my friends, they are my test subjects and so I was testing the boundries of just how close I could get to people, invade their personal space and take their photo haha Seems some people don't enjoy me in their personal space :P

A good friend of mine really challenged and changed the way I shoot one day last year when he asked me to take photos with my 35mm lens. 35mm?? That's sooo wide and far way! That means I'd have to get so close into people's faces in order for them to even fill the frame. It was pretty awkward for me since I was taught to use a zoom lens and shoot from far away. The results are pretty amazing though! When you shoot with a wider lens and get in close, you really get a more intimate feel to the images because the camera and photographer were actually that close. Also (according to Annie) 35mm is the closest perspective to human sight so it gives images a more 3D and realistic feel. It's subtle but I can definitely see it in photos now. Think of it this way: in all the photos you see in the newspaper or images from wars or that b&w documentary stuff the photographer is most definitely not hiding behind some tree with a zoom lens capturing this stuff. The images are so arresting because the photographer is actually in the middle of all the action, rubbing noses with the people around him.

Shooting closer to my subjects allows me to feed off their personalities and the little details and moments that happen. I don't get how some (wedding) photographers send their couples far far away and use a 200mm lens to take photos.

Photo not by me ;)

Doesn't it just feel so far away, like we're spying on the couple? Anyway, just my random thoughts :)

Distillery District: Boiler House, Archeo, Pure Spirits

The Boiler House

What a long day of shooting today. On paper it was 5 hours but 5 hours on location is long. You've gotta absorb a lot of visual information while trying to take in the "flow" of how people work, adapting and coming up with creative solutions. A couple of the hours involved waiting around too which, as "non-working" it sounds, is very draining because you can't really rest and you're not actually doing something. Oh and let's not forget about being sociable to your hosts even though you're so mentally exhausted. Still gotta smile, be positive and do your job :)

Enough of that an onto how fun it was!


Chef Eric from all three restaurants helped me throughout the whole food shoot. As we were chatting, I let it slip that I'm a bit of a foodie and was interested in pursuing culinary arts at one point. I also had told him that I wasn't really into raw oysters either (while he was shucking them). Then I realized that it's not very "foodie-like" to dislike oysters so of course, he managed to talk me into having one.

It wasn't as bad as I remember it being. I had a Komodo oyster which he told me was sweeter than the East coast ones. It had a cucumber-y kind of taste to it.

I definitely enjoyed digging into some of the other dishes we shot more :)






What's cool is that the PR person from the restaurants told me that she had put me on their endorsed vendors list for weddings. How cool! I'm one of only three and the other two are pretty "big" (by big I just mean extremely popular and well known from all the advertising, marketing, wedding shows they do) so I feel pretty honoured that I, the person who doesn't do shows and advertising, can hang with those dudes :) *pats herself on the back*

Pure Spirits

I've shot a lot of restaurants in my time and I've gotta say that the food from all three restaurants (Boiler House, Archeo, Pure Spirits) really ranks at the top. They seriously didn't pay me to say that :) All three kitchens are managed by Chef Eric so there's a consistency to all of their food in terms of quality. I'd say I like the style of Archeo the best because it's more upscale-casual where Boiler House is more fancy fare. Pure Spirits is great too however I'm not the biggest seafood fan so my opinion is a bit bias. Whenever you're around the Distillery District in Toronto be sure to hop into one of these restaurants -- not to mention Winterlicious!

Welp, time to freaking get some sleep.
I have a friend's thesis to photograph tomorrow then off to hang out with one of my best friends for her birthday. More on that soon.

ch

Movies!

I've had some time to catch up on movies this past month with Wilson both at the theater and on DVD. Here are my thoughts:

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
   3/5
   Long, long and long. One of those movies where you say, "I want those three hours of my life back." The makeup, acting and cinematography was great. I felt the story had so much potential and was so unique but went in an odd and maybe awkward direction towards the end. After all, it's just weird to see a woman cradling her at-one-time lover and father of her child in her arms ya know? Wait til it comes out on DVD.
   
2. Slumdog Millionaire
   4/5
   Such a one of a kind story and cool way of story telling. Wonderful imagery and a thrilling story that takes you into the lives of a young boy growing up in the slums of Mumbai and how he ends up winning the equivalent of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
3. Burn After Reading
   3.5/5
   A good movie done in the signature Coen brother's style where it's so random yet somehow connected; no real "point" to the movie in the Hollywood sense but takes you deep into the lives of the most common people and gives you a glimpse into their world. Brad Pitt's acting was a bit too "try hard" if you ask me. But good effort Brad, good effort. I actually enjoyed George Clooney's acting a lot in this movie.
4. Gran Torino
   3.5/5
   I have some mixed feelings about this movie as it touches on a lot of important issues such as race/ethnicity, stereotyping and the differences between an older and younger generation but sometimes I feel like the entire movie is a bit cliche itself. Overall I still think it's a decent watch with a nice underlying message about life, acceptance and grace. Clint Eastwood is super grumpy in this movie!
   

