dpvisuals - blog

The Nation's Capital - Big City Night-time Shoot - Ottawa, Ontario

2011-06-09T00:08:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I was in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's Capital City. I was there for a wedding (in the wedding, not shooting the wedding), but we went a few days early to help out with the preparations. The night we arrived, three of us went downtown Ottawa for a few hours to shoot some night-time scenery. I think we stayed out until about 1:30 am... Here are some of the shots, I hope you enjoy them! Please feel free to use the comments area for any questions or, of course, comments.

Hawii - Recap Part 1

2011-05-19T22:25:00.003-04:00

The blog has been a little quiet lately, I know. There is reason for this, work has been a bit crazy and so has catching up on everything since getting back from Hawaii. This is going to be a two part blog post where I recap my time spent in Hawaii.

In the vein of not talking too much and rather just showing photos, I will stop talking, err...writing. Take a look below for my favorites from the rest of the trip. Recap Part 2 will come at a later date when I have a chance to edit all of the video I shot during the trip.

Day 4: A beach

Click here to view the rest of the post and all the photos.

Day 5: A beach and looking out from the lighthouse, see the lighthouse here.

Day 8: A luau

Day 9: Wedding Day, see here

Day 10: The Kauakahis, see here. Also, climbing up this mountain is literally the backyard to the house that I stayed up.

Day 11: Still frame grabs from my GoPro video camera of snorkeling, cliff jumping and driving around as well as photos from the Waimea Canyon

Day 12:

Day 13 and 14: Most of the GoPro frame grabs are actually from day 13 and 14, but it just made more sense to throw them in up there.

So that is about it for my Hawaii trip, other than the video that is, but I promise, that post won't be nearly as long as this one is ha! I hope you have enjoyed following along. I am going to be keeping the blog busier from now on and stay tuned for some big changes as well.

As always feel free to leave comments, and I encourage questions as well.

More to come soon - dp

The Kauakahis

2011-03-15T22:04:00.002-04:00

While I was in Hawaii, I had the opportunity to take photos for a great family, the Kauahakis. Obviously, being in Hawaii, we shot near a beach. It was a crazy sunny day, the day following the rainy day for the wedding. Here are just a few of the photos that I took. I had a great time shooting these guys, they are great people and were a blast to hang out with!

Enjoy!

Make sure to click Read More to see more of the photos. And follow the link at the bottom of the post to see some more photos on Facebook.

Follow this link to see more of the photos on the dpvisuals Facebook page.

Kenny and Bonnie - Hawaii Beach Wedding

2011-03-07T04:01:00.004-05:00

If you have been following along with my recent blog posts, then you know that I am currently in Hawaii. If not... I am in Kauai, Hawaii. The reason that I am here is to shoot Kenny and Bonnie's wedding. I met these two about two months ago when they approached me to shoot their wedding. We worked out the details and before I knew it, the flights were booked.

During the winter in Hawaii, it is the rain season. In a jungle climate, that makes it very likely for...rain. The three days leading up to the wedding, were very consistently rainy days. Here in Hawaii, it doesn't rain throughout the whole day, it will rain off and on all day and everywhere on the island will be different. For this reason, I think we were all apprehensive as the wedding day began. It all turned out great, the day started and ended with rain, but the rain held off during most of the time that we set aside for the photo shoot and during the ceremony, which was held on the beach.

I have been having a great time while here in Hawaii. I have met lots of great people and done a lot of really fun thing. While I was shooting the wedding, it was so easy to tell how much these two love each other and how much everyone who attended love these two.

Enjoy the following preview of photos from the Kenny and Bonnie's wedding day.

Be sure to click Read More to see more photos, and scroll to the bottom of the post to see more on the dpvisuals Facebook page.

Click here to see more photos on the dpvisuals Facebook page.

Hawaii - Day Three

2011-02-28T03:31:00.001-05:00

Day 3 was pretty much focused on surfing. There are quite a few friends around here that are willing to take you out for a surf, use one of their boards and give you some instructions. Trust me, its harder than it looks. It requires a whole lot of arm strength to paddle out into the waves and then some more to paddle with the wave so it picks you up for a ride.

