Author Archives: kezia

Shipwrecked

A little earlier this year, during the summer, I had an idea for a portrait I wanted to try shooting. I had only ever used a slow shutter speed for a landscape, but wanted to try incorporating it into a portrait. I wanted the environment to show movement, but maintain sharpness and clarity of the subject. The easiest way to do this was to have her lying down so she could remain perfectly still, while the water moved around her. I love the softness of the water that is created with the effect of the slower shutter speed. To be able to shoot this while the sun was still up and not have to shoot at f/22, I used a neutral density filter so I was able to decrease the amount of light coming through the lens and be able to slow down the shutter speed more. I used two lights in this set up, which also helped freeze any little movement of the model, but because it was still light out, she still had to stay as motionless as possible so as not to create a ghosting effect. Overall, I’m really happy with how this turned out and had a lot of fun experimenting!

A big thank you to our model, Dominique, for being a trooper and braving the cold waters. It wasn’t that warm once the sun started to go down, and she was soaking wet and half in the water, but she did so great!

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Here’s a few other shots we did while waiting for the sun to get a little lower…

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Mountain Biking with Rob

Awhile back I did a photoshoot with a friend I met at school, Rob Cronin. Rob is the head photographer at faultine.tv, a Vancouver based media company, and has done a lot of work in the mountain biking industry. I wanted to try out some mountain biking photography with my lights so I asked Rob if he would be my willing subject, and we set a date. I packed up a few of my Einsteins into my 70L Arcteryx backpack, and with the help of a couple other friends, we hiked a little ways up Mt Fromme early one morning.

It was much more of a challenge than I was expecting and I learned a lot. Besides the uneven ground to place lights on, scrambling through bushes, and bat-sized moquitoes, one of the biggest challenges for me was working with the large contrast ratio the forest lighting. The difference between the shadowed forest and the bright patches of dappled sunlight was difficult to balance in order to not blow out the highlight detail, but at the same time not have the rest of the forest look completely dark.

Overall, it was a lot of fun experimenting and here’s a few of the photos I got out of it.

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Ardour…Take II

This was the second photoshoot I did with Courtney for her men’s cycling clothing line, ardour. This time we took to the city for a more urban look. Courtney had created a few more outfits since our last shoot, and again, they looked amazing! Take a look…

 

 

QUADRA

I’m really excited about this shoot! Combining photography with my other passions is the best so I had a ton of fun on this shoot because I also love hiking a lot! This was another shoot I did for a Kwantlen Fashion Design student and (I’ve said it on every other Kwantlen student post, but I have to stress it again) the outfits were amazing! Patricia Mclachlan did such a great job of creating beautiful yet functional and practical hiking outfits. Here’s what she says about her line:

quote_1The Pacific Northwest is surrounded by natural beauty, where exploration flows endlessly. QUADRA is a collection that is inspired from nature, for women who are avid in the outdoors. The designs are based on the needs of women hikers who are searching for garments that can shelter them from the rapid changing weather.

QUADRA offers these women clothing that is figure flattering have the technicalities they need, and designed to compliment the movement of the body while hiking. Fabrics have been specifically chosen to keep her comfortable while she is exploring and creating new memories. There is a large focus on fit and function, always keeping the end use as a priority. Exploring and trekking through the outdoors is a feeling that cannot be re-created with technology.quote_2

The weather had been pretty iffy, as it usually is in Vancouver. We were totally playing it by ear on where we were going to shoot depending on what the weather was like and we ended up deciding on Quarry Rock in Deep Cove. As it turns out, we were amazingly blessed! As I drove there, it started raining. Sometimes it was only drizzling a little but once in a while it would start pouring and I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous about the weather because I didn’t want to be shooting in the pouring rain with my lighting setup I was using, and if the skies were flat and grey, it would make the photos less dramatic and a little boring. Thankfully, everything went perfectly! The rain cleared up right around the time we started setting up, the clouds were beautiful and dramatic, the rocks and forest was wet, which really brought out the colors and contrast of the location on such a grey day. As soon as we finished packing up, the skies opened and the rain started pouring down…we just missed it!