PhotoSynth

I think I saw this technology almost a year ago and I've often what happened to it but I guess here it is! PhotoSynth basically stitches different people's images together of the same scene to make one huge image where you can zoom in or out, pan left or right depending on how many images have been contributed from various cameras and angles. Hundreds of images were sent in from yesterday's inauguration to make a really interesting 3D look of the scene. Download the plug-in and snoop around!

Holistic Blends

I'm doing some work for Holistic Blends pet food (great brand of pet food btw. My cat eats it!) so Haley is my wonderful subject. We're trying to get images of her eating/chewing and I thought this one was so funny because it looks like she's ravaging her Denta Stix. I'm off to Mississauga in a few hours to photograph one of my cats as well. In the photo of Haley, you can see the cut/scar she has on her ear from when her brother bit it when she was a little puppy. Aw!

ch

jewel + ben, slideshow

If you don't know who Ben Weeks is, he's an incredible, super talented artist. Jewel and Ben had a charming wedding up in Baysville, Ontario. The silence was crazy up there. I don't remember the last time I was in utter silence (i.e. no sounds of an air conditioner or fan, traffic, birds, cell phones... life????). Shooting for fellow artists always put a bit of added pressure to my job and with Ben's qualifications I was pretty intimidated. Jewel mentioned something about him liking negative space in photos (which I love too!!) so I forced myself to be more conscious of my composition. You'll notice more negative space in their photos ;)

ch

Random thoughts on winter weddings

I drank a tall glass of milk tea for dinner and now I am super wired which is really bad because I am so sick and should be sleeping! But since I'm wired, I edited Saturday's wedding and Sunday's and now, just letting Sunday's upload so in the meantime I'll just blog a bit about my random thoughts on winter weddings.

Winter weddings are cool.
They're not for everyone but you can really get some unique shots out of it. Some of the major problems I was noticing over the weekend were:

1. Cold. Yah, very. Most normal human beings I've shot in the winter can handle about 10 or so minutes of cold winter shooting before having to go inside somewhere to warm up or at least keep moving to stay warm. It kind of ruins the "flow" and momentum of the shoot. Sometimes people's noses or ears start to turn a bit rosy and it makes the photo look cold!
   Good thing the couples I shot over the weekend weren't one of them :)
   
2. Snow can cause a problem because of people's footwear. There were some cool places I wanted to shoot over the weekend but because some people were unable to walk in deeper snow it was a no-go. Snow can also cause cool locations to be muddy or dirty. If the bride is concerned about the bottom of her dress then it means we won't be able to shoot there.
   
3. Unpredictable weather / lighting conditions. Ok, so in Toronto that's pretty much a given anyway but in the winter it's even more all over the place! Saturday started off with sunshine then in the afternoon was some nice even lighting (a bit flat with the light bouncing off the snow). Sunday's wedding was sunny. The snowfall on Saturday evening made it difficult to get home and also slowed down my driving the next morning. For Lucy and Jay's wedding there was insane wind action going on. It wasn't even a nice-natural-wind-machine-look. It was just out of control.
   
4. Because of the cold, it usually means the time for photos is limited just because we don't want our bride and groom getting frostbite or sick on their wedding day.

Anyway, it's still a really great thing to shoot because it puts me out of my comfort zone in all regards and forces me to come up with creative ideas... quickly. Welp, one more winter wedding to go at the end of this month! Until then I'm gonna try to keep as warm as possible :)

ch

allison + nathanael, slideshow

Cottage Wedding

My first cottage wedding! It was such a sweet place because Jewel and Ben had their own private cottage then got married in the clubhouse. Can't wait to go through these images! Stay tuned for more.

Congrats to Allison and Nathanael :)

What a fun wedding. I guess the picture says it all! I'm going to bed. All the images are just backing up right now... I need to format all my cards and recharge all my batteries for tomorrow's wedding in Baysville which is um, 2 1/2 hours away and my start time is 9:00am *doing math in head* so I'll have to leave before 7am which means I'll get less than 5 hours of sleep. Nice! Good times. Good night.

Postcard Time!

I'm sending out some postcards to past clients of 2008 with an image from whatever shoot I did with/for them. I love the colour on these babies.

ch

Random video

haha this was shot by Wilson when the worship team was over at the Walnut and we were rehearsing for a Sunday. So random but, hey...that's my life.

Wedding Bells

Cool! Check me out in the latest issue of Wedding Bells on page 357! I didn't know if I was gonna make it into the magazine for sure so I never really mentioned it but I did so yay!

Help me Decorare

I'm going to be printing off about 5 canvas to go all across this wall, gallery style. The size will be 30"x40" like the one of Haley on the right. Help me decide which image I should print next!

Albums awaitin'

I've got a bunch of albums in, ready to be delivered to clients. Decided to take some shots of them.

Stephen and Lynn's Japanese Albums with the unique folds and cuts.

Praveena and Mubeen's New York flushmount album. So slick and clean!

ch