We drove out to meet some friends who were going to teach me to surf. As it turned out, we were slightly ahead of them in our timing, so Jordan and I stopped at the lighthouse and took some pictures from the lookout. We were going to go closer to the lighthouse, but it cost money and we didn't have cash with us (apparently a lot of the island only deals in cash).

After that we drove the rest of the way to the beach and got started with the surfing. Lets just say I was unsuccessful today (check out the picture at the bottom of the post to see what I mean), but I kind of know more of what I should be doing. Hopefully I will do better next time!

I also got the chance to shoot some surfing and grab some pictures of the palm trees that are all around here. Click on Read More to see more of the photos from today! (Thanks to Jordan for taking the pictures of me!)

Hawaii - Day Two

2011-02-27T04:51:00.001-05:00

Today started off with home made breakfast, orange juice, etc. It was delicious! Next up we drove down the road to play some tennis. The courts were in an amazing location with mountains for a backdrop. We had the place to ourselves and played a few games.

After getting a hearty work-out from tennis, we headed back to the house for a bit and then off to hit the beaches. Beach number one was where we snorkelled and also watched some whales jumping out of the water. Beach number two had a cliff to jump off. I was the only one that jumped. But check out the video below to see me jump.

Click on Read More to see some more pictures and the video.

Checking my exposure.

This is a shot of the cliff that I jumped from in the video below.

Hawaii - Day One

2011-02-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today so far has been pretty chill. Yesterday I awake for about 24 hours, so today I am taking it easy. Woke up around 8 am local time. I had a pretty decent sleep considering the time change. The heat here is crazy compared to back home in Ontario. It was about 75 degrees here this morning at 10 am and has only gotten hotter as the day goes on. There are roosters all over the place here, and although they didn't wake me up during the night or in the morning, they are incredibly loud during the day.

This afternoon I went on a hike with James, up Sleeping Giant (Nounou Mountain). It was a very hot and sweaty hike, due to the humidity here. I'm not sure how long the hike was or how high it was, but you could clearly see the ocean and a lot of other mountains. This time I didn't take my camera, but I will be taking it with me to all the other places we go.

After hiking was time for a bit of sitting around and then headed to Jordan and James' soccer practice. I got to play with them, despite the fact that I haven't played soccer in many many year. Lets just say I am slightly out of shape and my muscles are pretty sore now.

Below is a video that I created with some quick clips that I shot on my iPhone 4. Enjoy!

Goin' on a trip!

2011-02-24T11:20:00.001-05:00

Well hello everyone. I know it's been a little bit of a while since I last posted. There is very good reason for that I promise. I got a full-time job! (up until this point, I had only been working part-time as well as my own freelance work.)

What this means is that I don't have quite as much time to post on this here blog, although I am going to do my best.

The reason of this post, is to let you all know that I will be going on a trip, to HAWAII! I have the opportunity to be a photographer at a wedding, as well as visit a good friend of mine and hang around for a while. So for the next coming weeks, be sure to check out the blog and the dpvisuals facebook page to stay up to date on what is going on. My plan as of right now is to be doing a whole lots of adventurous things as well as get a bit of work done while I am away. I will be taking as many pictures and videos as I can, and hopefully I will get some good content to show you.

I am currently writing this from the Toronto airport, waiting for my flight to LA and from there I will head to Hawaii.

This is all for now, but I will leave you with a video that I worked on at my new job. I only did the actual filming and none of the editing or anything, but enjoy!

More to come soon!

35mm - Big City, Small Town Feel

2011-01-31T14:19:00.001-05:00

You might be able to consider the following pictures as part of the Small Town - Night Series or you might just consider them as some photos that have their own category, you decide. I finally got around to developing some film that I have been dying to see. Some of these shots were taken back in the Fall of 2010, either September, October or November, I really have no idea when it was. It was a day that my girlfriend took me apple picking, something I had not done since a field-trip in kindergarten. I only took a few photos that day, as I needed to help with carrying the giant bag of apples. We went apple picking at a farm out in the country (that makes sense I guess) called Pingle's and then also checked out the store-front that they had at the farm. It was a great day, and we were eating and baking with apples for the next few weeks!

