I spend a huge amount of time online looking at different sites, some technical, a few forums, a bunch of blogs, National Geographic and whatever else. The one that catches my eye every time is the following: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

As the name implies, the show pictures, and BIG! They almost fill my 24″ display! As a photojournalist,  It’s always nice to see images from the top shooters in the world!

I don’t shoot very much football, especially at the amateur level. I was lucky enough to pull the assignment to shoot the North Shore Lions today. What a dominating team!

I also shot the return of the Monster Spectacular to Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. As it was the 4th time I shot the event, it was kind o fdifficult to find a new way to shoot it. This particualr shot was captured with a shutter speed of a quarter second, while panning with the movement of the truck and adding a slight zoom with my 70-200mm lens. Nothing groundbreaking, but at least I was able to deliver something a bit different to my client…

Great job on the Jack’s this year by the crew from Mooers, NY.

Nothing really specific about photography, available light lying on the grass and such, I just love Halloween!

Best Holiday Ever!

So Lenny has come and gone, and has left a bitter taste in my mouth…

Concert photographers are usually asked to sing away our lives, or more precisely, our livelihoods. We are presented with these contracts which stipulate the the artist you have shot doesn`t want their image to appear. Fair enough. I can live with that. But Kravitz`s management went a bit too far:

“Photographer warrants and represents that Artist owns all right, title and interest in and to the Photographs including, without limitation, ALL COPYRIGHTS, renewals and extensions thereof. Photographer hereby grants to Artist the irrevocable right in perpetuity to use the Photographs in any and all manner and media, now or hereinafter known, WITHOUT PAYMENT OR OTHER COMPENSATION TO PHOTOGRAPHER. Photographer agrees to promptly provide Artist, at no charge, with duplicated negatives, transparencies and/or digital files of the Photographs as requested by Artist.“

And people wonder why so many photographers can`t make a living…

Could you ask for a better place to get married? Kristy Chabot became Kristy Waugh and she wed her beau, Anthony. Congrats to the two of you!

Simba watches mommy and daddy walk down the aisle.

Kristy and Anthony are finally married!

Kristy at the reception.

Every wedding should end with a bonfire!

Emerald Lake, BC.

Outside of Banff, Alberta.

When Kristy and Anthony asked me to shoot theri wedding, I jumped at the opportunity. Kristy and I go way back, I think we met when I was 16 or 17 at a punk rock show. We were both fixtures in the local scene, so before long we were good friends. Kristy never sat too still, she has travelled all over the place. It was on one of these trips, this time to Scotland, she met Aussie Anthony. Tehy hit it off immediately!

Kristy hapens to be best friends with my fiancee Sarah, though we never met until years later, and not through Kristy. It was a fun coincedence though.

Kristy asked Sarah to be her Maid of Honour, so Sarah and I knew we would both be involved in the ceremony.

Here’s the catch. She and Anthony live in Canmore, Alberta, a small town next to Banff. Sarah and I booked our flights, and hit the airport!

Hmm…an outdoors wedding in the Rockies…every photographer’s dream!

I wont go into details, but what a night! It was bar none the best wedding I have ever attended. The location was stunning, and the crowd was great.

Congrats again to the newlyweds!

In concert photography, one of my favorite techniques is to backlight my subject… especially when they are wearing a hat!

Photographing Beck tonight at the Theatre St. Denis, the first thing I noticed were the big spotlights on stage, part of the props used in the visual show. Knowing full well that they woudl be used, all I had to do was place Beck between myself and one of the lights.

The resulting rim light adds a nice separation between Beck abd the background, and also lends a bit more contrast.

…Now if only his eyes were open…

A swimmer cuts through the water at the Olympic Basin at Ile-Ste-Helene, Montreal during a Triathlon.

A cyclist whips around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as part of Montreal’s Triathlon.

Cyclists bomb through a corner on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve during Montreal’s Triathlon.

Rain-soaked runners compete in the Montreal Half-Marathon which had  arecord setting start on the Jacques Cartier bridge.

Variety is the spice of life, is it not? The top 3 images were all shot at the same event. It is my job to shoot it in such a way to show a varitey of competitors, disciplines and angles. You have to put yourself in position to cover the event in a way that is fresh and original.

The top shot would not have been possible without having access to a boat. I was able to get an angle that shows the effort and determination in the swimmers eyes.

The following 2 would not have been possible had I not brought my bike with me. Seriously. I biked a good portion of the track with my gear in my Think Tank Skin set, and a camera body around my shoulder. An event liek this is simply too big to try to cover on foot, and bringing a car onto the track would have been just plain silly.

Having my bike with me let me look for interesting shots, find backgrounds that were not distracting and wait for the shot.

The final shot, again, requires a bit of thought. I know that there will be a ton of runners in the marathon, and I know I have access to a cherry-picker. The key is to move the bucket into a position that shows the depth of the runners, while allowing yourself to see the top of the bridge.

It is not for the faint of heart though…the bucket was extended pretty far from the truck so it was swaying quite a bit. Combine that with a start on a suspension bridge, which meant that as the runners were running, the bridge was basically hopping up and down. If that wasn’t enough, throw in some driving rain and tons of wind…good times!

One question remains…are there any Blue Men Groupies?