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2 Big Announcements

Published at: 12:01 pm - Wednesday January 11 2012

Happy hump-day everyone. Let’s get right to the 2 big announcements from the past week.

The first happened last Thursday evening at about 9pm. That is when I received a text about the announcement of the Nikon D4.  Loren nudged me to ask Joe what he thought of shooting with the D4.  I found this really interesting since I had just unpacked the whole lot of Joe’s gear with Drew that day and he didn’t let on about anything… as well he should have.  I understand that Joe and Drew were under the threat of water-boarding if they leaked any of the information about their secret shoots with the D4 to the public. Read Joe’s post about shooting with the D4 here.  It was great to pull the camera out of the bag and touch it. It was incognito, still stamped with the D3 logo, but it had a few more mysterious buttons on it.  I was not the only one able to fondle the new camera.  I’d like to thank the Nikon reps that came all the way from Toronto to give us all a chance to see and touch the D4 as well as plenty of other gear.

Secondly, yesterday Adobe released the Beta of Lightroom 4. This comes coincidentally on the 6th anniversary of the public release of Lightroom version 1. I’m not sure if anyone else out there was downloading and messing with the beta yesterday while watching the live unveil with Matt Kloskowski and Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty, but it was pretty informative and got me totally excited about this next generation of Lightroom.
I took a little time yesterday to play with a few of the new sliders found in the basic development module as well as playing with a few of the brand new modules… Book & Map. I imported all my Iphone photos and geeked out seeing all the places I’d shot photos. Here is a screen shot of my Vancouver Iphone map.

Lightroom 4 - Iphone map

The book module is amazing. It was totally needed. Lightroom 3 was almost there, with a few work arounds and exporting to PDFs and now is was more user friendly with the Blurb publishing plugin, but its got nothing on the book module in Lightroom 4.  Blurb and Adobe teamed up on this one and it shows.  I’m excited to sit down and make a few more books this year without having to leave the Lightroom environment.
I really can’t say enough about the Beta. Go download it, check it out, and what some of the videos about the new features from Scott Kelby and PhotoshopUser.com.

Now on to VPW news. We are in the middle the two workshops with Joe McNally and I’m looking forward to another busy weekend.  Joe will be wrapping up his workshop at Iron Works Studio on Sunday while we host a HUGE day of seminars here at the VPW studios. If you haven’t already signed up, do it now… all the seats my be filled. The demand for the day has been huge.  We are glad to see so many people interested in getting to know what VPW has to offer.

Next week marks the start of all of our workshops at VPW for 2012. Intro, Intermediate, Lightroom, On & Off camer flash, The business of photography and a few Nude workshops fill up the calendar for January. Is not too late to sign up!

This month VPW is also featuring Master Photographer Lectures & Seminars with:

Eddie Soloway acclaimed photographer from Santa Fe,  Jan 20th-22nd

Freeman Patterson award winning Canadian photographer, Jan 19th-25th

Please check out the information for both of those workshops, and keep on top of all our new class on our website:
www.vancouverphotoworkshops.com/courselisting.php

Thanks for reading, now I’m off to get ready for a shoot this evening.
Happy photographing everyone.

 

John Li, David Cooper, Dan Kozma, Roger Luo, Anastassia Wojtek, Tammy Maltese, Vancouver Photo Workshops liked this post
Posted in: Courses and Workshops by syx No Comments , , ,

Happy New Year!

Published at: 11:01 pm - Thursday January 05 2012

Not only are we hosting 2 workshops & a 1 day seminar with Joe and Drew Gurian this month, we will be busy with the  5 Freeman Patterson workshops.
We’ve also announced a few new workshops for 2012 and to start the year off right VPW is hosting a 1 day 27 seminar event on Jan 15th to introduce all of our instructors and classes.

Let’s just say we’re hitting the ground running around here at VPW.
2012 is going to be an exciting year and I’m looking forward to keeping you all in the loop as well as sharing a few tips and tricks along the way.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Oh yeh, I figured I needed a photo in the blog, so here it is…
This is the table that Drew laid out today. Mmmmmm.

What Joe McNally eats for breakfast, served up by Drew Gurian.

What Joe McNally eats for breakfast, served up by Drew Gurian.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!

 

 

Anastassia Wojtek, Wayne Wiens, Aura McKay, Donna Milburn, Claire KuRara, Nadya Nadinka, Cameron Hunter, Carrie-Jane Williams, Tammy Maltese, Jocelyn Louise, Vancouver Photo Workshops liked this post
Posted in: In the Spotlight by syx 1 Comment ,

In the SpotLight: New Fine-Art Photography Online Course at VPW!

