Hey guys, week #7 of 2010, so here’s a blog post #7!
Jason switched over to the dark side, but he’s loving it! I’m actually going to let him do a review of his new camera gear since I’m not the techy one; however, I will say this, that Nikon D3s is sexy! It’s got sooo many buttons, so many features, so many options, it’s crazy! Hence when we went for a little walk to test it out, we went a little crazy, and here’s the proof.
Here’s a sneak peak of Jason’s new baby!
First off I want to thank Nick and Deb Beaulieu from The Other Angle Photographer for putting together this shoot at the Ironworks Studio. We had such an amazing time meeting up with some other Vancouver wedding and portrait photographers including Jason Brown, Laura Hana, Jana Frandsen and having an overall blast! Irina Balykina was one of our beautiful models, and her awesome make up was done by Britt Clancy of Glamourpuss Mobile Makeup. The Ironworks Studio really makes for some gorgeous shots with lots of character. We were able to make use of lots of natural lighting coupled with some great artificial lighting (again thanks to Nick and Jason for brining all their gear!) to get some great shots!. Here are some from the shoot! Enjoy!
These two shots below are processed using some cool textures!
Huge thanks to Jason Brown for setting up the lighting for this shot below! It simply is such an amazing light set up consisting of no less than 5 strobes including one monster ring flash!
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LOVE these you guys! I wish I could have made it 
Thanks Andrea! Hopefully next time your in town we can tee something up! It’s sooo much fun!
These are awesome guys! I’ve been looking at ironworks for years now, it looks like it would be a fantastic place to shoot! I esp. like the one with the mirror!
Great shots guys! It was so much fun shooting with you two.
Lena and I had been looking forward to this day ever since we registered way back in October last year. For those who don’t know, Christopher Becker, otherwise known as The Becker, is a wedding photographer down in Orange County, USA. He was recently voted as one of the 30 most influential photographers of the decade according to Photo District News. He recently visited Vancouver to hold his workshop over two days.
We had the pleasure of meeting him initially at the SMUG meet and then got the chance to hang out with him afterwards. I never knew someone so famous was so down to earth and full of energy! Having been chatting with him for a an hour or so, he makes you feel like you have known him for a lifetime!
One of the big things that [b]ecker teaches at his workshop is the whole concept of networking with other photographers. This idea hit home with the 80+ attendees as the wedding photography industry has been previously seen to be one of cut throat and intense competition, where photographers were unwilling to share and help out other photographers. In doing so [b]ecker has established the [b] school.com where you can sign up to join a friendly community of thousands of other photographers who are all looking to network with each other.
So back to the workshop. It was held at Miranda and Reilly’s new and gorgeous Blue Olive Studio. Lena and I were given the honour of being [b]ecker’s models for the day when he took us out on a quick photoshoot to show the class how he works.
This day would never have happened without the fabulous work of Tracey Heppner and Michelle Libby (co founders for the Vancouver Wedding Photographers and Second shooters group) for getting off their butts and actually making it happen. Also a big shout out to Tracey’s husband Jonathan Heppner who provided us with a fantastic meal!
Enough talk! here are some pictures! Thanks to Tom Galassi for taking the the shots of us with our camera!
We even got the chance to watch [b]ecker’s live recording of the Study Hall with Jenn and Steve Bebb from Bebb Studios!
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So great to meet you! The [b] shots that went up are super cute – you make fantastic models 
Cheers!
Oh, you two make such LOVELY models! That workshop looks like it was fantastic, and mannnn it’s so cool you got to gobble up all of [b]’s awesome tips and advice!
@Miranda Thank you so much for hosting it!
@ Erin Marie Hall – The knowledge gained from the workshop as well as the “after hours” hang outs with [b]ecker were extremely invaluable!
Blog post #4, 4th week of January and it was a sunny one! It was also our good friend Graeme’s birthday week, and he wanted to celebrate it doing something outdoorsy with his little family and good friends, followed by a quiet party at home filled with lotsa beers
We had grand plans to go snowshowing, since it is winter and all and there’s supposed to be snow on the mountains. But we were quite disappointed when we called the local mountains to inquire about snow conditions. There were no conditions, cause there was no snow! hehe I’m just quietly laughing to myself about the snow situation, Winter Olympics are about to start and we have spring temperatures and a bunch of mud on the mountains. Oh well, not my problem really.
