My Camera Gear Path, Part 1.

Today I’ll be talking about my camera gear path. I’ve had a few questions as to which cameras I recommend, what I started with, what I’m using, etc., so I figured this would answer a few of those questions. Kind of a technical blog post but it may help. By the way my truly first camera was an old Canon Powershot. I loved it. Then I went to Mexico, tripped on a rock, broke my toe nail, and smashed the camera. R.I.P. Eventually, I went ahead and bought my first DSLR.

1. Nikon D40 + 18-55 kit lens. I bought this new for about 500$. It was the least expensive DSLR model from Nikon at that time and I was super happy with it. (Any new Nikon DSLR you buy now will be superior to this one). The lens covered a nice range. I used it for general photography, taking pictures of friends and family. One thing that I thought was limiting for me after a few months was the low-light performance. I had to crank up the ISO a bit too high to my liking in order to get a fast enough shutter speed, and the camera didn't handle noise too well.

Guilin, China. Shot with the Nikon D40 + Nikon 18-55mm kit lens.

Lucia on a roof. Nikon D40 + Nikon 18-55mm kit lens.

2. Enter the Sigma 30mm f1.4. My favorite lens still to this day. Focus is super fast and quiet, and it’s a focal length that I really like. I love prime lenses and their wide aperture. One caveat for this one, and I don’t know if it was only my copy or not, is that the lens gets pretty soft at wider apertures. Despite this, it’s still a great lens.

Marc, streetlights. Nikon D40 + Sigma 30mm f1.4.

Asma flipping hair. Nikon D40 + Sigma 30mm f1.4.

3. Then I got a Nikon 55-200mm 4.0-5.6 VR to expand my focal length range. If you just have a kit lens and are thinking of buying a 55-200mm to expand, make sure you really do need it. Try testing the lens out at a camera store or borrowing from someone. I didn’t find too many uses for mine when I first got it and mostly bought it to be able to cover a wide focal range, but this was kind of an impulsive purchase.

Bumblebee. Nikon D40 + Nikon 55-200 f4.0-5.6.

Mélissa is disappointed from my impulsive lens purchase. Nikon D40 + Nikon 55-200mm f4.0-5.6.

A year later, I was working (not weddings) and had a few clients from time to time so I felt the need to upgrade. I decided to upgrade my camera body for 3 main reasons. 1) Nikon D40 was not fully compatible with old AF-D lenses that I wanted. 2) I started getting into flash photography, and wanted to be able to have the commander CLS mode. 3) I wanted better noise control in higher ISOs.

So I decided to sell everything.

Part 2 here.

P.S. Make sure you have good reasons to upgrade your camera body. Don’t just buy a new one thinking it will get you better images. Also, note that megapixels were not a reason in the upgrade at all. And in 99% of the cases, it shouldn’t be. Unless you’re printing huge pictures, megapixels won’t matter.

Terry Fox Run

Recently, I had the chance to go help out my friend Michele, who organized the Kirkland Terry Fox Run along with her friends Elena, Katie and Paloma. With a budget of 0 dollars, they managed to raise over 8000$ for cancer research. Awesome. It was great seeing a whole community come together for a good cause, and there were many volunteers including The Comedy, VillaView Cinema and folks from The Beat 92.5.

I was sick like a dog but still ended having a good time. :)

Thanks again Michele, Elena, Katie and Paloma for organizing this cool event!

The Dalai Lama in Montreal

When I was a kid, my dad used to be the person in charge of organizing all the Montreal Tours for Tibetan Monks visiting Canada. About 2-3 times every year, I’d have a group of about 12 monks sleeping in my basement. 

Then about 10 years ago, they converted an old Tiki Sun restaurant on Chemin Chambly in Longueuil to become the Manjushri Temple. My parents/uncles/aunts/cousins and I all helped in the whole renovation of the restaurant into the temple. So we know the monks who stay there very well and visit them several times a year. Now, the Dalai Lama was about to tour in Montreal to give a few talks, and was asked by the monk from Manjushri to come visit. It wasn’t a big conference or anything, but it was still packed with people, press and security. I was asked by our local monk to come take photographs on behalf of the temple, since the only other photographers allowed were press photographers. So I got my fancy credential badge thingy. Turns out I still had a hard time with security letting me stay, and I didn’t know until the car arrived where I’d be standing to take pictures.

That’s my grandma, waiting outside with flowers.

So anyway the Dalai Lama arrived and the press photographers unleashed their inner aggressive paparazzi bulldogs and were all over the place, pushing people, standing in the way and being disrespectful and super intrusive. I ended up getting this single shot as he walked in the temple.

Funnily enough, this isn't the first time I see him. When I was a little kid my cousins and I were part of the welcoming ceremony when he came to give a talk. I had a basket and would throw flower petals on the carpet in front of where he walked.

