Back in October Tom and I attended Barb and Jeff’s wedding on the Sunshine Coast at Rock Water Resort, a beautiful venue for such an event. If you haven’t visited the resort or looked it up I highly recommend you do. Visitors can stay in one of their many ocean side cabins. These luxurious tents are situated in the tree tops and they’re connected via tree top bridges. Barb and Jeff you chose a spectacular venue!
The day was very laid back which was a nice change from the usual. The couple exchanged vows outdoors with the ocean as their backdrop. The group wedding photos were captured by the water side and the evening reception took place outdoors in a nice white tent.
Thanks for handling our accommodations that evening Barb and Jeff, I only wish we could have enjoyed it more the next day (I had to ferry back over to Vancouver early the next day for another wedding). We had a place that was just a few feet from the water. Random note, I was the shortest person in attendance.
Below are just a few of the photos the two of us captured. Since I was photographing for Tom these are edited by him.
The paths to the ocean side tents.
The wedding venue as seen from the tree path.
The bridal party went for a run before the wedding.
This past weekend Tom for Mananetwork asked me to assist him with some couple photos in Stanley Park by Downtown Vancouver. As you all know the weather in our beautiful city can be hit and miss (a lot of times). Well luckily Arisa and Josh, from Toronto, were prepared and were up for photos either way, rain or shine. They came with some beautiful yellow umbrellas from the Umbrella Shop in Vancouver. Below is a set a of teaser photos from the shoot. The couple had great chemistry which made for some great engagement photos. Congrats to you two!
Last week I received a message from an old client of mine asking if I was available to photograph a Lamborghini in Canada (Vancouver to be exact). It was a very last minute request and he wanted done the same day, the same day I lent out my wireless flash radios. He added that there would be another Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, the limited production car with only 250 produced in the world. Ok tempting, how can you turn down photographing two awesome Lamborghini Gallardos in Canada, one of them a limited edition!
I later found out that they wanted the photos as the LP550-2 was being sold. With no off camera lighting I made due with available light which was fine but I didn’t get the moving shot that I wanted (exotic cars bunched together always attracts an unwanted crowd ie. the police). What I was about to attempt wasn’t going to get us a ticket but I didn’t want any trouble. The early and unexpected sunset made for an interesting set of photos.
I also got a quick ride in the matte white Gallardo, a quick 100m to where we parked our car down the road. The acceleration is…AMAZING, by the time he hit second gear I was saying “ok you can slow it down.” We weren’t even at 60km/h but the speed at which the car throws you back into your seat is nuts. I’d equate it to being propelled up on one of those amusement park rides. These cars get do 0-100km/h in 3.8 seconds! Definitely the fastest cars I’ve sat in to date.
Thanks to Wayne for coming along on such short notice. Below are some of the photos and a quick random video of me photographing these two beauties.
Have an exotic car or highly modified vehicle you’d like photograph for your own personal use or to help sell the car? Contact me for details! My favorites are German and Italian cars and anything else that’s tastily tuned .
A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of photographing Parveen and Saj’s wedding in Vancouver. Their ceremony took place at the beautiful Lions Gate Jamatkhana Mosque. We took some pre-ceremony photos in a small hiking trail I found behind the mosque, lucky find actually. There wasn’t much around the mosque besides the upper levels highway. From there we went down to Gastown to take photos of the bridal party. It was close to where the couple lives plus within distance to the reception. The entire party was a joy to photograph and it shows in the photos below. Thanks Parveen sand Saj for letting me and Tom be a part of your special day.
Two weeks ago Tom Wagner had asked if I could come out and help with some portrait photos of Christina and Rikki in North Vancouver. Christina and Rikki are friends of Jimmy who’s wedding you might have remembered we photographed a few months back. Check out the wedding video if you haven’t already.
Christina and Rikki were fun to work with, they were game for anything we threw at them which is very uncommon. Usually one person doesn’t like getting wet or dirty (and by dirty I mean sitting on GRASS, yes some couples don’t like green “clean” grass). But these two were prepared to get wet and dirty, the type of couple a photographer would love to have. Below are some of the photos I captured during the session (Tom did the editing) and a few that I help setup. The photos were captured in Dundarave park.
Here’s a tip for other photographers, keep your eyes open. The below set of photos I had my other eye open watching the waves. Christina and Rikki were concentrated on me so they didn’t really know what was coming, well Rikki should’ve known but I think he was looking out pretty far or was already getting ready for the those waves. Christina had no clue, haha.
Tom captured the below and I help picked the location and setting them up. Rikki’s shoes got totally soaked but he didn’t flinch! Most guys would’ve been pretty pissed. He just shrugged it off. Made for an awesome photo though .
Having two photographers on a shoot helps since we can cover two different angles. This photograph below was taken while the two were walking towards me on the beach. Tom was beside them.
It also helps with directing. One can be talking to the couple while the other capturing the moments. Sometimes the photographer may be quite a distance away and it’s hard to shout over long distances.
Took these test portraits in Vancouver at Sugar Studios of Tomasz while helping shoot the cd cover for the new Shy Brothers album. We only took a few photos but they were all pretty good. Is there a modeling future for Tom?
