A Woman in Red

I photographed Leah last summer.  She is beautiful and gorgeous. As you see, she was wearing eye catching red dress. Since the color of her dress is intense pure red, I requested her to stand in front of old back wall. That brings good contrast between pail wall and her, and she is more standing out in the image.

Now, a photographer have to work a little bit harder on the computer.  I wanted to enhance my inner imagination of kind of Gothic, like Gotham city in Tim Burton version of Batman. So added rusty “yogoshi” weathering effect on entire image.

I would be glad if you see the mood I saw in my imagination.

Please click the idea to view larger image.

My solo gallery show in the Stampede season

I will throw another solo exhibition. The show will start tomorrow. Robinson’s camera in Englewood, Calgary will launch a gallery space. I was offered to exhibit my horse photos along with some landscape photos because, of course, it is the STAMPEDE SEASON . I am honored to be the first photographer to have show at Robinsons’s camera!

 

My photographic exhibition at Framed on fifth in February.

It has been 2 years since Framed on Fifth, lovely framing and art gallery booked me for a gallery show. Now it is happening.  Although 2 years seems long enough to prepare images, it passed very quickly. I must be a rain man and I got bad weather whenever I go to big trips. I end up to get many subtle, gentle almost melancholic images. Then I went through all landscape images I have taken since 2009. I realized I am getting more subtle images because my style may have been changing. 

So I titled this gallery show,  “Wabi-sabi wanderlust”. Wabi-sabi is Japanese term, in part portrays a true sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing.

My show will be at Framed on Fifth (1207 – 5th Avenue N.W., Calgary) from Feb 1st to Mar 1st. The opening reception will be Feb 8th from 5pm. Also I will have artist talk, ” Meet the artist” on Feb 15th from 2 pm to 4 pm. I will have a photo critiquing session as a part of the artist talk.  Please bring a couple of your photos.

By the way, this show is part of Exposure Photo Festival 2014. Many gallery shows are listed this year as well. You should check the out.

Lastly,  I will share a time-lapsed video, I made for fun. Just check it out.

Wedding photo in the beautiful ranch

It is now winter and already snowy and cold, but I have not shared images from the wedding I photographed in this summer. I was so lucky to photograph such a perfect couple and nice people in beautiful ranch. It was sunny but also I had nice cloud patterns that are best photographing condition for me. I wish their happy long life. Please click the images for the larger sizes. Also please book wedding or portrait session for 2014. You will get some deals.

Galley show – PPOC Alberta – Central Branch Featured Fine Art in the Fall

Eight photographers from PPOC (Professional Photographers of Canada) will showcase variety styles of photographic art at Atlantis Fine Framing Studio on 25th and 26th of October. The photographers are;

Peter Gold
Royce Howland
Edith VanderKloot
Neil Speers
Shelley Vandervelde
Linda Senychych
Iris Jackson
and me.

The opening reception will be on Oct 25th from 6pm to 9pm. Please come to see us and enjoy some wine and cheese.

Portrait in Winter (4) – from the 2nd session.

I have being posting images of Jillian from the session in December. This time, I would like to share images from January session . The reason I wanted to repeat a photo-session with Jillian is that I could not complete all of my ideas in the previous session and also she is so beautiful, obviously.
I guess the mood of the session may have been different from the December session. Due to my mind set, the images are more casual and kind of candid feel to them. it may have been more relaxed; even Jillian brought up some photographic ideas. I LOVE to hear ideas from a clients. That excites me and I can keep shooting forever.

Next image, while I was processing, this image reminds me the famous poster of the musical, Les Miserable. I did not expect this happened.

On the other hand, I had an image of the next photo at the shooting and I specifically requested her to make a pose for this image. I also know I was going to make it B&W. I experimented some digital framing, and I chose the design of the film perforations to add classic feel. Do you like the framing?

Please click the images for larger sizes, and please check other Jillian’s images in previous posts.

Portraits in Winter (3) – please participate in an experiment.

I talked about how I progress creative vision through development of one photo last time. Contrarily to the previous post, I occasionally have fully concrete idea before clicking shutter. This image is one of this type of cases.  I found a nice shadow of a tree on the wall of barn while I was hunting locations for the session. I imagined graphic contrast between the dark spooky shadow and beautiful Jillian. Also her shoulder line is straight and squire but this si I wanted rather than typical feminine pose since I imagined strength from her in oppressive mood. But there was problem which was messy ground  with a patch of snow and nasty weeds.  So I got an idea to add some digital effectｓ on the bottom of the frame.

Before asking you a favor, here is my thought. What is a fear artists or even creators worry about? It must be a question, “Will my work be accepted?”. That is proven by many episodes left by novelists, artists, and musicians, like scandalous failure of the Premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913. Or the shortest letter by Victor Hugo.  Although spending hours or even days facing a computer monitor to process one image, there is no guarantee people will like what I have done on the photo. First of all, if client does not like the image, all efforts I made are pointless. Then nothing must be happier, as an artist, than when the image is able to communicate with many people successfully.

