My introduction to Brendan Boyd film-making.
I met Brendan last winter on a Tito Guillen short called “The Woman Upstairs” where he was both acting and doing blood effects. I knew he made movies but, sadly I hadn’t really checked out any of them (I will now of course!), I’ve been out of the indie film circle for a while. I was causally invited to come on set this last weekend and I neglected to even ask what the movie was about. I was simply interested in the idea of mixing with more film nerds, see what people are doing, and so on. I showed up about 15 minutes late as I do for pretty much everything I attend and I wasn’t quite sure if I had the right address. I arrived at what looked to be a 70 year old house with a couch on the porch and no visible street number. For some reason I didn’t bother with ringing a doorbell or even knocking, I just walked in… something was up me that day, and I was more out-of-it than usual. Upon my first few steps, I see a huge mess of old puppets and costumes, and could hear familiar film type racket coming from one of the rooms. I should be in the right place. I quickly bumped into some actors and introduced myself so they wouldn’t think I’m just some random creep who wandered in from the street… I just made myself a little less random. I was pointed toward the proper doorway, I slid it open and walked right into a scene which can be awkward… especially so, if when you do, the scene is of a friend of yours, naked, miming masturbation in a chair in front of you. At that point it didn’t take too long to get up to speed, and start snapping out shots whenever it seemed appropriate to do so (well to be honest, I was far too uncomfortable for the first hour or so, it was a new element for me). Ok, at this rate I’ll never finish this post. It wasn’t a porno. It was awesome. Yes, I’m still absorbing it. Yes, I wish I had more photos, (for some reason I only had a 1GB card with me) Enjoy.
On the set of ‘Lost Hero’
Back to the basics, I literary had no responsibility on this set, haha so it was more fun. I was just there to hang out and commentate between cuts. It was nice to get back to just taking pictures some times, I felt like I have been losing a bit of my drive as I hardly have time for projects these days. Anyway, these movies seem to be getting better, and with these guys there are always costumes, niicce. So, this show will be called ‘Lost Hero” and it being made by my friend Ryan Byrne. (the guy in the cupid wings from the previous post) It’s still in editing, although I imagine there should be a cut of it online soon. Enjoy
Camping Shots, why not?
Well I drove out to Waterton Park last weekend (close to the US border) and went camping for the first time since I rolled a car in an accident a few years back. Anyway, I’m still not a great driver but again I survived and with some photos I don’t normally take. I’m not much when it comes to nature and geography, so this is what I’ve got.
Stills from ‘The Women Upstairs’
During some extraordinarily busy weeks at my day job, I had the chance to do some low ball indie film work, I put on my lazy director of photography hat, and shot another Tito short film with some friends. In between setups I had a few chances to get stills with my hobo kit.
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Good old Point and shoot?
Alright so, I tried out my cheap ebay speedlights and triggers for the first time. The good news is the $35 yn460 light seemed to work as well as a $300 dollar SB-600 for my uses, the bad news is I failed to get the corresponding light stands so I fumbled quite a bit trying to wield my old d70 in one hand and an umbrella with a light tapped to it in the other. I came out with some good shots but, I lacked the variety I wanted with that light setup. Anyhow, being a free practice shoot n’ all I had no trouble coaxing Anna into doing a re-shoot, where I left the lights in the trunk and just got back to good ol’ point shoot. Let me know what you think.
jesse
Washing clean laundry?
So, I guess I like laundromats…. well, somehow this was the first time I was in one (two actually). I should be shooting every couple of days but, I always seem to find excuses, one being I’m far too poor to have the proper gear. I can put that to rest now… sure I can’t do everything I want but, with a modest 300 dollars worth of gear but it certainly does simplify things.
This was a couple months back after purchasing my very first DSLR…. that’s right, I’ve been borrowing for the last 2 years. Anyway, I swiped an old noisy Nikon d70 for around 200 bones on ebay and a cheap 50mm f1.8 portrait lens for another 100. With the exception of the last three shots that’s all I was working with, not too shabby.
jesse
Another test with simple design
I had a lot of fun with the last post so I decided I would give it another try. This didn’t go as smoothly as I just didn’t have any fresh ideas. I tried to remain simple here so it’s very two demential. If anyone has any constructive criticism that would be welcomed. I’m always trying to learn so let me know what you think.