Back maybe a month ago I had the opportunity to photograph Tom and Betty in Vancouver. We decided to either shoot the photos at the Olympic Village or if it was rainy Granville Island. I like Granville Island because of the variety of photos us portrait photographers can achieve without having to move around a lot. I don’t like how there’s a lot of people there though. The day was a bit overcast so the couple opted for Granville Island.
Tom described themselves as weird or random. I’d say they were a bit quirky and cool. Right from the start Tom looked like he’d been in front of the camera before. Betty was a bit shy but as our session progressed she got much more comfortable and it seemed like Tom was getting stiffer. It was a great session and I tried some shots I hadn’t done before because of their quirky and weird factor. Btw, it’s not weird at all, it just shows how much fun they have with each other.
I asked if Betty could take some photos after she got them printed. I’m very happy with the way they turned out. Not sure where they printed them but the printer did a good job. I edit my photos on colour calibrated monitors for printing so people will see a bit of a difference when viewing the photos on the monitor vs. printed. The majority of people don’t have calibrated monitors. What I found interesting was that her favorite photos weren’t my favorite, rarely are they anyways. Her favorites didn’t have as much artistry in them as I would’ve liked.
Thanks to Brandon for coming out and helping as well. I got to test out his 5Dmk2 vs. my 5D. Can you tell the difference in the pics? Most likely not. Feel free to guess. The 5Dmk2 felt lighter than my 5D with the same lens attached. Love the LCD on that camera.
Aww matching outfits! Haha. Reminded me of all the couples I saw in China. 1/4 couples were wearing matching clothes .
One of my new favorite spots. Why? Cause it doesn’t look like Vancouver but some place in Europe.
I haven’t had a chance to upload or edit these photos yet but I thought I’d put up a teaser and the video that Steve Tan put together for Jimmy and Michelle’s wedding in Vancouver. This was another wedding I was shooting secondary for Vancouver wedding photographer Tomasz Wagner. The couple was awesome and so was the ceremony and reception (can’t go wrong when a big group of their friends are DJs).
I don’t often post something that’s related to me but I just had to post this. It’s been a busy month for me shooting almost every weekend. I still haven’t had chance to edit some event photos I shot for the Canadian Cancer Society earlier in the month as well as three weddings and two couple shoots. I’ve lost count! I’ll be getting on those this weekend.
So what is this post about? Well…I recently (late last year) picked up road cycling and absolutely love it. So much so I put more kms on the bike than I do the car. Who wants to pay for gas and parking anyways? One reason I’ve been putting off all the updating and editing of photos is due to me trying to fit in bicycle training in preparation for the Whistler Granfondo bicycle ride in September. It’s 120km ride up the Sea to Sky Highway with over 2000m of climbing with probably the same amount of descent. It’s going to be hard. With our awesome unpredictable weather I try to fit in rides 2-3 times a week.
This evening I received my new Shimano RS80 bicycle wheels and was ecstatic! I drove to my parent’s place to pick them up, threw them into the car, and headed over to Colman’s place (thanks Colman) to have him swap my dad’s 12-27 rear cassette onto the new wheels. After that I quickly drove home and attempted to install the new Michelin Pro 3 race tires and tubes onto my bike while I waited for Tom (my photographer buddy) to come over.
The tires were a royal b*tch to put on. Tom called me to say he was coming over and at that time I was just trying to stuff the first tire onto the front wheel. Brute force and a few roughed up fingers later I finally got it on. I was sweating bullets…yes laugh I guess I’m a newb. 25 minutes later Tom arrives while I’m yelling obscenities at my rear wheel. He comments, “what is taking you so long to get it on? This should be super easy.” I give him the “wth do you want to try?” look. Him all smiley he gives a go at it. HAH! He can’t get it either. He then goes on and says, “you sure you got the right size tires? The tire shouldn’t be this far down etc…” I told him I got the first one on after wrestling with the damn thing (wish I had photos of me trying to put it on). So I keep going at it while Tom suggests boiling water and putting it on the wheel (wtf seriously?!). It finally looks like it’s wanting to behave so Tom comes over and we both push and pull on the mofo piece of rubber till finally it was seated. Fun times!
Us both being Vancouver wedding photographers and portrait photographers we thought we’d go out and take some photos. If you’re a wedding photographer you’re pretty much also a lifestyle photographer, it’s all the same thing really. So below are a set of photos that tell a short mini story just after we got the tires on and installed, then out for a spin around Vancouver’s beautiful water front. We strolled out at 11pm in shorts and t-shirts since the weather was surprisingly warm. It happens maybe a handful of times during the year.
Photos were taken by both me and Tom. They have my name on them since I edited them . Our attempt to model is at the very end, gotta practice what we preach right?
Margarita is a colleague of Katrina and also wanted some headshots for promotional materials. We took a few photos in Vancouver’s coal harbour in downtown. I usually prefer clean backgrounds but this shot out of the set appealed to her since it had some color in the background which would help offset her marketing material. I’m happy it works for her and can’t wait to see what it looks like when printed. If you need a Vancouver head shot photo drop me a line!
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