Won a Photo Contest

I had forgotten I even entered this photo contest online for a travel agency. Sent in a shot I took while on vacation at Disneyland and won! No prize really other than a link to our website (which is nice) but sort of cool to win anyway. Here is a link: flyawaytrip

Neil

Big Step For Vivid Photography

Today is a big day for us at Vivid Photography. Today we got published in our local news paper: Nanaimo Daily News. As your all know Neil contacted the local papers just to see if they needed anyone to take pictures for events that the newspaper may be covering. We immediately got an email back from Scott (Chief editor) for the sports section of the Daily News. He said he had some work for us on the weekend if we were interested. Of course Neil and I said will do it. Scott said he needed some one to shoot a baseball game on Sunday and he also gave us a task that was optional. The Task was to shoot the Lacrosse game at the Frank Crane Arena. Well Neil and I had a blast shooting that game. Neither of us really new a lot about Lacrosse so to see the game in action was pretty cool. I must have taken a good 80 pictures that night and none of them really turned out that well, In terms of clarity. Shooting in an arena is really difficult do the fact that there is not a lot of light. However we did our best and turns out it was enough. Scott was impressed with our work and one of the pictures I took ended up on the front page of the sports section. I is a great feeling to see your work being showcased for the whole city to see.

Then next day Neil and I shot the Nanaimo Pirates game. I really enjoyed shooting this event. Neil was awesome, he was able to talk to the Pirates manager and got him to agree to let us shoot the game from the dugout. Both Neil and I got some really good shots. It turns out the pitcher for the Pirates pitched a no hitter. Neil and I both new that the story was going to be about this kid throwing a no hitter. After the game Neil and I went back to my house to see what we shot. I lucked out and was able to shoot right behind home plate through the chain linked fence. My camera's lens was small enough to allow me to do this. The result was that I got two good shots of this young pitcher in mid pitch. Neil also got some amazing shot of the same pitcher from the dugout. Nanaimo Daily News ended up picking one of the shots that was taken from behind home plate.

All in all I really enjoyed this experience. I am very pleased on how far Neil and I have come in terms of photography. Neil you rock for getting us this job :). I will do my best to publish more blog entry's in the future.

Peace out

AC

Well we did it.

Well, the weekend of sports shooting is over. We did the Nanaimo Timbermen Lacrosse team on Saturday night. That was a struggle. Adam borrowed a budget Canon DSLR as his new camera didn't arrive in time and I was without a zoom lens. Not to mention the low lighting of an indoor sports arena and Lacrosse being a sport neither of us knew a thing about. We did fine considering those things I think though. Adam had better luck with his superzoom FZ30 than the DSLR, but he wasn't familiar with the camera. I left my FZ50 in the bag. We were able to shoot from some great spots including between the benches and over by the goal judge. It was fun for sure.

As for baseball, we were treated to a really great pitching performance by the fellow in the photo above who threw a complete game no-hitter. It was a beautiful day for baseball with a nice sun/cloud mix that was warm but never hot. Nanaimo split the double header versus the Langley Blaze. I especially loved the baseball photography as it is a sport that is close to my heart and that I would spend time at anyway. The coach of the Nanaimo Pirates was nice enough to let us shoot from the dugout and I was even able to walk on the field briefly for the player picture between games. Speaking of which, Nanaimo's Sereauxman Stadium is beautiful if you ever get a chance to go.

Not sure which photos, if any will be in the paper. We shall see. Adam had some really nice action photos of the pitcher of the day and I was able to shoot a nice pickoff move during game two from the dugout, which was a sweet angle for it. Special thanks to Scott Brown for giving us the opportunity.

Neil

Yeah, I'm Here from the Daily News

So we were able to convince the Nanaimo Daily News, our local paper, to let us shoot some sports events for them. We were out shooting baseball games anyway and loving it so figured we might as well do it for someone.

Anyway tonight we've been asked to shoot the Nanaimo Senior A Timbermen Lacrosse game. It is indoors which we are not set up to shoot for sports events. Adam has not received his fancy new DSLR yet and I don't have my zoom lens yet, let alone a big bright one with a fixed aperture. So I will bring my DSLR and try and get some close up interest shots and we will have to rely on our superzoom cameras for the action tonight. They struggle in low light so it could be a complete nightmare. The good news is we might be able to convince our wives we need new lenses for these type of things.