The other photos in the post (this is where it is more like the Small Town/Night pics) are from downtown Toronto, in the Distillery District. Back in December there was a Christmas Market (apparently something more common in Europe?). It was a lot of fun, and we ended up going twice. There were vendors on the streets selling mostly home made food, pies, cakes and other treats. Along with the outside set-ups, all of the stores in the area were open extended hours, there were also many art-galleries open to walk through and enjoy. Santa also made the appearance for some photos with kids. There were carollers, clowns and lots of jolly people. I took more photos here because we went twice. Since it was at night I really had no idea what I was going to come home with, and since it was on 35mm film, it made it even more of a guessing game. Overall I am pretty happy with some of the shots that I got.

Enjoy!

Click on Read More to see the rest of the photos

This is me carrying the bag FULL of apples

Night-Time Series Part 2

2011-01-25T14:52:00.001-05:00

This is the second part of an on-going series of photos that are of small towns, or places with small town feels to them, taken at night (see the first post here). There is something totally different about going out late at night, to take pictures. Often times a tripod is required as well as long exposures. When you hit the shutter button with a long exposure, for myself anyways, I am not sure exactly what is going to show up at the end of the exposure. It's not like taking portraits, covering events or shooting sports. It is a slower process and I think that's why I am enjoying it so much. I get to think through exactly what I am doing, before I do it, or while I picture is being taken. So far, the times that I have gone out for this series, I have been out for quite a while (a few hours) but taken only a handful of photos (only 21 photos in total this last time). Since this is something I am just getting into, it is a lot of experimenting and trial and error.

When I headed out for this trip, the plan was to photograph a local firehall that I have driven by many times at night, each time noticing the bright contrast of the lighting of the building against the dark woods all around. I wanted to try to capture this erie feeling. It was a little past midnight when I went, so the roads were pretty much deserted in this area, but it was also a rainy night. The snow was melting, it wasn't the most pleasant of conditions. Anyways I came out with a few shots that I like. The last photo in this post is from the following day when we went on a hike to a set of waterfalls, I didn't especially like any of the shots I took there, but this one turned out alright.

Click on Read More to see the rest.

Amy and Mike + 1 (Maternity Photos)

2011-01-17T11:34:00.004-05:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to take some photos and Amy and Mike. Amy is pregnant and is due in February. They wanted me to take these pictures so that they can look back and remember this time in their lives. They also didn't have engagement photos done before their wedding, so this was another chance for them to have some photos taken together. When I do a shoot like this, I really try to bring out the love between the couple or family. I want to catch them being natural and comfortable with each other in front of me. Hopefully this shows through in my photographs.

Click Read More to see get a full taste of their photos.

SU Sportz Promo Video #1

2011-01-10T14:58:00.001-05:00

I am currently working on a series of videos for SU Sportz (you may remember a previous post about them, here). This video is to be sent out to potential partners of SU Sportz' summer camps. The idea is to send it out to a pastor/church, to get them involved in hosting a camp.

Click Read More to check out this first video. Stay tuned for more videos about SU Sportz in the future!

Jay and Leah - Wedding Photo Time Lapse

2011-01-05T08:13:00.003-05:00

This is a video of every picture that I took at Jay and Leah's wedding.

Cinco De Mayo - Liberty University Selah Yearbook release party 2010

2011-01-04T23:36:00.003-05:00

Christmas Extended

2011-01-04T18:46:00.002-05:00

Despite the fact that the holiday season has ended, I have decided to share a few pictures from the Santa Claus parade that I attended back in November. Considering the parade was in November, it wasn't too cold and there wasn't any snow on the ground. It was the first night-time parade that I have ever attended and I wanted to take some good pictures. I chose a spot near where the local news station was broadcasting from, because they had their huge video lights set-up and I thought they might add some additional light as well as some more interest to my photos. I hope you enjoy the pics!

Here is a video from the night.

Click Read More to view some more shots from the parade.

