Kerr Photography - Victoria, BC, Professional Photographer

TEDxVictoria – Garth Lenz

2012-04-27T01:23:03Z

One of my photography teachers, Garth Lenz, from Western Academy of Photography spoke at the TEDxVictoria conference. This follows my last post fairly well and some the images that he has captured are amazing. Get involved.

Great Bear Rainforest – It’s More Important Than You

2012-04-15T18:01:44Z

For those of you just tuning in about the Great Bear Rainforest, or the Northern Gateway Pipeline that Enbridge Oil is proposing. I want to introduce you to a video. It’s a documentary that was created by EP Films and features the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). Their mission, was to photograph the Great Bear Rainforest and show it to the world.I’m not going to delve into a full on review of the video, mainly because I just want you to watch it. The video starts off on the hunt for some Spirit Bears or Kermode Bear. It’s a rare recessive gene found in a Black Bear that affects the alleles turning the bear white or cream. There are an estimated 200 Kermode Bears in the world. They live in the Great Bear.

Imagine if the Northern Gateway Pipeline is built. And they manage to do that without an environmental disaster. Then one of the worst ways of obtaining oil would transport it over the Rocky Mountains and crossing numerous creeks, streams, rivers and forests And then make it’s way over the Coastal Mountain Range and through the Great Bear Rainforest without a single leak (an estimated 1177km). That in itself, given Enbridge’s track-record, would be a miracle. Now it’s pumped on to gigantic tankers and shipped out. Not a problem, right? The only issue that I will bring up with this plan, and there are many more than one, is that the channels that these tankers would have to navigate make the Northern Passage look like a cake-walk in comparison.

You can probably tell that I’m passionate about this issue. If you are too then I urge you to contact your MP, MLA or any other government official that you can find.

So please, instead of watching an hour of sitcoms tonight on TV, tune in to this documentary. It’s less than an hour and if it doesn’t evoke any emotion for the place we all live, perhaps you too should be subject to the same treatment these animals would receive if this proposal isn’t stopped.

Without further ado, SPOIL.

"A powerful award winning documentary on the Great Bear Rainforest." The film shows the splendor of nature and first nation culture with through world renown photographers and beautiful photography. It highlights the what we all want to protect but our addiction to burn more oil is helping to destroy. Go to www.pacificwild.org to help protect this beautiful place.

New Lens!

2012-04-11T04:18:08Z

Okay, so it’s not a lens, but it is a lens mug! These things have been floating around the internet for the last couple years. I saw a co-worker with one the other day and I made it a mission of mine to get my own. In fact, I’m drinking out of it right now! Obviously the shipping conditions weren’t a concern when it was in the mail, but it arrived safe and sound.

If you follow any other photography blogs out there, you’ve probably seen an “unpacking” post. I find them somewhat hilarious and I thought it would be fun to do one very seriously about my lens mug. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so this is about.

Check out a few more shots here.

In other news, I’m using Android for my phone operating system and they just released Instagram. You’ll see one of the pictures in the link above or follow me @kerrmatt.

The End of the Season – Movember

2011-12-11T01:00:28Z

I know, I’m a little behind the ball here. In any case, it doesn’t make a difference whether I post this now or later. This past Movember was the most successful Movember to date!
First off, I’d like to thank all the donors who helped me raise over $200.00 towards men’s health and prostate cancer:

Adriana Durian
Cathy and Bruce Kerr
Liz Kerr
Phil Jolley
Eve Ouradou
Brianne Hauff
Courtney Fiala
Suzanne Ives and Rolf Ludwig
Grant Schwartzentruber
Kris Klusmeier
And a few other anonymous donors

THANK YOU!
Second, to all those people around the world who helped raise over $111,000,000.00! And especially in Canada, we helped raise over $39,000,000.00! That’s about $160.00/moustache. Those are some expensive faces out there. All of these totals can be found by going to the “Mo Money” page at the official Movember website.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

2011-11-27T20:59:03Z

As I stated on my Google + profile the other day, I train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) and Japanese Jiu Jitsu (JJJ). I’ve only been training for 5 months, however, I already have seen and felt the sense of community in the dojo. That is to say, when someone is testing for their next belt, it stands to reason that you go and support them. Above is one of the instructors, Dan, who is performing a helicopter sweep right in to an arm bar. If you don’t know what that means go check out Submissions 101. This is a technically challenging move that to my eyes, Dan pulled off flawlessly. After Dan passed his purple belt test the white belts who were testing for their blue belt lined up and began a rigorous warm up that was designed to wear them out.
Above is them demonstrating some moves to their sensei and the other blue belts during their test.
If you’d like to know more about Martial Arts, and you’re in the Victoria area, drop by Fierce Studio and watch a class. More pictures are available on the Facebook page (the link is in the side bar).