J
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The secret is out, I use photoshop
I was sorting through some old work last night and came across this image. I was doing still photography for an independent film here in Edmonton and Tito Guillen (Director) wanted to use this shot as the poster. Unfortunately this was just one of those shots that didn’t work out, basically it’s terribly out of focus and our actor is yawning in the shot. There was also a lot of negative space on the left side which bugged me so I decided I was going to work on it a little before I gave it away. Here’s what I came up with. Be sure to click the thumbnails to see the full before and after images.
haha, I should mention that 98% of what I usually do in photoshop is color modification and shading. I never transform any of my portraits like I did this one. This was just one of those instances where I had to salvage a shot I would normally have deleted. In this case as I was editing a story and a characters appearance, not solely a person in a portrait where I wouldn’t ethically be able to modify this way.
J
My first attempt at sports photography….
The challenge: make division 4 soccer look exciting. It certainly helped that Carey’s team took a terrible beating. Unfortunately, I missed most of the low bows and angry expressions that came from that later in the game. Anyway, here are some shots of my brother and his soccer team getting destroyed as best as I could capture on my first try. I think I’m going to give this a little more practice in the future as I felt I missed a lot of moments. I really should have been concentrating on the players eyes rather than the ball, lesson learned.
Jesse
After a long hiatus the blog returns – last thing first, Ashley Turlock Miss Planet Beach Video
It’s finally September and Photo season should be slowing down. Well, not as much as expected, there’s still a lot of editing to do, and Carey keeps getting steady bookings so, lets say maybe November. In the mean time between shoots I’ll find a way to put up a little progress every 8 to 10 days.
So starting in reverse chronological order here’s the latest video Carey and I put together. We spent a couple hours last Tuesday doing a photo shoot for Ashley Turlock, a local fitness model and winner of the Miss Planet Beach Edmonton competition. While on location we recorded a promo video for entry in this years International Miss Planet Beach competition, take a look.
For the video/photo/gear nerds – This was almost solely shot with a still camera, the Nikon 90 DSLR and also a bit with the aging Panasonic HVX HD cam with a little audio gear.
Special Thanks to DJ Nitro from the music, you can check out more of his stuff at www.djnitro.net
Until next week,
J
Beard Pelly Wedding
Notice the shortage of awful Micheal Bay shots in this one. No absurd pans and twists, must mean I’m developing taste… sweet. Anyway, Carey and had a lot of fun cutting this together, we’re both improving as editors and it’s showing.
Anyway, gotta love hotal Mac weddings, I’ve only done two there but they’ve been two of the best ones. The deco, the venue the couple, the food, the wedding party… everything was really good. Oh yeah the DJ was pretty good too, there wasn’t too much modern pop coming out of the speakers, I really wanted to stay at the end enjoy the dance. I’ll stop now, lets just it was fun. Enjoy the video. 
It’s photo season. Busy :) Fusion video of the Beestons
It’s been 3 family sessions, a corporate, a wedding, a couple and a pregnancy shoot since my last entry… I never fail to find excuses for not keeping up with my blog. Here’s the latest video of the Beeston family shot about a week ago. This time, I avoided any auto settings and tried to focus on getting a shallow depth of field (no pun intended). Anyway, half the time it really worked, the other half the Beestons would be blurry… uh oh. No worries, the footage has been getting better with every shoot. Every editing session is scheduled for 3 hours and ends up doubling that, so Carey and I are really beginning learn what works and what doesn’t.We finally went for an old film look with this one. This is a pretty good Wonder Years rip off so I hope you like it.
Jesse
Salima and Ali E-Session
It’s been a few weeks since the last post, I’ve been pretty busy with Carey’s shoots and haven’t had much time to get these videos out as fresh as they should be. I got pretty video focused on this one and I don’t think I took more than two stills… I’ve really got to work on that. Anyway, I did do nearly all the video and a large chunk of the video editing here. Things are coming alone.. I even remembered to clean the lens this time.
