Barro Colorado Island

Little side note before I start. It turns out that for the tropical ecology course I'm taking right now, I need to blog about my experiences here in Panama. Therefore as you're reading this, so are my professors. Probably drinking. And yes I'm graded on this. Our course started off with a bang. Within the first hour of the first day, we were on the Panama Canal, setting off on a water taxi ride to Barro Colorado Island, the famous biologist dream playground. Although I'd been here 2 years ago, it felt like seeing Panama for the first time. As any biologist would, I was enjoying the magnificent frigatebirds (Fregata magnificens) elegantly soaring over our heads, an experience much more enjoyable than trying to dodge the pigeons of Montreal whose life goal is to shit on you. In the distance the forest displayed fifty shades of green with its numerous trees peaking through the canopy, all competing for access to light. A sunset behind us was included in the package. And while I was appreciating the wonders of nature I also witnessed one of the biggest triumphs of human ingenuity as we went past the giant dredging goliaths expanding the canal. The lush forests surrounding it should be an important reminder of the biodiversity we may lose due to our relentless expansion and development.

300 years old and counting whoops, the tree fell recently. Nikon D700 + 20mm f/2.8, 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 1600.

3-toed sloth. Nikon D7000 + 105mm f/2.8, 1/160, f/3.5, ISO 400.

Nephila clavipes female in front, male in the back. Nikon D7000 + 105mm f/2.8, 1/125, f/3.2, ISO 640.

During the construction of the canal, the artificial Gatún Lake was formed. As the waters rose, they submerged the then-present rainforests, and the hilltop remained uncovered, becoming Barro Colorado Island. Now, managed by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, with its essential facilities (labs, dormitories, dining hall and lecture hall) and its stunning biodiversity (without even mentioning animals, the island has a diverse forest holding as many plant species as all northern temperate forests combined), the island appropriately is visited by hundreds of scientists from across the world every year.

We climbed this rusty wobbly canopy tower. Nikon D700 + 20mm f/2.8, 1/50, f/5.0, ISO 800 & 1/125, f/22, ISO 800.

As we landed on the island, I immediately tucked my pants in my socks. I know it exponentially increases how dorky I look but I remembered Dana two years ago coming out of the island with 50ish ticks on her body. She didn't recommend it. So tucked pants it is. We set out for our forest hike. Through the mosaic of twisting lianas, strangler figs suffocating their victims and palms threatening you with their menacing sharp spines, we caught glimpses of trogons, ñeques, poison-dart frogs, tinamous and anoles. Biologist heaven.

Awesome crypsis. Can you spot the praying mantis? Nikon D700 + 50mm f/1.4, 1/125, f/2.2, ISO 800.

Wasp doing waspy things. Nikon D700 + 50mm f/1.4, 1/125, f/2.2, ISO 800.

Here we were on our way to our final lecture on Barro Colorado Island. We told our professors we were bored of the lecture hall. They gave us this. Nikon D700 + 20mm f/2.8, 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 200.

Most peaceful classroom you'll ever find. For PFSSers no that is not Russell. Nikon D700 + 20mm f/2.8, 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 200.

Butterfly expert Owen McMillan giving us a lecture on evolutionary biology. Nikon D700 + 20mm f/2.8, 1/160, f/2.5, ISO 200.

I could talk more in detail about what we did and learned but both the hammock and our unlimited cases of cold beer are inviting me over on the balcony overlooking the canal.

My Visit to Panama

I just spent 3 weeks in Panama for preliminary field work for my project. I had lived in Panama for 4 months the year before, but went with my lovely dysfunctional 25-student Panamaniac family. This time I was on my own, living in an apartment called La Casa Del Ritmo with two Colombians (Luís & Juliana) and a Costa Rican (Marcela). To be honest it was weird at first. I had so many memories but no one to share them with. Thankfully I had roommates that never made me feel alone. Except on days where Juliana was working late, Marcela was scuba diving somewhere far and Luís went to bed at 7PM (this actually happened regularly). Thankfully there was also Skype and Claudia. So what did I do in Panama? I went on 4 field trips to different rivers and learned electrofishing and fishing electric fish (very different things!). I encountered 4 snakes in my lab. I visited an abandoned bunker with bats and scorpions. I co-lived with a rat. (Getting turbulence right at the moment. Woohoo!) I got about 65 mosquito bites. I ate many empanadas. I survived extreme weather conditions. And I'm not talking about the high heat and humidity of Panama, I'm talking about the air conditioning in my building. Seriously it's like working in a freezer.