Published at: 05:12 am - Saturday December 24 2011

Hello everyone,

VPW has just announced its first ever online Course.

For the first time ever, VPW Director and award-winning fine-art photographer Marc Koegel will be offering his popular Fine-Art Long Exposure Course in an online format.

The course will be 10 weeks in length, with 5 assignments given. You will receive personalized critique and feedback on your images, along with learning resources both in written and/or audio and video format.

Direct link is here:

http://www.vancouverphotoworkshops.com/workshops/Long_Exposure_10week_Online_Course.php

Marc Koegel has been teaching fine-art long exposure workshops and courses since late 2006. He has welcomed students from as far away from Vancouver as Norway and New Zealand. With technology opening up new avenues for communication and teaching, it is time to dive into his first online course.

Marc is really excited to start this course on January 30th, 2012.

To see samples of Marc’s work, be sure to visit his new Blog, www.bulbexposures.com

 

Posted in: Courses and Workshops, In the Spotlight by Marc No Comments

Tech Talk – Dancer Triptych by Wayne Hoecherl

Published at: 11:10 am - Tuesday October 18 2011

This is the first in what I hope to be many contributions by our resident master of lighting, Wayne Hoecherl. Wayne recently hosted “Shooting Fashion & Editorial Lighting”.

Wayne is always looking at new ways to play with lighting and these workshops are highly recommended for those of you that are interested in how to shape light. This is one of the final images produced during this weekend workshop.

Model: Chantelle | Makeup & Hair: Robyn Ross

Dance | Photography & Lighting: Wayne Hoecherl | Model: Chantelle | Makeup & Hair: Robyn Ross

The “behind the scenes” photos reveal just how this image was produced.

This is a photograph of the setup of Studio A - PhotoHaus Studios

This is a photograph of a Dancer - Behind the Scenes on a shoot with Wayne Hoecherl

This is a photograph of a Dancer - Behind the Scenes on a shoot with Wayne Hoecherl

The main light was created by diffusing the light from a large soft box on Dyna Light 2000 watt pack. The rigging and pulley system in Studio A of PhotoHaus Studios makes all of this really easy. Just set up the diffusion panel then pop a large softbox behind it. Instantly you have a 20′x20′ of the softest light!

For the final image Wayne used a Canon T3i, Lens, Exposure.

The mock-up of the final image was done quickly by Wayne in Photoshop CS5. Shooting these images on a black background makes post quite a bit easier. There is no reason to worry about subtle shifts in the background light, because its all black. So in Photoshop by using a large canvas size and dragging the 3 images into 3 layers, these layers can be easily blended. How exactly one would blend these layers together may be specific to the user. There are many ways to blend these layers, from crude paint brushes of black and the eraser tool, to using the ‘blending modes’ of the layers, to the ‘blend if’ option in the layers pallet. All of these would get you to a similar end result, some would be quicker than others, and some would produce a more high-end result. I’ve found that the more I play with Photoshop, and ask questions of other Photoshop users, that more and more ways emerge. My job is to figure out which of these options best fits my work and my workflow.

Sharon Steele, Anny Chih, Roger Ting liked this post
Posted in: Tech Talk by syx 2 Comments , , , , ,

Tech Talk – Fire Balls

Published at: 06:09 pm - Wednesday September 28 2011

Well hello everyone! It’s been a little too long since I’ve posted.
Please excuse my absence, I was moving the family to a new home in East Van and ‘real life’ took over, but it’s nice to be back.

I wanted to take a minute and post a few samples from my intermediate night photography field trip class.  This is one of the best times of year to be taking our outdoor evening classes. The sun sets around 7:15 & the weather is not too unbearable. The photographic possibilities are endless.

I personally like teaching the low light and night photography classes. I am always inspired by the images I see online to try new things and in turn, show my students. This round was all about lighting steel wool on fire! We picked the Olympic Village as our meeting place and I scoped out a safe area in order to try a new technique with the class.

All you will need to make these photos are:

  1. a kitchen whisk
  2. steel wool
  3. string


You should also be smart and look for a safe area, and dress appropriately. This means non flammable surroundings, like a blacktop or sandy beach, damp or wet areas are good, and clothes that protect you from the sparks.  If you are doing this with a group of people, or in this case, in public, please make sure people are at a safe distance. TEST this!