Now I need your favor. Please participate in an experiment. I think most of readers here are photographers, but please forget critiquing and imagine your non-photographer in following situations.

1. YOU ARE THE MODEL and my client. I phoned you and let you know your photos are ready. I presented the images below as first time.  Which photo pleases you most? Why?
2. YOU ARE VISITING THE MODEL’S HOME and found these photos hang on the wall in her dining room. Which Image would make you feel WOW? Why?

Did you pick the same photo for these different situations? Or you think your impression may be different from other viewers?

Portraits in Winter (2)

In photography, we have to take some stages for completion of an image before publishing or giving it to a client. I mean shooting is an only part of photography, and post-processing is significant part of creation of images. At least for me.

When I am shooting, I occasionally have pre-vision of how the final image looks like. I also have plans for post –processing in this case. On the other hand, I sometimes just focus on lighting and a model at shooting. And my imagination progress as taking the stages. At first, I get rough idea of the final images when I see an image just after downloading the photo from a camera to a computer. Then while I am taking hours for post-processing, my imagination slowly progresses and the image is getting close to completion…I mean a layer to another layer, a filter to another filter. I usually take many errors as well before saving the final product.

Following images are the ones I took the type of the process. I focused on lighting and poses at the shooting. Then I tried to apply processing to meet the certain mood which Jillian brought to these images. I think that is why each photo below has deferent look and taste.

Please click the images for larger sizes.

Related post: Portraits in Winter (1)

Portraits in Winter (1)

I was supposed to post the images from the flood but I would like to process film first. I have to make time for it. So this time, I post images from the photo session I had in winter.

I had an opportunity to photograph beautiful Jillian in December, then I asked her another session in January since I really wanted try all photographic ideas I planned with this beautiful model. We traveled several locations from downtown to Englewood area Calgary. There was old barn with white wall in Englewood. Here are 3 photos from the white barn.

Just sunset time…it was quite warm afternoon as December. It was perfect light. I did not WANT to use any flashes.

Actually, it was not snowing. I added some effect. It looks chilly, doesn’t it? I call this image “snow white”

After the sun disappeared, temperature suddenly dropped and it became pretty cold. So I imagined a scene that a girl was waiting somebody in cold outside. Jillian responded well to my request. Don’t you feel the loneliness?

Please click the images for larger sizes.

A weekend of the Calgary flood – Stephan Avenue

On June 20th, the most disastrous flood in 100 years hit in South Alberta. I woke up late in the morning of the day, I found some posts on Twitter talking about Canmore and Banff. Twitter posts were brief messages so I did not understand what was actually happening in Canmore. More people started posting on Facebook and I noticed the water level of the Bow River was drastically increased over night and houses along the river in Canmore were under danger of flood. Then the images on youtube were even more shocking. The Bow River was running violently. Actually, the high volume of broke the bridge on the highway 1 and access from Calgary to Canmore, Banff was shutdown.

I had a work to do at the other side of the city. I was driving on Memorial drive around 02:30 pm. The water level of the Bow River was very high but bridge pier were not covered by water. Actually people are still walking and jogging in the park along side of the Bow River. I remember people were talking about condition in Canmore and Banff, but not Calgary when I started my shift at 3 pm. But it did not take long for us to realize it was not unrelated disaster for us. The TV news was reporting showing horrible images of Bragg Creek, High River, and Bowness area was evacuated.

When I was going home from work at 11:30 pm, I saw many police cars everywhere. The Memorial Drive, which had been still safe 9 hrs ago, was now closed. Although it was nearly midnight, many people came out to watch violent river and take pictures.

Next day, when I woke up, Calgary was very different. All local TV news was reporting only the flood. Many areas were flooded and evacuated. Stampede Park was also flooded even though there were no more than 9 days by opening day of Calgary Stamped. I could not move from TV, not because I was excited by watching the news. I was just so shocked and lost energy. It was so devastating.

But I am a photographer. I could not stop the urge to document the disaster. But the images of the actual flood had been already published everywhere…hundreds of them. Moreover, I am not a press photographer. I was not interested in photographing violent water.

So I visited downtown on Saturday afternoon. All businesses in downtown core were closed but people could still access the area. The down town was really quiet, almost no traffic. It was like ghost town. Only I do remember is military truck passing my car. It was like one scene in a movie, “I am legend” but this was real.

 


Stephan Avenue on Saturday after flood – 4

Usually, many people are hanging around on Stephan Avenue, the main street of the downtown on Saturday afternoon. But I saw only some cyclists and securities patrolling closed building. Also I think I saw some business owners came to their stores to check something before closing for days. Usually, I cannot photograph shadow like this picture in a busy normal day.     

Stephan Avenue on Saturday after flood – 2
 


Stephan Avenue on Saturday after flood -1 

All restaurant were closed, even Macdonald.  In normal weekend, people are enjoying beer and dining everywhere on the Stephan Avenue.

Stephan Avenue on Saturday after flood – 3

More photos and stories are coming in the future posts.