Cool Bikes By The Bay

My summer theme has definitely been trying to make some cool images that have nothing to do with hockey. The thinking is that it will help me become a better all-around photographer and theoretically, that will help make me a better hockey photographer.

With that in mind, I called up a couple of my buddies that have cool motorcycles and asked them if they wanted to do some photos. They were a little skeptical at first but after a bit of convincing (begging?) I was able to talk them into it. I promised them that my goal was to make some shots that they would think looked very cool.

We started with a few on the open road to get the wind-in-the-hair look (well, for Aaron anyway, not so much for Jim). We had to wait out some rain so the sun was going down pretty quickly. Pretty much everything I got from the front was blown out by their headlights.

After giving up on the road shots and agreeing to try to do them another day when we had a bit more light, we went looking for a good place for some portraits. The sun was going down and we were getting some really cool colours in the sky so we decided to do something down by the Bay with the sunset in the background.

I was able to talk Aaron (who was hobbling from a weird accident at work earlier in the day) to get his bike down very close to the water. He wasn't thrilled about the idea until I started showing him the images that we were getting on the back of the camera.

All-in-all, I was really happy with how these ones turned out. I'm hoping to get out soon with some more daylight to do some panning and other techniques that I have learned at the race track.

All of these shots were with my Nikon D700 with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens. For the still shots, I used one SB-800 strobe with some light shapers that were professionally managed by my wife and partner Shelley. Not much retouching on them (obviously a sepia tone and some burning on the second one). What you see is pretty much what came out of the camera. I did a print of the first image and added some more burning and tried to eliminate some of the reflections in the chrome.

Joker's Child Photo Shoot

I had the chance this week to do some photos for a local rock band called Joker's Child. They were looking for some shots that they could use to promote their band with posters, prints and their MySpace page. I haven't done a lot of music photography yet but definitely have a lot of interest in it so I jumped at the chance hoping to get a few good images for my portfolio.




Shelley and I met with Kasey (the singer/guitar player) and Tim (drummer) a couple of days before the shoot to get some ideas of what they were looking for. They play some original material and cover songs and most of their influences are 80's hair bands. That worked well for me - I listen to a lot of the same music and used to play those songs in bands in what is starting to feel like a lifetime ago.




After the meeting, Shelley and I toured around Belleville a bit to find some outdoor locations that would work. We found a half dozen or so that we liked for this project and settled on four spots. Fortunately, the guys in the band were really easy to work with and believed that we had a good idea of what would suit them.



So after two hours and a few hundred shots (not to mention a couple of wardrobe changes - and two pairs of wicked big boots for Dagger Dave) later, we had some good material to work with.

These are some of the ones we liked best and I added an updated version of their logo for use on the promo posters. We're also working on a new Myspace page design that should be up shortly.

Rock on.

Studio Shots with my Favourite Models

With hockey (finally) on hiatus for the summer and a couple of weeks before my next race, I've been trying to stretch my horizons a bit and take shots that need a bit more preparation before hand.

In the rink and at the race track, it's pretty much find a good spot that I like, get the camera settings right and blast away at whatever catches my eye. But I've been reading and watching a lot on photographers that are good at working with light. Joe McNally is an absolute master at it. I picked up his book "The Hot Shoe Diaries" and now believe that it is possible to make stunning photos with small strobes.

Anyway, I've been putting together a make-shift studio in the basement that hopefully before the summer ends will become a more permanent version and started using some of the tricks that I learned to make some 'studio' type shots.

Here are some of the ones I like the best...

This little beauty is my wonderful (and very patient) daughter Taylor. It's great to have a model living right in the house. She isn't really a model but we definitely treat her like one.

The other beauty is my charming (and equally patient) wife Shelley.

These were all shot with a Nikon D700 with a 24-70 mm 2.8 or 70-200 2.8 in the studio using one SB-800 for light shot into a bunch of different diffusers. The shots on black had the SB-800 shooting into a 4'x3' piece of white foamboard (slightly camera right) and a silver reflector on camera left to bounce some of the light back into the shot. I used the 70-200 on those shots. For the shots with the white/grey background, I shot the SB-800 through an umbrella (camera right) and used the silver reflector to splash a bit of light back in.

That's it for now. More to come.