John Casablancas International BYOB
Posted by Michael Lee in Portraits on January 26th, 2010
Every couple of months John Casablancas International had a build your own book (BYOB) session where students from their make-up, hair, and fashion departments get together to put together four looks. They are pushed to achieve four looks (outfits) within a 7 hour time frame. The five best photos from each look are then picked and submitted to the school and String magazine for review. The set they like the most is then published in their monthly Vancouver fashion String magazine. It might seem easy but the make-up, hair, and clothing changes usually take anywhere from 1-1.5 hrs to complete leaving little time for photographing the subject.
The school invites local professional photographers in Vancouver to these sessions where they are placed with one of the groups for the day. We’re allowed to either photograph on location or inside their studio. For this shoot I brought with me a friend who I often photograph weddings with, Tom Wagner. Having shot many weddings with him and Three Sixty in the past made this session go smoothly as we’re use to thinking on the spot and using our natural environment to our advantage. Thanks to the Water Street Cafe for letting us use a table for 5 mins and Ray for letting us use his lights inside the studio.
So what happens when you combine the following:
- Vancouver portrait photographer (Michael Lee)
- Make-up artist (Parm Pandher)
- Hair stylist (Siobhan O’Brien)
- Fashion stylist (Sami Ward)
- Talented model (Jenna Cunningham)
You end up with (I would hope) a great set of photos that you’re proud of and that you can feel confident about showing to others. Check out the below 30 second clips of two looks we shot. Below that are some of the favorites from the day out of the four looks/outfits.
Alysha in Yaletown and Gastown Vancouver
Posted by Michael Lee in Portraits on January 5th, 2010
Alysha and her family has been good family friends for a long time. I remember when she and her brother were just lil tykes. She’ll be going out of province for her first university co-op experience and her mom wanted some portraits in Vancouver of the family. I gave her a call a week before she was about to leave and suggested that in addition to family portraits we do a set of photos in Yaletown and Gastown of just her. I had just about two hours to photograph Alysha including all the traveling. We spent about 30-40 mins just outside Urban Fare in Yaletown photographing the outdoor portraits. After freezing our butts off (ok it wasn’t that cold) I promised her we’d warm up inside and take a set indoors. We headed over to the new Woodwards apartment in Gastown where we spent the remainder of the time taking indoor shots. We produced a great set of photos given the time I had.
A word of advice for aspiring photographers, a good portrait photographer should be able to shoot in any location whether it be inside in a nice studio or out in the back alley.
Vancouver Wedding Photography
Posted by Michael Lee in Personal on December 8th, 2009
I was shooting for Three Sixty Photography two weeks ago and shot this quick portrait of Leena, the bride of the day.
Family Photography in West Vancouver
Posted by Michael Lee in Portraits on December 6th, 2009
I had the opportunity last week to photograph some outdoor family photos as well as indoor pictures of the Szeto family. We had originally planned to shoot during the morning but that didn’t pan out so we ended up shooting in the evening. It was pretty chilly outside (Vancouver in December = cold) so we decided to shoot the outdoor photos in the backyard. Their backyard is great for family and children photography. You can achieve different scenes with the different areas in the yard; outdoor forest look, vacation patio, beautiful brick staircase, separated lawn areas and a backyard bbq. For the indoor photos I had them sit on the family couch. In most cases the photos were shot with a two light setup and in some cases just one.
West Vancouver Interior Photography
Posted by Michael Lee in Architecture on December 2nd, 2009
I had the opportunity this past weekend to photograph an interior of a home in West Vancouver (thanks Peter). The color of the wall is how I remember it, it was a bit of an off white and the mouldings were more true to white.
Portrait session with Seungyon
Posted by Michael Lee in Portraits on December 1st, 2009
Continuing where I left off with that impromptu session with Seungyon. These were shot in the district of Wudaokou in Beijing, China in an apartment complex. In the middle of the apartment complex, four towers surrounding a small terrace, we found an inviting park where children and seniors play and pass time. The day was overcast so it was perfect for these naturally lit photos. These are some of my favorite individual pictures from my time in China.