Take a look at some of the images I created…

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Behind the scenes:

For the first set of shots, I just used the one light you see here with the 64″ soft silver PLM and the diffusion cover. I ended up adding another light coming from behind her to make it look more like the sun was breaking through the clouds over her shoulder…even though it really wasn’t that much. The Paul C Buff Cyber Commander came in really handy on this shoot so I didn’t have to keep climbing up the rocks and lowering the light to change the power. I could control everything right from my camera!

AVOCET

Another fantastic shoot for a Kwantlen fashion design student. This time it’s the work of Lindsay Hudyma and her golfing clothing line, Avocet. Every detail in her clothing pieces are meant to be functional and protect you from the elements for an effortless looking game.

My day started bright and early at 4am so I would have time to pack all my gear into my car and drive out to Furry Creek Golf Course to set up by sunrise. After driving around a bit to find out exactly where we were allowed to shoot, I met up with Lindsay and found the spot. Unfortunately, the weather hadn’t been so great for the last few days and the weather report didn’t look very promising, but we didn’t have any extra time to wait so we were going to have to deal with whatever weather we got. Sadly, we didn’t getting a breathtaking sunrise and the skies were a little flat, but with a little magic in Photoshop I fixed that (as you can see when comparing a couple images I didn’t change the sky in)! Take a look at some of the final shots…

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Ardour…Take I

This was the second line of clothing I photographed for a Kwantlen Fashion & Design student and again I was blown away by the talent. Courtney Bilinkoff designed and made a line of cycling clothing for the male road cyclist. Her designs are meant to bridge the gap between highly technical performance cycling apparel and the more stylish commuter wear.
I had a lot of fun working with Courtney and look forward to what the future holds for her and her clothing line! Check out her website and take a look at her amazing pieces…

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Here’s a set shot for one of our set ups. For this shot I used 2 Paul C Buff Einsteins and Vegabond minis with the 64″ soft silver PLM and stripbox.

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Stay posted for Take II.

Frosting Frocks and Formal Wear

Melody Nishi is a talented designer, who studied at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in the Fashion Design program, and whose line I had the opportunity to photograph. This is what she says about her line:

quote_1The candy coloured line appropriately named Frosting Frocks and Formal Wear is full of frothy tulles, shimmering satins and of course, sparkle. Designed to satisfy tween’s craving for fashion and fun, girls and their parents can trust Frosting to be on trend and age-appropriate. These 9-14 year old girls are caught in the limbo between children’s sizing and junior’s styles and are continuously evolving their identity. Their need for formal wear that expresses who they are at any given moment inspired each dress to boast a built-in element of transformability.  This key feature includes removable over skirts, overlays and underpinnings and allows Frosting to offer tween girls the ability to change their look without changing their outfit.quote_2

Read more on her website: melodynishi.com

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Models: Olivia Mey, Meena Goundrey
Icing Artists: Kelly Chihiro McLaughlin, Miho McLaughlin

This is Vancity.

I met Ketan in a high school art class about 5 years ago. Last year, I asked him about modeling for me for a school project. His schedule was incredibly busy and it just couldn’t happen at the time. He asked me later if I would be interested in meeting up still and talking about some other photography opportunities. He told me he had helped create this company and online blog. Basically, Ketan Jogia, Mike Despotovic, and Peter Bohdal are co-founders of This Is Vancity, which is a blog that focuses on multimedia storytelling with a goal to expose and connect our communities. Through documenting and highlighting creativity, culture and entrepreneurship in Vancouver, they look to celebrate and highlight this city’s creative communities.

