I did a few shoots this weekend, but this one was a bit different. We were being filmed for a Bravo documentary about Laura’s work. I haven’t had much time to work on them, but here are a couple of rough shots from that day.

Laura’s art is very conceptual, and it was fun putting together some tight images to convey what needed to be said. We didn’t really expect to get real photos that we could use, because of the filming, but the film crew was great. They were very professional, getting the shots they needed, but generally staying out of our way when I asked them to.  The documentary should come out in the fall.

I need to do something about this.

It’s a mess up there in my loft, and it kind of prevents me from using that room. One of these days, when I can stand being without Internet for about an hour, I’ll take everything apart and put it back together again, neatly.

Anyway, another weekend come and gone. Great success! I’m off to Montreal again. I’ll be back Friday night.

I’ve been doing a lot of everything lately, so this blog entry will cover as much as I can remember. The Arctic Monkeys concert was fun, for me anyway. They played most of the songs from their two albums, but missed Riot Van. I had hoped they’d play that as an encore, but they didn’t play any encore at all. I thought that was pretty low of them. At least save a song to make the crowd happy at the end of the night. Instead, they just waved goodbye and left the stage. The crowd chanted and stomped for them to come back, but the lights came up and the show was obviously over.

My main criticism of the concert was that they didn’t do much to put on a show. They just went out there, businesslike, and ploughed through their repertoire, staying mostly quiet between songs, switching and tuning guitars, etc. The sound balance seemed a bit off too. The singer was drowned out by the band for the most part, which made it hard for my friends, who don’t know the Arctic Monkeys very well, to keep up with things.

My camera and I have been busy. I have been shooting a lot while I’ve been home. A couple of weeks ago I shot promo photos for a real-life couple who are doing an improv show, playing a couple of lawyers who can’t keep their hands off each other. It should be a fun one.

Meanwhile, up in Montreal, I had a great weekend. The weather was fantastic, so we went to the Mount Royal park to hang out in the sun, watching people play drums and other musical instruments. There were a lot of buskers practicing up for the summer season ahead. There were some exotic animals too. The little dog is my roommate, Scruffy. The person annoying Scruffy by making his ears into wings is my other roommate, Emily.

That night, I headed east on Sherbrooke until I got to the Olympic Stadium. I knew I wanted to shoot this place at night, and since the weather was good, and I had my car, I figured midnight on a Sunday night was as good a time as any. It was perfect, actually. There were no people around, and there was free parking on the street right across from the stadium. I grabbed my camera, my 12-24mm lens, my (borrowed from Danie) 50mm lens, my lightweight tripod, my cable release, and I was off. It took an hour and a half to walk around the stadium, finding all of its best angles, but I didn’t feel the time go by at all. It reminded me of the entire evening I spent camped out in front of the Louvre in Paris, waiting for just the right moment to take the photo.

There were some special challenges involved in photographing the stadium. First of all, the lights at the top of that tower are extremely bright. They kept blowing out in the image, because the rest of the place was so dark. I eventually started using my fingers in front of the camera to “dodge” the photo while it was being exposed. Each exposure was about 15 seconds. Most of the time, I was waving my fingers in front of the camera, blocking that part of the image where the bright lights were for about 10-12 of those 15 seconds.

The other challenge was the various colors of light being used. The lights at the top of the tower were a nice, full-spectrum white that lit up the concrete in an even grey. The other lights, like those in the interior of the building, and on the underside of the dish, were various ugly shades of yellow and green. Fortunately, Photoshop CS3 is brilliant at dealing with mixed color temperatures like this. There’s a Hue/Saturation/Lightness tab in the RAW processor that lets you adjust each range of the spectrum, to pull it in the direction you want. The first and second photos above were a mess until I corrected the color of the light. Photoshop CS3 has won me over finally. I no longer need Capture One. Not only is CS3 more flexible with RAW processing, but the image quality has finally surpassed C1. Sorting images with tags and star ratings is a beautiful thing. I can also batch process hundreds of photos, simultaneously watermarking them, with a single click. I’m in love.

Speaking of love, I shot some engagement photos for my good friend and his fiance. They wanted some traditional engagement shots, which we did in the park and greenhouse nearby. They also wanted something a bit more unusual. They had showed me a famous Hurrell photo, which I was happy to use as an influence.

Later that day (it was yesterday, but seems so long ago now), I headed to Toronto for rehearsal with Big in Japan. Afterwards, I shot some photos for a comedy duo who has a show in this year’s Fringe Festival.

Man, we shot a lot of photos. The four above just scratch the surface of it. They were mainly shot outdoors, with the Vivitar flash for fill where necessary. I made sure to leave lots of room for design, since they’re going to be used for show promotion (posters, post cards, etc.).

Anyway, that’s it for now. It’s dinner time.

It’s been a very quick few days. I drove up here to Montreal after spending the night in Toronto. I left at about 6 in the morning and got to Montreal by about 12:30. It was a bit further than I had anticipated, but the weather was good, and traffic was light. It was an easy drive.

I decided to bring the car because I’ll be here for a couple of weeks, and it’s a convenient thing to have, although entirely optional. It has helped me move into my new apartment, however. I do miss the extra carrying capacity of the Outback Sport (whose name was Sheila, by the way). I had to cram a double futon mattress into the back seat of the Emeril and it was definitely a tight squeeze.  Sheila would have been able to handle the wooden frame of the futon too. I’ll just have to make a second trip with a van or a truck later this week to get the frame.

I got some other essentials too. Yesterday I bought a small charcoal barbecue for grilling delicious things. Today, I got a wireless router and a small stereo that you can also hook up to the TV to play DVDs. It has a USB port on it for connecting USB storage devices, from which it will play MP3s, and MPEG4 DivX files. It also rips CDs to MP3 files. Since the whole thing cost less than $100, I’ll believe it when I see it.

The weather here has been hot. Today it was 29C plus humidity. It definitely feels like July already. I’m enjoying the summery atmosphere for sure. The city is dripping in beautiful girls in skimpy summer dresses. It’s quite common to go to a park with the dog and sit on a bench, drinking a bottle of wine and chatting with strangers. Since I’m now living with Emily, who has a small dog, and is a fan of wine, I’m sure this activity will be quite common.

Last night we had a small dinner getogether at Tan’s. We barbecued chicken, and ate it on the rooftop patio with Thai dipping sauce, grilled vegetables tossed with goat cheese, and fiddleheads sauteed in garlic butter. Dessert was chunks of pineapple with ice cream bars dipped in chocolate. I went to the gym when I got back to my apartment to help cure me of the guilt.

Tonight should be fun. I am meeting a friend and going to sit on a terrasse for drinks. Terrasse is just Montrealese for “patio.”  We’re going to Sainte Elisabeth, which has been described as “a secret garden.”

Walking into this pub, you wouldn’t know right away that Le Sainte-Elisabeth has a courtyard which is enclosed within 45 metre high vine-covered walls. Walk to the back and you’ll see a courtyard terrace blooming with flowers and greenery during the warm months. Visitors who sit in this intimate urban garden feel like they’ve stepped directly into a dream.

Sounds good to me.

This weekend: Arctic Monkeys.

Just playing around with the Zoomify export in Photoshop CS3.