But seriously, not only did they take my ramblings on why I did this last facebook event and made me sound coherent, they capture the fun vibe we had going.

AMAZING!

Our friend, photog Ian McCausland did an encore evening of Facebook Photos recently. This event was a follow up to his very successful original ‘Facebook Foto Friday”.

You can check out a video of the first event here:
http://www.blink-works.com/blinkworks-blog/2010/4/14/facebook-photo-friday.html

We thought we’d bring along our cameras for the second run as well, and this l’il video is the result

Also check out Ian’s blog about the event: http://ian.mb.ca/blog/?p=2655

www.blink-works.com

www.ian.ca

Here’s a sampling:

Check out the slide show of all the people who showed up!

A quick slideshow created in Apple’s Aperture to give everyone a sneak peak of the images from my event

Here’s the group shot of all the presenters. So many cool peeps!

the first slide from my Pecha chaka presentation last night. The basis for all my Facebook events. You can see all the snaps of the event here http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrianjkshum/sets/72157624766998750/with/4931684753/

Turnley is a photojournalist renown for documenting the human condition and current events.  He is also a widely acclaimed street photographer who’s lived in and photographed Paris since 1978-one of the preeminent photographers of the daily life in Paris of his generation. His work is often seen in the world’s most prestigious magazines: Newsweek, Harper’s, Stern, Paris Match, Geo, LIFE, National Geographic, The London Sunday Times, VSD, Le Figaro, Le Monde, and DoubleTake. He is now based both in New York and Paris.

We’ll be shooting just before the first day of Durga Puja, and continue through the five key days of the festival: Sasthi, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami and Dashami.  Durga Pooja is a celebration of the feminine divine, manifested in the mythological figure of the mother goddess.  For the festival, thousands of life-size idols of the goddess riding a lion (her chosen form of transportation) are created by local artisans and moved throughout the city on trucks.  Makeshift temples are created in colorful cloth tents on the street.  During the first and second days, people visit the temples at night, bringing the goddess gifts and performing religious rituals.  The fourth day involves the indoor festival, when women say goodbye to the goddess, and cover and each other in vermillion, and the final day, when the idols are submerged in the river in a tearful goodbye.  We will be photographing this event, which will be the culmination of the celebration as well as the workshop.

I’m extremely excited, overwhelmed, and I’ll be honest, a little scared, for this trip. It means being on the other side of the world from my family, in one of the most intense cultures in the world. But when the workshop was announced I just knew I needed to do this. It’s been a hectic year and things are only getting busier so this was a perfect time to challenge myself, photographically, and emotionally.

If any of my clients want something done before I go, or want to line something up for when I return, I’d encourage you to give me a call ASAP. This next month is going fast!

“Warehouse One also called on us to capture a very special photo shoot at Ian McCausland Photography. As part of their new branding and new attitude, they featured team members as models in their back-to-campaign. We think the video turned out great, and captures the key things that make Warehouse One what it is: Fun, Casual Fashion and Real People.”

Here’s links to some of the snaps

Rushing River

Willow Island

Spruce Woods/ Threshermen’s Reunion

Quite often when when delivering images to clients, they like it when I do a preliminary edit , and choose the shots I think work the best and separate them. Otherwise they are overwhelmed by the hundreds images we might create in a typical shoot. Of course editing down a shoot is a breeze using Aperture. Typically I use a 1 star rating as a “keeper” and 2 star ratings as “my picks”.

The only problem is exporting these selections. Previously you would have to export the 1 stars into one folder and the 2 stars into another, way too much work! Now with version 3 of Aperture allows you to label your files, in a similar way you label files in the Finder, using colours. So I’ll label the “my picks” files in Aperture using the colour labels, any colour I like.

For illustration purposes I’ve left the 1 star rated images visible, but typically you would filter just the 2 star rated images, select all and then label all images at the same time. Once that’s done, I’ll export the images all at once into one folder. The colour labelling is applied to the exported files.

I then sort the folder according to label. If you don’t have this option turned on in the Finder you’ll need to view a Finder window in List mode, then choose the label option

After that you’ll see the “my picks” files sorted, separately, create a folder and place them in!

Hopefully that makes sense, I find this method lot easier than remembering to export twice from the same project. You’d hate to forget to export the picks you think the client should use and just send the outtakes!

I look forward to sharing more of these workflow tips with everyone who signs up for the course!

The first challenge was to simply find Don and see if he was up to getting photographed. The burns and smoke inhalation were pretty severe. I talked briefly to him but he didn’t sound good, so we pushed the shoot back a week or so. The other challenge was to figure what to do with him where to shoot him. His suggestion was to shoot at the marker in the park on Henderson Hwy where he started his Amazon adventure, but  there was not much to it. In the end his health dictated we would have to shoot at the house of his friend “Chopper”

Chopper was a neat guy, the kind of guy who wears biker type stuff, works on cars, drives a truck. He seemed like the least likely of companions to the image of Don as some hippy canoe freak. But Chopper was doing everything he could to take care of his life long friend, his family was busy rebuilding Don’s house. As  you can see here he was pretty protective of Don in his fragile state, pretty much dictating to me that we’d have to do the shoot in the yard. Who am I to argue!?

Chopper’s house was in EK where the houses are tight together. We had some sunshine so I thought use that as my back light and fill in with one head with a beauty dish. I use the dish in times like this cuz it’s rigid and the wind can’t rip it apart. I was shooting by myself, the budget didn’t’ really allow for an assistant. Don shuffled out to the street and sat down. I was told he would be a bit eccentric and he was. Chopper I put to work, holding my lightstand and prompting his old friend to rambled on about his adventures. Chopper was clever enough to bring out the toy canoe Don made as a child, one of the few things saved from the fire. It’s great when the people around the shoot help you out!

We shot a bunch of stuff, Don rambled on, Chopper prompting him, the two of them riffing away. He talked about losing digits to the frostbite in the Arctic

The challenge at this stage to just kinda hem the action in and control the situation rather than let it  control you. With out of town editors you have to shoot a lot more that you would normally, else they ask to see the ONE thing you didn’t try. At the same time, with his fragile health I knew I might not have a lot of time. It was really hard to gauge my exposure and the balance between my flash and the ambient, in the bright sun you can’t see the screen on your camera or your laptop. Once in awhile I’d dive under my jacket to check the laptop. The sun was in and out of cloud so I was constantly dialing my shutter up and down to compensate.

We then rolled the whole setup  to a corner of the front yard that was bordered with some evergreen trees. It was here where we made the images that were finally selected. The hope was to get something that could look out at the lake. With the help of a old paddle I borrow from Shel Zolkewich, and some more prompting from Chopper, the final image was made. I like this image cuz there is just the right amount of “crazy” in his eyes, you don’t’ see the colostomy bag he had swinging, and if you hadn’t read this post you might believe this is dockside and he’s looking out on the lake, anxious to get back to paddling. The client was extremely happy. The photo editor who is a great shooter himself, said it was “above and beyond” what he expected.