Back to our grand plans, we decided that it’d be just as fun to gather up the car full of animals and head to Buntzen Lake for a short little hike. There car was filled with 8 legs, 5 lunches (one extra for good measures), a bunch of water bottles, 12 paws and 3 wagging tails!
First we let the dogs loose in the gated park at the lake, Razor being a crazy water dog swam circles in the water just for fun, he also learned a few new games from a few rambunctious dogs. Gina was going a little nuts trying to get me to throw rocks for her in the water. And Altai being the most mellow out of all the dogs just wandered around and said Hi to all the dogs.
Then we hiked to the other side of the lake, and this is where all the real fun began! Jelena and Graeme had a bright idea to try to make Razor jump off the dock into the water. Poor Razor didn’t know what he was in for! This is how it all went down:
1. Get Razor excited about fetching a stick.
2. Make Razor run after the stick without realizing that there’s an edge to the dock!
3. Laugh really hard once Razor falls in! (Check out Jelena’s head-roll-from-laughing-too-hard!)
4. Poor Razor didn’t know what hit him, and he frantically tries to get back onto the dock. And of course he’s got no leverage, so Jelena goes in for the save, falls on her butt in the process, and gets totally soaked!
After all that, it apparently wasn’t enough, so Graeme goes for attempt #2. But this time Razor isn’t that stupid, and he stops in time to just look at the stick and totally ignore it.
After all the water fun is over, Altai and I play a little tug-of-war. That little bugger is super strong, look at him snapping those twigs!
Razor joins in the fun! I’ve got nothing against 3 dogs, they beat me pretty quickly.
This concludes our fun on the beach! We headed off back to the car, and we were all pooped! The dogs slept like little babies on the way back home, and we had a nice little nap when we got home too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAEME, hope you enjoyed hanging out with us!
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Week # 3 of 2010! And here’s a little blurb about one of Canada’s french-speaking cities, Montreal.
I got a chance to fly almost all the way across Canada this past week and experience a different side of our beautiful country. I’m used to being in different countries and hearing different languages, so being surrounded by French wasn’t anything new or exciting, but halfway between the airport and my hotel it really hit me. And that it was that I was still in the same old Canada, yet the everyday usual English was suddenly replaced by French taxi drivers listening to French radio. It was such a strange feeling!! Anyone else have the same sort of experience?
I was visiting Montreal for work, so most of my days were occupied with meetings, but when the night feel, I got bundled up and went out exploring streets of Old Montreal. It was soo different to what we’re used to here in Vancouver. 3 out of 5 restaurants we walked by were closed on a Wednesday evening at 8pm. That would NEVER happen in Vancouver.
The cobble stone streets were dark, with only the street lights and left over Christmas lights giving off any kind of light; I really pushed my camera ISO capabilities to it’s limits. Here are a few shots of the Notre-Dame Basilica, it’s not as big as the one in Paris, but it’s still very beautiful inside and out!!
I got a few hours of daylight to explore the city as well, and we headed off through the streets of Montreal towards Mount Royal. Somewhere in the foothills of Mount Royal within the beautiful old buildings of McGill University we took the wrong turn and ended up on a snowy path. All we knew that up was the way to go, so off we trekked in the true Siberian Explorer’s style up the mountain along an unidentified snowy path.
We found a bunch of good ol’ grey squirrels and it reminded me of our dear old Stanley Park. I tricked this little guy in believing I had something in my hand to give to him so he’d come closer. Unfortunately we weren’t prepared for squirrels and had absolutely no food with us, not even bread crumbs :( Sorry little squirrel for tricking you, but you make an awesome model!!
Upon finally arriving at the Chalet du Mont Royal we were greeted by this magnificent view of Montreal! It’s a beautiful mixture of the old buildings, picturesque churches, and modern glass buildings.
And here’s the last photo of the bunch, this statue in front of the funky glass building was a little creepy!! It was all good in the front, but when you go to check out the rear end of this group of people, there’s some serious strange nudity! The statue is called the “Illuminated Crowd” and it’s a must see if you’re ever in Montreal ;)
Montreal was beautiful, but I’m glad to be back home, I really do love Vancouver!!
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Wow Montreal looks beautiful…We are in Albany, NY and I can’t wait to visit!
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