Tomorrow we get to shoot the Nanaimo Pirates vs the Langley Blaze of the BC Junior Baseball League. That is right up my alley and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully we can talk someone into letting us on field level if we are there for the paper. Wish us luck.

Neil

Seattle Trip

I talked with Adam today and I think he is going to do a blog entry. I'm thinking people will eventually get tired of hearing my blog entries about trying to become a semi-pro photographer.

I returned last night from a three day trip to Seattle to watch the Mariners take on the Washington Nationals. I went with 4 friends and had a great time, but since I'm an early riser I was able to get up and take some photos of downtown Seattle when it was quiet. I really enjoyed this and haven't done much urban photography as my hometown is fairly small. I've included one photo of an old Uhaul truck I came across near the stadiums. It was a fun new type of photography for me and I plan on trying it again. In fact I have this plan hatching in my head to try and do a 'Day in the Life on Nanaimo Streets' shoot in my hometown taking photos of the people and places mostly in our downtown core. We'll see if I can talk Adam into it.

Now the biggest thing about the trip was going to be the baseball photography. I elected to take my point and shoot FZ50 with me as it has about 800mm of zoom with the telephoto attachment (I still haven't the pennies together for my DSLR zoom), and it performed well. I managed a couple nice photos which I'll get to posting once I find the time for post processing. The biggest news though was that I took the Safeco field tour and at one point was able to stand in the photographers pit and see how it feels to shoot from that spot. It was almost as exciting as sitting in the dugout where the players watch the game!

To make matters even more exciting for me I met and talked to the Mariners official photographer in the stands before Saturdays game. He was busy so didn't have too much time for me, but was nice enough to talk to me for a while after I told him he has my dream job. He shot with a Canon 5D and also said he had the bigger Mark something or other Canon. He took a brief look at my FZ50 but didn't say anything. I half heartedly told him it wasn't my 'real' camera and that seemed to appease him somewhat. Us photographers are so into our gear. If I had lived in Seattle I would have done anything to be his free photo slave for a while to get that type of experience. His reply to my statement about his job was "I have a lot of people's dream job!" Really that was one of the highlights of my trip. If by some weird chance you ever read this blog sir, please email me if I can ever come down and carry your camera gear for you. No really....please.

Neil

Print Results

Well I picked up the prints today from our SWAN event. I was pretty disappointed with them. The place where I had them done really botched them up with cropping and dull colour in my opinion. I won't mention the name of the place, but it is inexpensive and it shows. Not to mention they printed the wrong sizes. In a way, I'm glad as now I'll be forced to upgrade our print lab. I'm not totally happy with the job I did at SWAN but I think we can salvage something they will be happy with and learn from the experience.

I was looking through some local photographers websites today and came across one that had one area of their portfolio that was really excellent and another that I thought they should just not have shown. Again I won't say who it was, but I'm a big believer in showing your favorite work and leaving the rest out. So saying that, I've included one of my favorite shots lately. It was one I did on my way to a portrait photography course at Royal Roads University in Victoria. I arrived early and since I had never been there decided to wander about and take some shots.

Neil

Finished One Project

Well I finished one project today, the photo ID cards. I printed them at home and while the quality is nice I must say I'm not a big fan of printing my own photos. Between paper jams and ink costs it usually is easier to use a proper lab. These were a bit oddball in size though so it was just easier to do myself. Adam did a great job editing them. After a bit of laminating they will be done.

Speaking of labs, I just received some prints from Kodak Canada's online lab in the mail today. I had several 8X10 prints and about 100 others done and was very pleased with the job they did. I even framed and hung three for my foyer. The nice thing about being a photographer is you can change the art in your house anytime you like. I did this one shot of an eagle which I've included, that I've always liked but it really pops in print as compared to on the computer screen. It looks great hung up and framed.

Lastly for now, I ordered a new large reflector and holder boom for it that attaches to my lightstands today. Should make natural light photography so much easier for me as I won't have to balance holding a camera and reflector for portraits when I'm shooting alone. I know Adam is shopping for his new shiny DSLR right now so we are starting to accumulate our gear. Haven't heard from any seniors homes yet, but still have fingers crossed.