I still haven’t met Peter because he always seems to be out of town, but I can say that Mike and Ketan are great guys! I photographed a Behance event for them early last year that they did a great job of organizing and got the chance to meet some awesome people! Soon after that I went away on my travels and we lost contact for a bit, but after reconnecting with them over coffee we came up with some awesome new ideas. One thing we talked about doing sometime was having me take some new headshots for them. We played around with some different lighting set ups and outfits to get some awesome shots that reflected their personalities and could be used for a variety of platforms, ranging from casual to more professional. Take a look at what we came up with and be sure to check out their blog!

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Lady of the Forest

This is my good friend Corina. Just before her birthday, she asked me if she could borrow some lighting gear to do a self portrait. She explained her concept to take pieces of her living room into the forest for a portrait (before she turned 24) and I loved it! I love furniture in the forest and the mix of the comforts of home with the beautiful natural setting. I was really excited about it and asked her if it had to be a self portrait or could I just do the shoot for her? She agreed to let me do the shoot and we planned the date- the day before her birthday.

On the day of the shoot, I packed up the entire trunk of my car with lighting equipment and then drove to Corina’s to fill the rest of the car with furniture. We headed over to Central Park and found a spot just off the path. After making multiple trips to the car for everything we were finally set up. I must mention that it was FREEZING out! I was wearing Under Armour under my jeans and beneath my shirt, fleece, and jacket, and wool hiking socks and boots. Corina was in this short-sleeved dress and bare feet for about an hour or maybe more! She was seriously such a trooper and besides the goosebumps on her arms, the photos don’t even hint at her being cold. Instead, she looks relaxed, comfortable, and elegant in every photo. Don’t you think? Check it out!

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Anthony Nerada

Last year while I was still in school, I had contacted Anthony to see if he would be interested in doing a shoot with me for a school project. Both of our schedules were pretty crazy and it didn’t end up happening…until now. I contacted Anthony to see if he would still be interested in doing a shoot. He said he most definitely was so we started planning! Funny enough, he’s now studying at Langara and has one of my former teachers. Small world!

We played around with some different outfits and set ups. Anthony was a lot of fun to work with and we got some great shots! I had never used a beauty dish until I ordered one (22-inch High Output White Beauty Dish from Paul C Buff) with my new lights and now I use it a LOT! I love the quality of light it produces.

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New lights!

On Monday I received my new lights from Paul C Buff that I was patiently waiting for!  After a lot of research and thought, I went with the Einsteins because they suited my needs perfectly. I was looking for something not too expensive, with good power and variability, and short flash duration.

I love opening packages and had all these to open! It felt like Christmas!

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Of course I wanted to try them out as soon as possible and it just so happened that I was hosting a couchsurfer at the time so I put him to work as my model ;)

I just set up in my living room, which was a bit crowded, but I made do. I had ordered 4 lights, but after setting up found out that one was not working. After calling customer service the next day and doing some testing, it seemed to be that the flash tube was defective. Their customer service was great and that’s another reason I’m glad that I went with Paul C Buff! I only had to wait one or two rings to talk to someone and after explaining the situation and figuring out it was the flash tube, she kindly told me she would send me a new one, no charge, that day with the fastest delivery they could so it would get here the following day (it did arrive today!).

I set up a black seamless for a clean background and the 3 working lights: 2 gridded and gelled strip boxes and a beauty dish. Here’s a few of the shots we came up with.

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After Lucia

For my last term of school for one of our classes, we had to create our own assignments based on what we actually wanted to do in the future. We were able to have a few extra options in case a couple didn’t work out based on scheduling, the iffy Vancouver weather for location shoots, etc. One of my ideas, which ended up being one of those projects I never ended up shooting, was to create some kind of poster or bullying awareness campaign. It would be a series of kids faces showing just their eyes to focus on the emotion, representing a statistic of bullying. It was still in the back of my mind to do this at some point, but I didn’t really think about it for quite awhile. Then, before the holidays, I had met up with my friend Megan, who is a graphics designer, to talk about doing some collaborations. I mentioned a long list of projects I eventually wanted to shoot, including my idea about the bullying awareness poster. We went over a lot of ideas that day and decided on a couple to work on. This was not one of them. It was only a day or two later that Megan called me up and asked if I wanted to work on this anti-bullying idea, for an actual event. Turns out, her friend is friends with the producer of the movie After Lucia, a film delivering an unflinching example of the high school bullying phenomenon at its worst, and needed a poster designed for a presentation at UBC about bullying awareness that he would be showing his film at.

