Val and Ari's wedding - July 31st 2010

Val and Ari are friends of mine who got married on July 31st and asked me to be their wedding photographer. It was a great wedding, held in a small venue in the country about an hour outside of Montreal. Very cute and rustic looking place, which was great for the photos.

We battled through massivetraffic getting there, and while things ran a little bit late, the wedding was really fun. They are both very photogenic people, which makes the images all that much better. They are also very fun people who enjoy life and didn't want anything too dramatic or artsy in their images, which is the type of photography I love doing, but yet provides a challenge as you don't want your images to look too much like snapshots.

So I kept with my ever developing photo-journalistic style and tried capturing their story as it happened. I find it is a good idea to have a second photographer there, as it allows for a bigger variety of images and coverage, so I asked my friend Didier to come along with me on the shoot. All in all, we ended up with about 400 great shots.

Here are a few that I love. At the time of writing this, I have 30 up on my FLICKR. I'll probably be adding more to the set when I go through the images again with a rested eye.

Thanks for letting me capture your day guys, it was a great one!

More live music

I was asked by a good friend (and amazing drummer) John to shoot his band during a battle of the bands in Sainte-Catherine on the South Shore of Montreal. His band, Retrospex, is a very new band and does really funky 70s rock, fun stuff you can dance to. I'll definitely be shooting them again.

I didn't stick around for the last band, but here are some of the pics from the first two (Retrospex and TNT). Both bands had different styles...in the end, John's band did bring home the cash.

Retrospex








TNT

NYC - La Grande Pomme

My wife and I went on an anniversary trip to New York City. It was about a month after our actual anniversary, but hey, any reason is a good reason to head down to New York City

I hadn't been to NYC in just over 4 years, so I was looking forward to making my way down. While my wife had on her agenda a trip to Century 21, I had on mine a trip to BH Photo Video. Together, we planned on hitting some Broadway shows and just soaking in the city. We ended up seeing La Cage aux Folles (which was just brilliant) and Rock of Ages (which was so-so...too tacky for our tastes).

We stayed on 9th and 39th, right at the edge of the Garment district and Hell's Kitchen. Found some great restaurants, met up with a friend for supper, did some touring, lots and lots of walking and spent way more money than we had planned. But its all good, you only live once, right?

Here are some of my favorite photos from the 5 day trip. I'm playing with some different processing, would love to hear what you all think...

I have about 30 of them uploaded on my FLICKR account if you want to see more.

Cirque du Soleil - Les Chemins Invisibles

I had the amazing opportunity to take some images of the Cirque du Soleil last weekend during their outdoor show in the streets of Quebec City. The venue for the show is not your typical yellow and blue Cirque big top, it is actually held outdoors under the Dufferin-Montmorency overpass (highway 440).

The show is called Les Chemins Invisibles (The invisibles paths) and brings together over 50 artists – dancers, jugglers, singers, acrobats and contortionists.

The show was launched in summer 2009 to celebrate the Cirque du Soleil’s 25th anniversary. The first chapter was based on a fictitious story of three tribes known as Brumes, Brasiers and Sables (fog, fire and sand), living in Quebec’s Saint-Roch district who sought to form a single community with the current inhabitants of the area known as Les Embarassants (The Embarrassments).

This year, the second chapter titled Furrow of Dreams continues upon the new community theme. The show begins with the leaders of the three tribes making their way back to the stage through the crowd, some carried in, some riding mechanical birds and others flying in over the crowd. The show goes on in typical Cirque du Soleil fashion with some daring aerial acts, incredible costumes and amazing choreography all the while backed with great music and lyrics.

The troupe receiving funding from the city to put on the show for 5 consecutive years...so looks like there are 3 more chapters to come! It started on June 24th and runs until September 1st. I think I’ll be making time each year to go and follow the rest of their story.

Here are some images from the show. I have about 60 of them uploaded on my FLICKR account if you want to see more.

Needless to say, if you have never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, make the time. This was my fifth or sixth show, and I’m definitely not done.

Maternity shoot

I dedicated 2010 to trying to grown and practice more portrait photography. I was excited when my friend Jennifer asked me to do some natural style maternity shots. I met Jennifer a few years ago while taking a photography course and got a chance to meet her husband Stefano during the shoot. They were well prepared for the shoot as they were nicely coordinated in black shirts and jeans. Solid colours are key when doing portraits, specially classy portraits where you want viewers to focus on the models and not the lines and shapes in their clothes.
I went their place earlier this week and we ended up having about 50 mins of shooting time. These were taken mostly in their living room where they had a nice big window that was shining some nice light, which is a must when trying to go for natural, "zen" style shots.

What did I learn? While I like to allow people to pose themselves with only slight direction from me (keeps things natural and organic), I still need to pay more attention to the small details. Plan some, but not too much. I had looked through some maternity shots online to get my creative mind going. The morning of the shoot I just scribbled 6-7 ideas down on a piece of paper, but once you get started, you just move from one thing to another based on the location, the light and the inspiration that hits you (or the models) at the time.

So here are my fave shots...