Keep checking back, I think I’m finally going to write up my about me page… I was thinking of telling my story of how I ended up with these kinds of art forms… there were a few events that kind of led up to becoming a photographer and now seemingly a videographer. Anyway, more on that later. Comment on the clip. Any feedback would be appreciated… I’m still learning gang, anything would help.
Jesse
The Beauty Parlor
Carey, a photo friend Peter Carroll and I had a fun photo shoot at a new Whyte Avenue salon The Beauty Parlor on Monday. The place is sitting right on top of a Vespa shop(Top Gear Scooters) and a coffee bar(Luzzara Coffee Bar) so it was already kewl before we walked in.
It at first felt like casual gig since I know the owner/operator Desiree Liley, I was employed as a bartender owned by her husband at the bar down the street for about a year and a half (Wunderbar). For some reason this actually made me awkward because I’m used to being in bar more around Dez… this where I subcontiously act goofy, speak with a drowel and refer to dollars as bones (I actually did when she was signing the check, cripes). So I lost some professionalism points being sober but acting half cut like I’m used to. With becoming a photographer is a lot more to learn than style, composition, camera technical, lighting design… I fell a little short on the business end. With all that being said the pictures still rocked and my awesomeness did help carry us through har har. My insecurites from last Monday really got me thinking on where I need to improve the most and I watched Carey cruise through the portriats with style, skill and just plain confidence, his experience made things flow really smoothy and give us great results. Anyway, I think I’m rambling, the point is I’ve grown to a self sufficient position for most aspects aside from portriates and professionalism.
There are some wide shots and portraits up on Carey’s blog you should check out.
Links
- The Beauty Parlor
- Carey Nash’s Blog
- Peter Carroll’s Blog
- Top Gear Scooters
- Luzzara Coffee Bar – search them on Facebook (or ‘the book’ as the kids are calling it)
- Wunderbar
Jesse spends friday night learning photoshop tricks.
I’ve been particularly obsessed improving my skills so it looks like I slipped into the early hours of saturday working on photos… yikes. Anyway, I barely every attempt retouching photo’s…. well cleaning up skin that is… I do funky things with color but never have I put more than a few minutes into smoothing skin. As an exercise I tried to salvage three images from 3 poorly taken photographs of mine. Let me know what you think. Right now I feel it would have been more fun to go out tonight. I’m liking the high key images right now…which actually kind of hides the level work put into these…
Teri and Robin Pregnancy shoot
Went out for another shoot with Carey yesterday and had a lot of fun. Like last time I focused on video and I’m begining to improve both my composition and editing skills. Carey and I finally have developed our flow a bit with editing and were able to cut this together pretty quick without compromise. It’s always great working with Carey, we started shooting in a few tight areas and with some creative use of light we grabbed some cool stills. Anyhoo, I was learnt a lot again about light and style yesterday, it’s coming along.
Spring time snow
So, that was a nice spring and summer, I would have hoped it could have lasted longer but I’ll take what I can get. Maybe I’ll just live somewhere warm next year. Anyway, with my brother Carey as a resource, I’ve been dabbling more with off camera flash and light modification, it’s crazy what you can do with lights outside on a bright day.
This video below is from a few days ago, Carey brought me out to primarily assist and work with the video camera.
Here are just a few random shots from the last month, there are a few acompanying videos but I’ll post those tomorrow. Anyway, feel free to tell me how awesome I am.
Siobhan Spring 2008
This was my fist actual photoshoot. At the time I was only mildy interested in photography but was also terrible when trying to meet girls, I borrowed a D200 with a good 55mm prime lense and tried to take some pictures… and talk to a girl. I managed to do both with moderate success. Well, I’m still single but I am a photographer now… not too shabby.
Random first shots, roll, snap snaps or whatever you might call them
Only about a little over a year ago (march 2008) I started playing with a real DSLR camera and before that I was just wondering around aimlessly after a few drinks with an Old casio point-and-shoot. Anyway, this is the old stuff.
Ecko Goffic
I’m only now learing to shoot with stuido lights… I’m begining to get the hang of it. It seems like they could be extremely useful.