Bullying is a huge problem, and I didn’t even realize just how many students were bullied online until helping create this poster. 1 in 4. That’s 25% of students who are cyber bullied. That is a huge number of kids! I think events like this should happen more often to help create awareness of this serious epidemic.

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Elementary, my dear Watson.

quote_1When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.quote_2

-Sherlock Holmes

My friend Stephanie is an amazing artist, graphic designer, costume designer…the list goes on. Here we have an example of her amazing costume making skills! Among myriads of other costumes she’s created is this particular version of the Sherlock Holmes costume. She also put together this entire set we used for the shoot; her attention to every little detail was incredible! I hope to photograph a few more of her future costume creations…be prepared to be blown away!

 

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Tallyn

Meet Tallyn. She is a beautiful young singer with an amazing voice, and I think she has a big future ahead of her!

Here’s a little bit about her:

quote_1I’m Tallyn and I’m 15 with a big dream. Ever since I was 4 years-old, I’ve wanted to be a paleontologist and a singer. It’s starting to look like singing might be more realistic goal – I’ve already played my first concert and am busy rehearsing, doing photoshoots and booking live performances on my way to living out my dream to sing as a career!quote_2

 

Here’s a few outtakes from the most recent photoshoot we’ve done:

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Ajay Martin

A little while ago I did a shoot with Ajay Martin around Vancouver’s Yaletown area. Ajay is one talented musician, with amazing guitar skills and a beautiful voice, and which my assistant and I had the honor of listening to during the shoot. Watch out for Ajay’s future album release! I know I’m looking forward to it.

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Give Blood: Play Rugby

Another long overdue post…the last month has been crazy, sorting things out with school and our grad show photo exhibition that we had on display at The Waterfall Building! This was one of my projects I did for school many weeks back now; a composite of the background and model. Thank you so much to Christina Burnham for coming in to model for me!

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Marshal Chupa

I am finally writing this long overdue blog post. A couple months ago I did some headshots for Marshal Chupa, good friend and fellow photographer I met at school. Here are a few images that came from the shoot…

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Crossover

quote_1Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.quote_2

- Michael Jordan

Did an awesome, fun shoot today! I was originally supposed to create a cinemagraph of someone dunking, and even had everything figured out as far as how to rig my camera to the top of the backboard. Unfortunately it didn’t work how I thought it would in my head. Well the rig worked but I couldn’t get the angle I thought I could and it just wasn’t working how I envisioned. I took some other shots that I had in my head after taking down the camera though, and I think they turned out pretty cool!

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This shoot made me realize how much I miss playing basketball! I have to find some time between school and life to start playing again!

Model: Jitinder Lohcham

Assistant: Marshal Chupa

B-Boying

Just finished putting together this project. I’m really happy with how it turned out! It didn’t at all turn out how I had imagined it would, but it never does does it? I think though, that it might have turned out even better than how I had imagined!

My model, Dickson, is an amazing dancer and he even showed me some moves after our shoot which I’ll be working on! I would love to learn how to breakdance but there is so much upper body strength and flexibility involved, it’s really incredible what b-boys can do!

Here are the three shots I used in the creation of this poster:

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Camera: Hasselblad H4D-40

Lens: 50mm f/2.8

The studio I was working in wasn’t that big and I wanted some extra space for all the movement that was happening so I had to use a wider lens than I wanted to. Luckily, the background did matter!

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