What you will do is ‘puff’ the wool up and stuff it into the cage of the whisk. Tie a string to the end of the whisk so that you have enough length to spin it around safely without hitting the ground.  Use a lighter or rub a 9 volt battery on the wool and then, as it smolders, begin spinning.  The wool will begin to glow brighter and brighter with the added oxygen.  The result is something like this…

(following images by Stijn Daenens, VPW Student)
image by Stijn Daenens, VPW Student

image by Stijn Daenens, VPW Student

(following pictures are taken by Mark Teasdale, VPW Student)
image by Mark Teasdale, VPW Student

image by Mark Teasdale, VPW Student

image by Mark Teasdale, VPW Student

This was a whole lot of fun, and a great easy technique.  Oh yeh, I’m sure at this point you are all asking, “what are the camera settings?”
Well, the starting point for my group of 15 was, ISO 200 f8 for a 30 second exposure, cameras set to Manual mode.  It was that simple to get a start, and any fine tuning in exposure is up to you.  Some of the class did experience a little over exposure, but shooting in RAW mode should bring back some detail.

We also ran through some fun and simple flash techniques, playing with a little pop and zoom.
Here is a photo that I grabbed really quick of Stijn.
(Thx for the use of your camera Stijn)
photo of Stijn by Syx Langemann, VPW instructor.

I can’t finish the blog off with a slightly out of focus snap that I took . The students all spent some time on their own trying out these low light techniques.  Here is a nice photo of the new bridge down at Olympic Village by my above victim, Stijn.

image by Stijn Daenens, VPW Student

 

Aura McKay, Photographer & Instructor, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Vancouver Photo Workshops liked this post
Posted in: Tech Talk by syx 5 Comments , , , , ,

In The Spotlight: Guy Gowan Canadian Tour!

Published at: 10:08 pm - Tuesday August 30 2011

Looking to get ahead in Digital Workflow/ RAW Processing/ Creative Retouching/ and Apple Aperture?

We may just have the answer for you!

Guy Gowan is coming to Vancouver Photo Workshops to teach seminars

This September 12th and 13th, Vancouver Photo Workshops proudly welcomes Guy Gowan, who will be leading 4 Seminars in our studio on 14 West 7th Avenue.

Guy Gowan is one of the creative industry’s leading solutions experts. Guy works at the cutting edge of the digital revolution fusing his experience of the Lithography, Print, Graphic Design and Photography industries. His 25 year career has given him a unique ability to see through marketing spin and evaluate the core essence of new technology to find its best application in real world work environments.

Guy Gowen will be teaching the following:

Pre Processing (half day)
Digital cameras today are technically amazing but there are limitations. Instead of trying to ‘Retouch’ these characteristics out of images on a ‘one by one’ basis why not process them out with an action and droplet combination.
The processes included are: Range, Moire, Shadow Cast and Noise.As all images are ultimately just a bunch of pixels some things such as camera artifacts can be corrected on mass.In this seminar you will learn how to perform each of the steps individually and then put them together to create automation by creating and ‘Action’ and then a ‘Droplet’. This pre process when combined with Guy’s Process Action has am amazing impact on your final images.

Process Workflow (full day)
Guy demonstrates his technique which enables you to adjust and edit images including raw files with speed and accuracy. This workflow is used by thousands of photographers worldwide and embraces the discipline of ‘Processing’ first then ‘Retouching’ which vastly increases images quality and consistency. Guy examines Levels, Range, Contrast, Colour and Sharpening and demonstrate his Post Production Action which will save you minutes, hours and days from the mindless repetition of the conventional post production manipulation process.

Creative Retouching (full day)
In this seminar, Guy will deliver an understanding of how you can radically improve everything you do with Photoshop. Most importantly, he will teach you some of the golden rules of Retouching giving you the building blocks to retouch in a intuitive, creative way.You will learn how to create your own retouch tools, see Guy’s amazing Digital Reflector and learn Guy’s methods for Dodge and Burn. Guy then moves
on to common issues in Beauty Retouching and closes the day with his stunning Colour to Mono technique.

Apple Aperture (half day)
Guy has used Apple Aperture since its release in 2005 yet to most photographers Aperture is an application not to be taken seriously. Aperture is different and it is this difference which is its strength. In this seminar Guy starts from the ground up and guides you through the many options, library set-up and management choices. Guy also explores editing and publishing showing the incredible power of Aperture as a RAW file editor then He combines Apple Aperture and Adobe Photoshop to offer you the ultimate solution.

Prices- full day $170 and half day $85. Discounts are available for CAPIC PPO Members.