Leah and Jay - Wedding

2010-12-20T16:16:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I had an amazing time shooting Leah and Jay's wedding. You might remember seeing their engagement pictures here. Leah and I go back quite a few years when we began working together during our summers. I met Jay soon after the two of them started dating, when I began dating Leah's younger sister (also the Maid of Honour in her wedding.) As I am obviously extremely close to the family, I have been involved in knowing all the little details about this wedding from start to finish. Leah and Jay asked me to shoot the photography for their wedding, as well as the videography of the ceremony. This post currently is only some of the photos of their big day and the video will come soon.

You will see that the wedding is school themed and the reception was held in an old schoolhouse. There was an incredible amount of effort put into the decorating of the reception and the church as well as planning that began more than a year in advance.

To see more photos in this post click Read More and to see the Facebook album with even more photos click here.

Interiors

2010-12-07T10:49:00.001-05:00

I love architecture and shooting interiors. When I get the chance I like to shoot the places that I go, and get a shot that looks great. Over the summer I had a great opportunity to shoot a home re-design by Debbie Travis and her show All For One. I was shooting mostly the kitchen re-make from start to finish. It was a crazy experience to walk into a local house that was totally gutted on the main floor, with television cameras and crews. I had to blend in with the workers that were there, just in case I was in one of the television shots. It was tight quarters with lots of people inside. I took shots of the beginning, middle and end of the project.

Below you will find some of my pictures from this project, showing start to finish. After the Debbie Travis images, there are some more of my interior shots.

Click on Read More to see more images.

Now here are some of my other interior shots.

Still Life: Water Drops

2010-12-06T09:05:00.001-05:00

I recently tried my hand at shooting water droplets. It turns out, it isn't that hard, as far as the set-up and equipment. The tough part it trying to actually capture a good droplet, or the droplet doing something interesting. For this set-up, I had a glass baking pan sitting on a table, above the pan I put a ziplock bag with water in it and I hung that from a chair that I set on the table. I then put different pieces of coloured paper behind the pan and set my flash to fire at the paper. The pan was filled with water so once I poked a small hole in the bag, the dripping started. At this point it was all a matter of timing.

I ended up with some shots that I like. Click on Read More to see some more pictures. Enjoy!

Corporate Headshot

2010-11-29T15:17:00.002-05:00

Late last week I was hired to shoot a corporate headshot. Having done these sort of shots before and with my limited studio equipment, I took out my two speedlites and planned on shooting a couple white backdrop shots and a couple with some sort of other backdrop (to be determined upon arrival at the location). The location was the office in which Brent works. Since Brent works for Partners International (in-fact he is the president of the organization!), an organization that is involved with Christian ministries around the world, they had an extremely large globe/map on the wall. Click on Read More to see some more photos of Brent, including the ones with the map as the backdrop.

Michelle and Tony - Wedding Photography Preview

2010-11-29T14:54:00.004-05:00

I recently had the great opportunity to start my wedding photography career. On Saturday I photographed the wedding of Michelle and Tony. It was a great experience and I am grateful for the opportunity. The wedding was full of family and friends. It was so easy to see the love that Michelle and Tony have for each other, and their families have for them. Enjoy the preview. (More photos will be available on dpvisuals facebook page soon!)

Click on Read More to see some more photos.

To see more photos of Michelle and Tony click here.

Jones Soda

2010-11-23T16:22:00.002-05:00

This afternoon I was feeling inspired to shoot some still life photos, but this time I wanted to have reflections in the shots. I got the idea from Strobist and wanted to imitate the shots that he took, and try some that were a little different as well.

If you visit the link to the Strobist website, David Hobby outlines and illustrates how he took his pictures. I did mine following the same basic idea. I had a piece of clear plexiglass sitting on a white table. Under the table is my ghetto speedlite with a wireless remote. Above the table, camera right and almost in-front of the camera is another speedlite (Canon 430 EX) with a softbox.

The speedlite under the table is being fired at a white wall and giving a backlight to the glass bottles. The softbox in-front of the bottles then lights up the front of each bottle.

Click on Read More to see some more set-ups with black backgrounds.