Neil

Welcome

Well, I haven't even told Adam I'm doing a blog yet but I'm sure he won't mind. After-all he is the web guy so it will be up to him to link it to the website. I figured it would be nice to have a personal touch to our website where Adam and I can banter about our journey into the land of becoming 'photographers.'

We just finished our first job on Friday. Well, not actually a job as it was free work (which is our intent after-all). We took photos of artists with their artwork at SWAN (Start With Art Nanaimo) which is an organization that promotes the artwork of people with disabilities. I went to one of their musical shows a few months ago, but this time it was paintings, carvings, etc.. It was a DARK hall with typical hall lighting so I knew it would be challenging for me given that the cameras we shoot with can struggle in low light. It was a good opportunity to test out my flash though and my $4 puffer for my external flash worked pretty well and I know Adam wants one now. I was worried that the flash would cause hotspots on the actual artwork displayed, but the puffer really helped kill hotspots for the most part and I wasn't getting those bright shiny foreheads that you usually get with naked flash. There were high ceilings so I didn't get a chance to test my unique on-camera bounce flash unfortunately.

The biggest thing I learned during the SWAN event was that you have to enter a situation you are new to and still keep your style of photography. I was so nervous about the lighting that I was just taking snapshots of people at first. Then I looked over and noticed Adam up on a chair shooting down on someone and it clicked for me....."if people wanted snapshots they would do it themselves dummy!" So I started playing with tilting my camera, a technique I've been learning lately. I like to put the head of the person in the corner of the frame, or use tilting to level out a tall and short person standing together. I had some good results from this though I'm betting it isn't to everyones taste. There was one artist there that seemed rather shy and had to work up the nerve to have her photo done. She had a few people with her and when she did decide to have her shot taken they kind of crowded her with their cameras so I took a page from Adam and went up on a chair. As it turns out she really only held her painting flat pointing up, so I had a good angle. She also had a lovely shy grin on her face.

My favorite shot was of a couple of the volunteers. One tilted group shot in the kitchen really works for me. I had to edit it though as the kitchen was fluorescent lighting so my white balance was off. Good thing I shot in RAW. Another was of Neil, a fellow by the same name that I work with in my real job. He was fiddling with his visual show and I shot him in an almost candid moment (he caught me and smiled at the last minute). Both Adam and I shot this one artist and in our post processing we both altered her eyes somewhat. Adam had shown me how to brighten eyes and saturate the eye colour a couple weeks ago so I do it on almost every shot now in post processing. Trouble is I edited her eyes green and he went blue. I'll have to go back to the original shot and see which it was. I'm betting greeny blue. Doesn't matter, Adams shot was better than mine anyway. She did have bright eyes, great for portraits.

Earlier in the day I had been out for a walk at Beach Estates Park. It is this short hike down a ravine that ultimately ends up at the Departure Bay Ferry dock. I tried my tilting of the camera shots here again on some of the downhill boardwalks. I had the walkway come out of the corner of the frame and shot pointing down somewhat. This really gives the final photo a feeling of steep downward motion and the path leads your eye into the photo. I liked the effect of it and you can see a sample of it above.

I'm pretty much done the pp of the SWAN photos. Now Adam and I just have to decide which to print off and we plan on making them a calender of our favorite twelve photos and a large poster sized mosaic print. We also have to finish off our last project, photo ID's for people with disabilities that have emergency contact information on them should they run into any difficulties while out in the community. Those are done, just need printing and laminating. We had hoped the ID's would turn into a little niche project, but we didn't have many takers so I'm not so sure about it.

Lastly, we mailed out some letters to seniors homes last week offering to do some free portrait work in the homes. We had the idea from an article in Shutterbug magazine where a professional photographer did free portraits for people living in seniors homes. I'm pretty excited about it as honestly I love talking to seniors and it is a great opportunity to hone our skills. We plan on using natural window light, a simple white background and a reflector. Hopefully somebody takes us up on it. I know that there is suspicion over 'free' offers but in this case that is exactly what they get, free portraits. We plan to do a little post processing on the portraits to mimic the results of this pro that was our inspiration. You can see his amazing work here: http://www.stevebedell.com Just click on his portfolio and find his 'seniors project' under his portrait section. It seems to have worked out for him as this great promotional tool (he sells DVD's on how to do these types of shots) and I hope it works like that for us as well as giving us the experience we are looking for.

That is it for now. Anything to say Adam?

Neil