Day 239: Go West

UPDATE: So, it has been a while since I last updated this blog - school and TEDx seemed to have sucked away a fair amount of my time, as well as Starcraft II, a real-time strategy game that I've picked up over the last few months.  Rest assured, there are still pictures and certainly many more posts in store.  Lets see if I can get caught up before the end of the year.  Only 130ish posts. :) 

Perhaps one of the challenges that I've always faced in life was breaking out of a comfort zone. I imagine the fear trying new things stems from my low tolerance towards receiving criticism (despite my tendency to run my mouth and criticize; something I used to do quite often, and still periodically do).  Thus I was kind of floored when ETCBC/Turn2's James Lau asked me if I wanted to go shoot a city hall wedding out west in Mississauga.  Part of me wanted to say no, but I figured that backing out would probably regret at least not trying. 

To my relief, I was not heading out there alone.  Will Loo - another member of ETCBC - was also on board doing some video work for the couple (Tom & Robin).   We arrived on time and the shoot went off without any significant snags or hitches.  Nothing mind blowing went down.  Just some group photos and candids of the event.  Personally thought I could've done better, but that's generally always the case and it's all good so long as the bride, groom, and in this case James are happy with the results.

On a personal level, weddings were definitely not my thing (though the day went well), and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future with the exception of perhaps assisting.

Day 202: Gravy Work

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~78mm, f/9, 1/125, ISO 320, Off-Camera Flash)

Apologies for the tardiness.  I think I'm exactly two weeks overdue on blog posting... so hopefully I'll be able to take care of that backlog as soon as possible.  

Shot perhaps my first non-self portraits on this particular day.  Subjects were from the planning committee of the Ted Rogers Memorial Conference.  Above is my buddy Michael Chu, who helped secure the gig for me.  Pro Bono... but, I'm hoping it'd help me to get my foot in the door with the various folks involved in this conference, as they often wear other hats across campus.  His portrait in particular was lit with one softbox off camera left, with an SB-800 firing at full power through it.

Shots came out alright.  Perhaps the most painstaking mistake that I committed was not paying adaquete attention to the background grass that you can see behind Mike.  Consequently, I wound up with a nightmare where most of the folks had some sort of grass poking up behind their heads (I got lucky and didn't have to do much for Mike)... leading to a long and painful cloning-out session that stretched into several days and was largely the cause of these delays.

Ultimately, the job was done... although I personally don't want to see the insides of Photoshop for a while.  On top of that, I left the shoot a little disappointed; I was expecting to do more than cookie-cutter portraits.  Hell, if I wasn't going to get paid then I might as well hope to get some artistic latitude... which wasn't exactly the case.  Nonetheless when hit with a crappy situation like this, you persevere.  Make the damn pictures, and hope that the next day turns out a little better.

Indeed, I was banking on the next day to be better, as I had planned to shoot a couple of portraits for Ekklesia.  What I didn't plan on was being half-wrong.  More to come.