Archive for August, 2011

Mélanie & Nic. Wedding in Quebec City!

August 30th, 2011

I met Mélanie and Nic through my friend Vanessa when they were looking for a wedding photographer. A few months and a three-hour drive later, there I was at the amazing Manoir du Lac Delage near downtown Quebec City. Nice chalet-style hotel. Huge lake. Basketball and beach volleyball courts. Terasses, big fields, several reception rooms, [...]

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I met Mélanie and Nic through my friend Vanessa when they were looking for a wedding photographer. A few months and a three-hour drive later, there I was at the amazing Manoir du Lac Delage near downtown Quebec City. Nice chalet-style hotel. Huge lake. Basketball and beach volleyball courts. Terasses, big fields, several reception rooms, etc. No wonder it’s a popular destination for weddings. There was a total of 5 weddings the same day!

As the other weddings were going on, Mélanie and Nic were preparing for their big day. As usual, the bride’s preparation room was blasting music and hair dryers, whereas the groom’s room was much more relaxed and mellow. Everything was going smoothly until about an hour before walking down the aisle, we get the message that the wedding ceremony set up has changed because of the announced thunderstorms. Uh oh. Big dark menacing clouds were lurking over the manoir.

Thoughts started running through my head. I hope Mélanie isn’t freaking out. Is the Nikon D7000 weather-sealed? I hope I don’t toast camera gear in the rain. Wouldn’t the pictures kinda look cool? What if there’s lightning during the first kiss. That’s kinda cool. Is my hair gonna get ruined? Why aren’t you on my side today Mother Nature?  Maybe this last thought helped, because everything cleared out by the time we went out, and we didn’t get a single raindrop *cue applause*. Yay.

P.S. Food was great. I ate stuff I couldn’t even name.

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ATP Field Guide #2: Metering.

August 18th, 2011

Okay! Second field guide is about metering. So the field guide is just a simple explanation of the meter and what it means, with a few examples. For most people picking up a camera for the first time, the camera will remain on Automatic mode (the green camera!), and while it does result in good [...]
 

Okay! Second field guide is about metering. So the field guide is just a simple explanation of the meter and what it means, with a few examples. For most people picking up a camera for the first time, the camera will remain on Automatic mode (the green camera!), and while it does result in good results most of the time, eventually you will end up with some shots where people are silouhetted, where a singer on stage is completely blown out, where snow looks gray instead of white, etc. Understanding how metering is the first step towards knowing how and when to use exposure compensation and the Manual mode on your camera.

Note that the meter may differ in different cameras (I think Canon and Nikon have it reversed or something). But the important thing is just understanding what it means when the meters points to the positive or negative numbers.

Click here to download. Enjoy!

Cette fin de semaine j’ai un mariage à Québec! C’est la première fois que je vais si loin pour un mariage mais ça va être fun. On a transformé ça en un mini road trip pour la fin de semaine, comme ça je vais pas devoir faire un aller-retour déprimant pendant la même journée. La dernière (et seule) fois que je suis allé à Québec c’était pour un tournoi de basket en secondaire 3. On a perdu. :(

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Back with Vadim

August 17th, 2011

I got to work with Vadim again a few weeks ago at this big wedding at the Basilique Notre-Dame. It felt like a celebrity wedding or something since you had (random) people lining up like crazy just to see the bride walk from the car to the church. And it was even crazier after the [...]

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I got to work with Vadim again a few weeks ago at this big wedding at the Basilique Notre-Dame. It felt like a celebrity wedding or something since you had (random) people lining up like crazy just to see the bride walk from the car to the church.

And it was even crazier after the ceremony, as I was taking pictures of the bride & groom walking out, I had hundreds of people around me REALLY REALLY trying HARD to photograph them. There were cameras all around my face fighting for position. It was kinda like the MSTRKRFT mosh pit at Osheaga. And keep in mind that these are random people in the street trying to photograph a bride they don’t even know.