Lezyne L Caddy seat bag – Review
Posted by Michael Lee in Reviews on November 22nd, 2009
Just wrote my own review of the Lezyne L Caddy seat bag. Check it out: Lezyne L Caddy seat bag review
Impromptu portraits in Beijing
Posted by Michael Lee in Portraits on November 21st, 2009
Shot these impromptu photos of a friend while at a birthday party in Wudaokou district of Beijing, China. My friend had stepped out to take a breather and myself as well. Shot off a few in front of her while she wasn’t looking then she caught on and started to ham it up. Wasn’t hard to figure out that she liked being in front of the camera so we did another mini shoot which I’ll post pics of later.
This district is where Tsinghua University, Beijing University and Beijing Cultural and Language University are located. In addition to the local Chinese there are also many foreigners from abroad in this district; finding a cozy cafe or bar where locals speak English isn’t hard (if you can find these precious “hole-in-the-walls”). Often times students will hangout or study at them, nothing different from other countries. In fact, some of the cafes had the ambiance of ones I’ve visited in London and France. The subway stop is “Wudaokou”. When you get out of the stop you’ll be at the main intersection of the district. On the north west corner there’s a pizza hut as well as a nice bakery/cafe called “Tour Les Jours”. If you walk to the south west corner and continue south past the bookstore, you’ll find two cafes on the 2nd and 3rd floors of two buildings. These two cafe are common hangouts for students and foreigners.
2010 Vancouver Richmond Olympic Oval
Posted by Michael Lee in Architecture on November 18th, 2009
The 2010 Richmond Olympic Oval has been opened now for over a year. I always pass it going home and I’ve wanted to photograph it at sunset but never made it back out there to do it. I had to wait till the brink of winter to do it, lol. Well finally here it is as seen during a winter evening. Photographed this on the No. 2 bridge in Richmond BC. The photo is HDR and is comprised of three layers.
Wallpaper size 1920×1280: Richmond Olympic Oval
Tugendhat House by Mies Van Der Rohe
Posted by Michael Lee in Architecture on November 10th, 2009
During one of my courses in university we were asked to build a model house by a famous architect. Mies Van Der Rohe was one of about 10 on the list we were given. Two works of art that he is probably most well known for is the Barcelona Pavillion and the Barcelona chair which is pictured below. Our group choose to reproduce Mies Van Der Rohe’s Tugendhat House as it didn’t have as many odd angles as the other structures, this one was all 90 degree angles. What was a bit challenging was the fact the house was built into the side of a slanted hill, so the “front” of the house was at the street level on the upper side of this two story house. The backyard was on the bottom of the site and surrounding the house on either side was a sloping hill. Trying to convey this in the model was another challenge but one we were up for.
Though it was easier to construct, trying to find blue prints, schematics, and photos of the house was much more difficult most likely due in part to the house’s age. We couldn’t find one source where the house’s schematics were all using a consistent unit of measure, some didn’t even have units, just a drawing! So here we were with a number of diagrams from different sources, all at different scales. It took us more than a few hours to measure up every side of the house on all the diagrams and figure out a common # we would use so that the final model would be to the correct scale.
We used millboard to construct the house and thick cardboard to build its base. I would highly recommend an Olfa utility knife to score and cut the millboard, anything of lesser quality and you won’t be getting good results. Be sure to break off the blade once it starts getting dull. The entire model was held together by some strong white bonding glue. We went through an entire bottle on the model and had to hit the hardware store when it opened the next morning (it was due at noon the next day). I should note that the model was built in 2-3 days, 50 hours of work and no sleep for me and another member on the last night. There was three of us working on the actual construction of the model, cutting all the panels we needed and putting it together. The final product was well worth it though. This was more satisfying than building one of those model airplanes you buy off the shelf.
We wanted the ability to remove the roof and first floor of the house to reveal what was on the other levels. One of my other team mates suggested we use the chimney as the anchoring point for the removable levels, the instructor was quite impressed. If the roof and 1st level wasn’t anchored, these two pieces would freely move around and look amateurish, we didn’t want that.
The below set of photos are my most viewed one by visitors. A lot of architectural students go through them and I often get emails asking where I found the blueprints or if I still have them. They were all scribbled down on random pieces of paper at the time so unfortunately I don’t have them. I always ask the students to send me their pics of their final model to see how it compares. I’m quite happy with how ours turned out 
.
Barceonla Chair at Knoll furniture store in Seattle, Washington.
The back of the Tugendhat house.
The middle level of the Tugendhat house.
The top floor of the Tugendhat house.
Side of the house with the slanted earth.
For those of you who are interested in the lightening setup, see below. We grabbed a piece of black cloth and setup a flash.