After I got enough of the white background shots, I wanted to try some with a black background. I kept basically the same set-up, but I moved both speedlites to the sides and a little infront of the bottles. I also threw a piece of black fabric under the plexiglass, and behind the bottles. Since my ghetto speedlite doesn't zoom, I ended up putting a snoot on it to control the light fall-off, while my 430 EX was zoomed to 105mm with the softbox taken off.

At this point I tried one more idea, where I moved both speedlites more behind the bottles. I didn't care about exposing the fronts of the bottles, I was going for more of a silhouette look. I also changed this shot to black and white, mostly just for fun, but also because the glass was throwing out some other colours that I didn't like.

Update on the craziness I call life

2010-11-20T14:07:00.000-05:00

As I'm sure you know by now, the blog has been a little bit quiet lately and in this case, quiet has been a good thing, because quiet meant that I was busy. Busy with work. I've had a few video productions going on lately as well as ongoing ones that will continue for the next few months. I also have some great photo opportunities coming up in the next two months as well.

The biggest thing that happened to me over the past three weeks is that I got an internship. The internship was with a pretty big company, where I would be a photographer, helping to promote their internship program. The second biggest thing that happened was that I left the internship program. Ultimately I felt that there wasn't opportunity for me to learn and grow while I was working there, and it was making me lose money.

Anyways, enough of the life update. Below you will find a video that I directed, shot and edited. It was created for Harvest Bible Chapel York Region. The shots of the church services and kids services were taken during one Sunday morning, and the interview was done on another day during the week. It was shot with a Sony XDCAM EX. It was my first time using this camera and I even had to upgrade to a whole new software package in order to edit the video. Because of this upgrade, my timeframe for the editing of the movie was shrunk down into one morning, the morning before it would be shown to the church.

Enjoy!

More to come...

Camping Trip - Promo Shots

2010-10-26T11:40:00.004-04:00

After graduating from University in the spring, I spent my summer living in my parents cottage. I worked for one of my friends, who runs his own painting business in the summer, and we also had a few other friends working with us.

During our working days, the four of us guys daydreamed about going on a camping/canoe trip (we didn't include the girls on this plan). While wondering about equipment and other logistics, we weren't entirely sure whether or not the trip would happen and during one of the conversations a date was set for the trip. Once the date was set, it was final, there was no changing it and no backing out. We were going to do it even if we had the worst equipment we could find.

Not to worry though, because we didn't have the worst equipment we could find. Luke's Dad runs an adventure camp and through him, we were able to pick up almost all of the equipment we needed, including some much appreciated advice from experienced trippers.

Now, jump back to the daydreaming stage of this plan and remember that I am a photographer. As a photographer I knew that there could be lots of opportunities on this trip. As someone trying to find a place in the photographic world and not being overly interested in nature photography, I wanted to come out of the trip with photos that could show my ability to market and promote an adventure/extreme sport equipment company.

Back to the story. It took almost all summer to plan (although we weren't rushing anything) and the final details came together within the last week. We rigged Mike's jeep with some u-bolts and 2x4's, so that two canoes could rest on-top, piled all of the gear inside and headed off. The route that we were taking was suggested to us by a friend, so we only knew our general area (my parents weren't too thrilled with that idea). We finally made it to the provincial park rangers' office that had our route map waiting for us. After talking to one of the rangers about our route, and getting some tips and advice we were finally into the water.

Click "Read More" to read the rest of the story and see more photos.

Needless to say, the trip was a blast! Day 1 was only about a half day of paddling and we did almost half of the route. We spent the night on a calm river, once the camp fire was going, we made chicken and vegetables. Day 2 we headed down the river, went through a couple of rougher areas, paddled over a beaver, stopped for lunch and ate bagels with cheddar cheese, salami and home-made strawberry jam (YES! you read that correctly STRAWBERRY JAM, one of the most delicious sandwiches ever), headed across a pretty rough lake while getting passed by giant yachts and finally came to a campsite. The site was covered in broken glass, so we decided to look around for a better spot, and ended up finding a really great, so we moved all of our gear again, and set up camp.