So I’ve seen rice being thrown at newlywed couples before, like in Juliane & Ghyslain’s wedding I photographed a few weeks ago. But this was the first time I saw PENNIES being thrown at them. A good luck thing maybe?

We then went to photograph them around Old Port Montreal, where every bride & groom on the planet gets photographed. Fun as usual.

Okay so I’m ending this post with super unrelated stuff. I’m finally getting Internet tomorrow. I’ve been living without it for a few months now and I will finally be connected once again. Yay. I swear, living without Internet these days is like disappearing from the face of Earth. Anyway, since I won’t have to go to cafes or school to get access to the interwebs, I’ll get more blogging done. Next post is going to be the ATP Field Guide #2 so stay tuned!

P.S. This flower girl was super cute.

 

Donc voilà pour ceux qui ne savent pas j’ai travaillé l’année dernière avec Vadim Daniel, un autre photographe de mariage à Montréal, et il m’a finalement contacté pour travailler avec lui de nouveau. On aura quelques mariages jusqu’au mois d’octobre je crois. Et avec mariages et mes field trips pour mes cours de bio, j’aurai à peine le temps pour l’école.

Heyyy c’est l’école bientôt. J’ai vraiment hâte. Est-ce que c’est triste? J’ai même hâte aux cours d’ornithologie que j’aurai à SEPT HEURES DU MATIN. Je sais toujours pas comment je vais faire pour me réveiller. Même avec 2 alarmes je passe à travers. J’ai toujours voulu pouvoir prendre une année off, et dormir non-stop. Un peu comme une hibernation. Et ensuite pouvoir rester réveillé pendant quelques années sans être fatigué. Ok, il est 2AM maintenant, ça parait que je suis fatigué.  Byebye, bonne nuit.

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ATP Field Guide #01: 3 Variables of Exposure.

August 9th, 2011

Hey everyone! Here’s the first field guide. Just a short, simple, 2-page PDF about the 3 variables of exposure. You can download it here. Enjoy! This post would look really ugly without any images posted. So here’s a few random pics.
 

Hey everyone! Here’s the first field guide. Just a short, simple, 2-page PDF about the 3 variables of exposure.

You can download it here.

Enjoy!

This post would look really ugly without any images posted. So here’s a few random pics. :)

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ATP Field Guides Preview!

August 3rd, 2011

People who buy DSLRs for the first time often ask me what mode I put the camera in, what settings to use for which situations, etc. And since people will not likely stop buying new DSLRs any time soon, I’ve decided to create a few instructional field guides for basic photography. It’s nothing too crazy [...]
 

People who buy DSLRs for the first time often ask me what mode I put the camera in, what settings to use for which situations, etc. And since people will not likely stop buying new DSLRs any time soon, I’ve decided to create a few instructional field guides for basic photography. It’s nothing too crazy or advanced, I’m just writing information I wish I found when I first started.

The only thing I assume is that you’ve read the camera manual enough to learn how to change the camera settings. For example, I may talk about the reasons why you pick certain shutter speed, but I will not tell you which buttons on your camera you will have to press to change it, you should figure it out with the manual.There are tons of other resources as well if you search on the internet.

So far I’ve done a few on basic topics like exposure variables, And if you want some specific tutorials let me know! I’ll try and write about it if I know enough about it. These are going to be posted on my website as large PDFs available for download. Here’s a preview:

Des field guides pour aider les gens qui viennent juste d’embarquer dans la photographie! J’ai eu l’idée pendant que j’étais sur le site web The Oatmeal. Ils font des posters drôles sur pleins de sujets différents, des guides de grammaire, etc. Ok mais c’est plus drôle que ça sonne ok? Allez voir.

Et c’est la que j’ai cliqué. Je voulais faire des guides de photos similaires qui couvrent l’essentiel. Quelque chose pour se référer rapidement si jamais on oublie quelque chose. C’est de l’information sur la photographie que j’aurais aimé connaître dès le départ (au lieu de devoir lire des tonnes de livres et de pages web). 

Si vous connaissez des gens qui seraient intéressés, laissez-les savoir! Ils devraient être disponibles bientôt.

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