Nicole Kruger

January 15, 2012 Category: Misc., Sports

Shots for the Women of Crossfit Kitchener calendar (the above pic made the final cut). Nicole was photographed in Toronto, in the graffiti covered alleys behind Queen St. near Spadina. I love shooting there. We were rained out on our first attempt but that ended up being a blessing in disguise… we had the most amazing roti instead (Vena’s, on Bloor, near Lansdowne). The place even said it was the “best in town”! It also happened to be the day of the Zombie Walk, so the streets were crawling with Z’s. Were are lucky to be alive.

Camera tech for the inquisitive types: The top image was shot on a Canon 5D mk II, with a 70-200 2.8L IS II USM lens. The long lens flattens the perspective and makes the wall look huge. Settings: ISO 400, 123mm focal distance, f/5.6, 1/500th. The camera was on a tripod and we took two exposures, one with Nicole in place, pretending to throw the ball, and another with just the ball. Both shots were combined in post. We did many takes; thowing the medicine ball over and over would have killed Nicole. I’ve exposed just a little dark for the ambient light, and two flashes (580 EX II’s) are edge-lighting her from out of frame. Sweetened in Lightroom and finished in Photoshop CS5.

Ben Kane (below), who shot the other 6 photos for the calendar, next to “Kane” graffiti on the wall. He was standing in to test out a potential shot location.

Below is an outtake that didn’t make the calendar. It was a hard activity to photograph—the “wall ball”—and a hard choice to go with a final pic that didn’t show Nicole’s face. This was an attempt to solve that problem. Two exposures were mixed together in post, essentially cloning Nicole.

Mandy Bujold

January 13, 2012 Category: Misc., Sports

Mandy Bujold, 2011 Pan American Games Champion. We shot these images for the Crossfit Kitchener Calendar. The image above made it into the actual book and all the rest are outtakes. Mandy just won the Canadian national title, again, and is looking for the big win in London this year at the Olympics. Go Mandy!!

Site Launched!

November 1, 2011 Category: Misc., Wedding Cinema, Wedding Photography

I’m ridiculously happy to finally have the site up. Whew… that took a bit. I’ve been shooting weddings for about a year at this point, gathering up content for the site, designing the layout of these pages, cutting video together, all the while finishing the work for my clients first, website second. It’s winter time and wedding season has become slow season, so finally, finally, I can stop telling people my site is on the way, and just send ’em the link! Please, cruise around the site, check out the gallery, watch some videos, and then contact me if you’re looking for a photographer or a videographer!

I will be updating the blog regularly, so check back often (or subscribe to the RSS feed). I’m an avid user of Google Reader. If the letters “R-S-S” have no meaning to you, have a quick look at this video. I saw something like it a while ago, and it sort of changed the way I use the interwebz. These days I’m following a metric ton of blogs, especially by other photographers. Following RSS feeds streamlines the process, and makes it super easy to keep up with interesting websites.

A note on navigating the blog: to filter the posts by type—let’s say you only want to see wedding photos—click on the category under a given post title, or select “SEARCH” under the navigation menu in the upper right corner. These are the categories you can browse by: wedding photography, wedding cinema, engagements, portraits, family portraits, sports, photobooth, bridal, art, and misc. You can also filter by tags (for instance, a certain city or theme). Some posts have been shortened on the main feed—so that it doesn’t take a bazillion years to load—but you can jump to a full post by selecting the “read more” option, or by clicking on the title. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my work!