Post-Wedding fun in Québec

So initially, my plan for Mélanie & Nic’s wedding was to go photograph the wedding in Quebec and drive back to Montreal the same night. With most weddings finishing at about 1AM, that probably would’ve resulted in me falling asleep in the drive back and then dying. Fortunately, we changed plans and decided to do a roadtrip at the same time. So my girlfriend Claudia and our friend Carina stayed in QC for the weekend doing some touristy things like getting lost and pointing at things. We ended up staying in a bunk bed dorm room at the Auberge de la Paix, which had the weird showers where you have to press the button every 10 seconds to get some water.

It was a fun weekend, despite the pouring rain. And fortunately the hostel was next door to a pub. That’s where I got my post-wedding victory beer.

I always drink a post-wedding victory beer. That’s my secret.

On est allé au Marché du Vieux-Port. Miam. On est allé à la Fudgerie. Miam. On a eu une poutine à 2AM. Miam.  

Mariage au Lac Delage

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. Wouldn't the pictures kinda look cool? What if there's lightning during the first kiss. That's kinda cool. 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.

Back with Vadim

I got to work with Vadim again a few weeks ago at this big wedding at the Basilique Notre-Dame in the Montreal Old Port. It felt like a celebrity wedding or something since you had random people in the streets lining up 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 trying REALLY 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?

Orange, Outdoor Wedding in Jean-Drapeau Park, Montreal

I recently photographed a wedding where everything was orange, from the boutonnières, corsages and bouquet to the groomsmen’s ties and even decorations on tables (which included goldfish, see below).

The wedding was in the Jean-Drapeau Park in Montreal and the reception in the Pavillon du Canada. Outdoors wedding photography often means that I have to do the best with the light that’s given to me. And on a bright sunny July cloudless day, it meant having to deal with harsh direct overhead sunlight. Uh oh. This is probably the worst case scenario for a photographer. Because it means dappled light through the leaves of trees creating patches of bright light and high contrast, and “raccoon eyes” which is what happens when the sun from above creates dark shadows around the eyes. Long have I feared this creature called harsh sunlight, but I no longer do. Maybe a little.

There’s a way to work with hard light: make sure that #1) your subject is backlit and that #2) your background is darker and is not receiving direct light. If you manage to achieve #1), the lighting on your subject’s face will remain even and soft since they aren’t getting direct sunlight. If you achieve #2), the backlight will create a nice rimlight around them that will make them glow against the dark background. You can see what I’m talking about in this picture:

Now, about the wedding itself. There was a funny game the bride and groom played, to determine who would the boss of the relationship for the next 25 years. As soon as the DJ cued the music, Juliane had to go around the room and kiss all men, and the Ghyslain had to do the same with all women in the room, and the first one back sitting down would win. But as a guest if you were a woman on Juliane’s side, you were able to run away as Ghyslain arrived to kiss you to delay him. After a few minutes of people running around in the room Juliane won. Something new in every wedding! It’s also the first time where the cake was an ice cream cake. I’m hungry now.

Guess what people are doing here:

Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

Graduation Portraits for Amelie

Earlier in spring, during the McGill convocation ceremony bonanza, Amelie asked me to come photograph her and her family during her graduation. As soon as the ceremony finished, hundreds of students burst out of the tent. It was kinda like Berri-UQAM metro station during rush hour. I had to look for her in the midst of black gowns. Took me 10 minutes to finally find her. We went to shoot around McGill University campus, (including in parts of McGill Arts building where probably no science student has ever ventured).

Quick photo info: natural light for outdoors, bounce on-camera flash indoors.  Tokina 12-24mm f/4.0 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8.

Artist Portrait: Bryan Holt

Bryan Holt is a cellist who contacted me a few weeks ago to get some artist promo shots. The photoshoot was simple enough, it just involved us walking around downtown Montreal and on McGill campus, and me asking him to play at different locations. Since I went to McGill, I knew some good locations around the area. I am constantly looking for shoot locations when I'm outside, I even have a little list on my phone of all potential shoot locations.

The shot below was taken in a little recessed corner on a quite busy street that I often passed by. You might miss it, or even think it's ugly as you quickly walk past it, but isolated from the surrounding clutter, it makes a nice clean background. For artist promo shots I always take a mix of wide environmental portraits and close-ups, detail shots, etc. In the wide shots I tend to leave a lot of negative space, since those images are sometimes used with text as posters.

We walked around, and upon encountering a nice location, we'd start setting up. He had his chair and cello. I had my lightstand and softbox. The pictures were taken in the middle of the day, so I added an additional light to darken the whole scene. A bit counter intuitive right? Essentially I adjust my camera settings to produce a dark image, then I add in my own light. I have more control over the direction of it, so it can create an isolated dramatic portrait like the one above.

I love the colours, detail in the cello scroll and the out of focus background in this next one.  The background was achieved by using a large aperture and more importantly, choosing an angle where the background distance to Bryan was much larger than the distance between me and him.

We then randomly figured out somehow that he is my neighbor. I'm secretly hoping to get some free shows sometimes.

If you're a musician, artist or band interested in having some promotional material made, or needing a few headshots / portraits (with or without instrument), write to me! I'd love to hear from you and start brainstorming with you.