Taking a break after our first few portages

to clean some drinking water.

Dinner on night one. Veggies, chicken and cool aid.

Stopping for lunch before heading out to the big lake.

This new spot had a bunch of wood near it, so the fire was easy to get going, and we were just pulling out some food to get dinner going, as Jared came running back from the water yelling incoherent things. He had just come face to face with a bear cub, about ten feet away from him. The bear cub ran through the side of our campsite and everyone else got to see except for me (the only one of the trip with a camera!). The cub ran by some people that were fishing down the shore a ways and they came to check on us to make sure everything was okay. Once of the guys that came to see us, said that he had been to that area many times before, and we had set up camp right in the middle of a pathway that the mother bear uses to travel with her two cubs.

Needless to say, we decided to move our camp site again, so we paddled out to a point of land. It turned out that the point wasn't that far away from our original spot and the man had also mentioned that there were other bears in the area. After some debating, we loaded up the canoes, grabbed as much wood as we could find, and headed for the island just off the point.

At this point in the trip, we had completed almost all of the paddling (only about an hour left in the morning) and all of the portage trips (9 in total) so we were pretty tired. We made dinner (sausages) over the fire, waited for it to get dark and then roasted some marshmallows and had some hot chocolate. There was one picture that I really wanted to try to get on this trip, consisting of everyone at the fire, campfire included in frame, and tent lit up in the background.

I got to work with the set-up and did the best I could, the only problem being that we were on a little tiny island, that didn't leave much room for changes to the "set". I did the best I could with a pounding head and tired body. After the photos were done, it was bed time. I don't think any of us got much sleep because 6 loons that were around the lake calling to each other. When this started (about 2 am) I went out of the tent and laid under the stars and just listened. It was really calming to witness an amazing part of God's creation. Morning came eventually and we made oatmeal and hot chocolate and then packed up and headed home.

I thought I would take some photos
of our equipment.

Mike sets up the burner to get water boiling
for our last breakfast of the trip.

The guys are looking at the bear as it runs by our camp.

This is the shot I tried with lighting the tent and everything.
For a first try set-up in not ideal condition, I'm pretty happy with
how it turned out.

It was a great end to the summer, and we will have stories to tell our kids one day because of this trip. I had a great time, and I hope you enjoy the pictures. Love you guys, hope you are having a great time at school!

Here is a video that I also made of this trip. Enjoy!

More to come....

Night-Time Series

2010-10-26T10:54:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago I was up north at my parents cottage in Huntsville, Ontario. I drove up late Saturday night with my girlfriend, and on the way I noticed a couple of newer buildings that are very nicely lit at night. Seeing these buildings sparked the idea to go out late at night and take pictures around town. Huntsville has a small town, country feel to it, and I thought that it would be perfect to capture Main St. at night with the lights.

Click "Read More" to see a couple more photos and read about the series will progress

After finishing Main St. at around 12:30 am, I decided I was too tired to hit the other buildings that I saw on the drive the previous night. Now regretting not shooting those buildings, I have decided to start a series of photos that are night shots of small towns or single buildings. There are many pictures of big cities, internationally, but not as many small towns, so I would like to try to capture those. So stay tuned for more of these types of pictures.

More to come...

Still Life

2010-10-19T17:09:00.001-04:00

Last week and this week, I have been experimenting with different types of still life photos. First I started with smoke photos, shot on a black background with one flash, then taken into Photoshop for manipulation. Then I tried some exploding water-balloons, but after getting more wet than I wanted to, I quickly realized that I needed an assistant for that.

Click "Read More" to see what else I have done this week.

This is the set-up shot. Desk lamp, camera left, to help with focus,

incense middle, Canon 430ex camera right

That was last week. This week is focused more on product type, still life photos. Things that could potentially lead to jobs for small stores, online retailers, etc. I used a photo tent and two flashes. This is what I came up with.

Set-up shot. Canon 430ex and a ghetto old flash, made by Vivitar maybe?

The juice is inside a photo tent with a black backdrop.

Stay tuned to this blog and my Facebook page to see what else I am up to. More to come...