Visit www.guygowan.com/ca for further details and to sign up for for any or all of these Seminars, or email anne@ guygowan.com.

Please note: Registration and payment is being processed by Guy Gowan directly, and not through Vancouver Photo Workshops.

Visit www.guygowan.com/ca to sign up and pay for your Seminar of choice (or take the all – it’s worth it)

 

Posted in: In the Spotlight by Marc No Comments , ,

Photo of The Week – Advertising Composite by Rick Schiller!

Published at: 03:08 pm - Sunday August 28 2011

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the sunshine in Vancouver today!

Wayne Hoecherl recently taught a new weekend workshop entitled ‘The Assignment Workshop’ at VPW.

The idea behind this workshop was for the participants to work on specific assignments that mimic actual commercial jobs or ‘assignments’ professional photographers would get from their clients.

Participants were split into groups to work on various assignments, all while Wayne helped set the lighting, gave feedback on the creative process, and critiqued the final images.

The image(s) below were shot by Rick Schiller. It is a composite of 2 separate exposures merged into the final image. Finally, the advertising text was added in Adobe Photoshop.

The model for these images is actually a photographer herself as well. Check out her website here!

Wine Ad by Rick Fischer, created in Vancouver Photo Workshops 'The Assignment Workshop' taight by Wayne Hoecherl

The first image was a ‘product shot’ of the wine bottle, with lighting specifically optimized for the bottle. The second shot was of the model holding the bottle, and again the lighting was optimized for the model.

Rick has 2 more images posted on his blog that also have been created in Wayne’s workshop.

Here they are:

Like what you see? If so, Wayne has the following courses and workshops coming up in September. Check them out:

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to post your feedback and/or questions in the comment section below.

Posted in: Photo of the Week, Uncategorized by Marc 1 Comment , , ,

In the Spotlight – August 20th

Published at: 10:08 am - Saturday August 20 2011

Vancouver Photo Workshops - In The Spotlight

Hello everyone and welcome to another week of ‘In the Spotlight’. This week we introduce a few new class offerings from VPW, great upcoming event, and something FREE… Let’s start with FREE.

In an effort to educate as well as entertain, Myself and Morten are hosting a free seminar, “Your photographs suck and your blog is boring” - Photo Blogging 101. This is a fun fact filled 2hr seminar integrating photography with internet geekery. This seminar is designed for anyone interested in starting your own blog, or if you have one and are looking to improve upon it.  This presentation was very well received at this year’s Northern Voice Conference, filling the seats, people sitting on the floors and standing in the aisle. We are hoping to continue with this trend so sign up early for this event.
Tickets available only on Meetup.com & Eventbrite.com.

… and now, NEW OFFERINGS!!

First new offering, Morten has also developed a new series of classes for VPW. The series begins this September with part 1 of “Building an Online Portfolio with WordPress“. The first 5 registrants get in for $295!  This will be a defining series on WordPress offered here in Vancouver. Trust me, Morten is a genius when it comes to WordPress and it’s capabilities, he’s helped me on numerous occasions with really confusing issues. More info…

The second new offering was hinted at last week. So this week, I am very pleased to announce The Photo Scavenger Hunt series. That’s right, 10 themes/assignments created for you to flex you photographic brain. These classes are a totally new format for VPW. The Scavenger Hunt series take place online. ALL of the assignments are completed on your own time, then uploaded to specific location where all discussions will be carried out in a group format. Both of these classes are being offered at an introductory price of $150. There are 2 formats to these assignment based classes.

  1. Mobilography taps into the newest technology of our smart phones and social communities in order to create and share photos. Register here.
  2. The DSLR version will be more strict and is designed to  use the capabilities of the DSLR camera. Register here.

Each of these classes has an ‘in class’ introduction and the weekly assignments are completed outside of a classroom setting, allowing you all the time you need to create an image based upon that weeks ‘theme’. Both classes will meet up for a final showing and discussion of their images. The images will be shown in a gallery setting with choice photographs printed by VPW.

Finally, if you are looking for some interesting photo opportunities this weekend, check this out > the ZOMBIE WALK is today!!! Gather at the VAG @ 4:00pm to see all the walking dead. More details.

Aura McKay, Photographer & Instructor, Vancouver Photo Workshops liked this post
Posted in: In the Spotlight by syx No Comments , , , , ,

Tech Talk: Long Exposure Workshop in Calgary!