Movember 2011

2011-11-06T23:41:27Z

As some of you may know, Movember is the month formally known as November. The name was changed in in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia when a couple of “Bros” took it upon themselves to change the face of men’s health. That year there were 30 participants. Since then there has been over 1.1 Million registrants at Movember.com and over $176 million raised globally.

The goal is to change established habits and attitudes men have about their health. Through education about the health risks they face, getting them to act on that knowledge thereby increasing their chances of early detection, diagnosis and treatment. In 2010, nearly 119,000 Canadian Mo Bros and Mo Sistas got on board, raising $22.3 million CAD. This year, I will join them and I would love for you to assist me.

Over the next month, I will be growing, no, cultivating a mustache in support of prostate cancer and men’s health. I’ll be updating my status on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as much as possible so you can follow along in awe. If you would like to support the cause, head on over to my donation page and drop some coin.

For more information about Movember go here or here. Pictured above is Justin Guthrie, Movember veteran (no that’s not his real ‘stache).

Olympic Sailing – Victoria, BC

2011-10-26T23:11:53Z

This morning I got the opportunity to photograph Canadian Olympic Hopefuls Hannah Meers (skipper) and Erin Flanagan (crew) as they practiced in the cold waters off Oak Bay. We started the morning by getting the boat ready (I drank my latte) at 7:45 and we were on the water by 8:20. The air was frigid, the clouds were dark and the sun wasn’t fully awake yet. It started to rain. Thankfully, the rain did hold off for the most part, but it was still way colder than it needed to be. I think we were on the water for about 2 hours in total while the girls trained (Hannah with bare feet). It’s been a while since I was on the water when it was this cold and photographically speaking, my hands were too numb to fully grab my lens. Not to mention that my knees are bruised from being bounced around the zodiac, I’ll remember to bring knee pads next time.
They sail the international 470 dinghy in the women’s division. The 470 first became an Olympic class in 1976, and is one of nine types of sailboats raced in the Olympics. Both Hannah and Erin grew up in southern Alberta and thus, their team name is Wild Rose Girls. You can find them and follow them on Facebook here or follow them on twitter with @Meers_Flanagan. The two are on their way to Miami in the following weeks to continue their training.

Jewelry, Tethered, Photography

2011-08-05T18:21:18Z

The last couple of days I`ve been working on a few test shots for some product photography. More specifically, jewelry. I was inspired to start working on this after attending a Photoshop Seminar on portrait photography. I know, how does portrait photography inspire you to shoot product? Well, it doesn’t, it just inspired me to shoot.
These pictures were all shot tethered from my D3 to my laptop and imported straight in to Lightroom so that I could touch them up immediately. I love it.

To see more pictures that I took, visit my Facebook Page or my Flickr Photostream.

Another 4×5 Experiment

2011-07-11T02:19:55Z

These are the “lost” images that I was referencing on twitter the other day. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but they eventually made it home. The thing is, I loaded the film in hopes of shooting it in the summer of 2010. I then traveled down to Australia and New Zealand without the film, came home, made it through the rest of winter and then rediscovered it. I couldn’t remember what I had loaded. ISO, film type, colour, black and white, negative, positive, none of it was ringing a bell. Since I only had 2 speeds of film I averaged that it would be about 300 ISO and started my guessing there. You see, with my 4×5 camera that I built out of wood, I don’t know quite what the field of view is. So I have to guess. I do know that the aperture is somewhere around f/216. I also know that my light meter works, so I can tell what the exposure time will be at f/16. Taking that into account, I use this handy chart that I made to calculate my exposure time for the pinhole.

As you can see, as soon as it’s about an f/8 day, I’m up to a 5 second exposure on the camera. Approximately, that is. I also find I have to be a lot more selective with my choice of composition because of that whole guessing my field of view thing. It worked out well in the end. And, not to toot my own horn, but they were pretty well educated guesses.
What are your thoughts? Comment below.

Is it Jujitsu or Jujutsu or Jiu Jitsu?

2011-06-28T23:30:18Z

In any case, I’ve starting taking some classes that a friend of mine has been going to for years. It’s at Fierce Studio where they do Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, Japanese Jiu Jitsu, 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, Kick Boxing, Yoga and a bunch of others. The image below is from there old location where during a BJJ class you “roll” with a partner to try out your new moves that you learned.

The guy on the bottom here is Alan, my friend who is also featured here on my flickr photostream.