Published at: 04:08 pm - Wednesday August 17 2011

Hello everyone,

I went to Calgary last weekend to teach the first Long Exposure Workshop there. The response had been overwhelming from the day the workshop was announced, and I was looking forward to meeting everyone and do some great shooting in the locations I have been working in for the past 2 years.  For those who haven’t seen my series on Prairie Grain Elevators Series, you can find the here.

The weekend went amazing. I met some really nice folks, and loved being so close to old grain elevators and barns that all made for excellent shooting opportunities for the workshop participants. Had a chance to see a bit of downtown Calgary as well, and was impressed by what the city had to offer. I’m already looking at my calendar to see when I can return…

Calgary Long Exposure Workshop Group August 2011

The image above shows our workshop group at one of the shooting locations, including photo assistants Hajo and Richard (and I am in there as well). It was great meeting everyone. We had students travel from as far as Scottsdale, San Francisco and Winnipeg. A big thanks again to everyone! It was great meeting so many nice and enthusiastic photographers!

For today’s ‘Tech Talk’, I wanted to share how I worked on one image I took during the workshop, and how I gave it its final look.

 

Calgary Long Exposure Workshop with Marc Koegel - Camera Setup

The image above shows my ‘setup’ for taking the shot of an old barn. I used a Phase One medium format digital back. The final image was a panorama assembled from 2 images and then cropped to a ‘double square’ aspect ratio of 1:2.

Calgary Long Exposure Workshop with Marc Koegel - Final Image: 'Old Barn'

Above you can see the final image: ‘Old Barn’.

Exposure time was 512 seconds, @ F11 ISO 50.

I used a total of 16 stops of ND filtration to allow me to get such a long exposure in bright day-light. Here’s a link to one of the filters I used.

Now let’s take a look at how I arrived at the final image:

Merging multiple images to a single Panorama using Autopano Pro Software

I loaded both RAW files into Autopano Pro Software. This software generates panoramas of great quality. You can use Adobe Photoshop as well, but I generally get better results with Autopano. Give it a try sometime, they have a free demo download!

Cropping the final panorama to 'double square' aspect ratio of 1:2

Next, I am cropping the panorama that Autopano Pro generated to my desired aspect ratio of 1:2 or the ‘double square’. The resulting image has over 45 megapixel, thanks to using the Phase One Camera. I could make huge prints from such a file.

Silver Efex Pro Software converts color to Black and White

I use Silver Efex Pro 2 Software to convert to black and white. This can be done in Photoshop as well, but I get amazing results in much less time with Silver Efex. Above you can see how the ‘simple’ black and white above was transformed into a more dramatic black and white image using the tools available in Silver Efex 2 Software.

You can download a free trial and if you’re doing lots of black and white conversions I am convinced you will love this software!

Final image tweak in Adobe Photshop Softare

For my workflow I like tweaking what Silver Efex generates in Photoshop. This let’s me have ultimate control and fine-tune my images even more.

There you have it. Let me know what you think and don’t be shy to ask questions about the workflow above.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Marc

Posted in: Tech Talk by Marc 8 Comments , , ,

Photo of the Week – Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau in Italian Vogue

Published at: 11:08 am - Sunday August 14 2011

A series of photos have been in the news lately and have sparked quite a huge controversy.

I do not want to minimize any of the underlying issues surrounding these photographs.  I would however, like to draw attention to our reactions to some great fashion photos featuring a young model. Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau is the 10 year old model and daughter of 2 celebrity parents. She has been modeling for a few years, but her recent spread in Italian Vogue has drawn some negative attention.

Below are some of the photos as they appeared in Italian Vogue. I invite you all to draw your own conclusions. I personally don’t understand how a television show like “Toddlers in Tiaras” doesn’t fall under the same scrutiny as these photographs.

Here are some links to the publics reaction:

Daily Mail – UK

Lovelyish.com – blog

Fashion Telegraph – Mother speaks out

ABCnews

I think the context of the photographs are important. Fashion photos are meant to be about fashion. Context is everything!

I could also give links to things like Brooke Shields in the movie Pretty Baby or even fine art links to great photographers like Sally Mann but I’m not sure that this would help to clarify the issues. I’ve even had family photographs taken by National Geographic photographer Joe McNally censored on Facebook because someone got offended because our 18 month old was nude in the photo.  Child safety is always the root of this argument, and it’s totally valid. However, I think we have bigger fish to catch that are way more devious in their dealings than Vogue or Sally Mann.

I would like to hear your feedback, please leave your comments below.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and have a great Sunday!

Deena Martin, Michael Ward liked this post
Posted in: Photo of the Week by syx No Comments , , ,
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