Here are a few of the pictures I took during this mini-trip!

Rainy season in Panama. Not fun for driving around. Nikon D700 + 50mm 1.4, 1/500, f/3.5, ISO 1600. 

What you're supposed to see under that fast flowing river is a bridge going straight. It rained so much the water level in the river rose above the bridge. We had to wait 30 minutes until the water level went back down. To the left is a 20m drop to death. Nikon D700 + 50mm 1.4, 1/60, f/4.5, ISO 200.

My roommates and I! And my stuff all over the table. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 1600.

I met up with my friend Hilario who took the same program as me 2 years ago. Long time no see! Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/640, f/2.8, ISO 1250. Stupid camera settings, I know. But it's a D700 so no noise :D.

My lab in Panama! Where I found 4 snakes. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/100, f/2.8, ISO 400.

My two most helpful people on this trip! Sophie (M.Sc. student in my lab and Rigo our driver and the curator of our fish collection). Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/2500, f/2.8, ISO 400.  

Big smile because Sophie had just given him cookies. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/200, f/2.8, ISO 1600. 

My little field assistant. Nikon D700 + 50mm 1.4, 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800. 

Field work is always fun. Especially when you wear dorky gear. Here Fernando, Sophie and Gisela were electrofishing. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/1250, f/2.8, ISO 3200. 

Gisela and Brachyhypopomus occidentalis, the electric fish species I study. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/160, f/3.2, ISO 1600.

Luís and Diana. I may have more pictures of them coming up soon hint hint. Nikon D700 + 50mm 1.4, 1/320, f/3.5, ISO 320.

Taken during my field trip to Río Piriatí. Super pretty site. Nikon D700 + 20mm 2.8, 1/200, f/3.5, ISO 320. 

Brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus). Nikon D700 + 50mm 1.4, 1/500, f/2.2, ISO 1250.  

The text above I wrote in the plane. I'm back in Montreal now. Happy to be back and excited to go back in January. If you're interested in what I do for research, check out this little summary in an article that just came out on my work! Page 4 of STRI news.

Thanks for tuning in!

Portraits of Claudia in a 1x2m studio

I’m leaving in two weeks to start preliminary fieldwork in Panama and am super excited. It’s getting cold here in Montreal anyway. Today I have a mini photoshoot with my girlfriend Claudia to show you!

Claudia is a cute little romanian girl that likes flowers and is obsessed with cats. I also share that obsession slightly. We regularly talk to our neighbour’s cats. We even give them names. There’s Brown Cat, Gray Cat, Dirty Cat, Curious Cat and more. We’re very creative with names. Brown Cat came in the apartment today. Claudia doesn’t think he’s very brown but trust me, he’s brown.

Claudia being cute. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/160, f/2.0.

The setup was extremely simple. Although it’s my dream to get a studio, for headshots or tight portraits, all you really need is a few clean walls, and maybe a window. All shots were literally taken in a 2m squared corner of a room. You don’t need much more than that. For lighting, we had a window with a white diffusion layer.

Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/100, f/2.0. 

In the two portraits above, Claudia is sitting at the exact same spot. Same exact settings. I just moved to her right and it changes the mood of the picture right away. In the backlit shot, I just placed a reflector to light her, positioned close, right outside the frame. All of these next photographs were taken just 1m away on a bed, still using natural light.

Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/80, f/2.0.

Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/80, f/2.0.

Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/50, f/2.0.

So you see? All you need is a little corner of a room and it can make reasonable backgrounds for portraits. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a white wall somewhere in your apartment. If you’re even more lucky, you’ll have a lot of space in front of the wall. By controlling the distance between the subject and the background, and just lighting your subject, you can get your background anywhere from white to black. Even throw in gels if you want. Of course in the end if I had a studio with a cyclorama wall, 12-foot ceiling and huge north-facing windows I’d take it. So if anyone has one of those just lying around up for grabs just send it my way thank you.

I’m buying a D700 tomorrow. Super excited. At this point I’ve been waiting for a year and a half, browsing Kijiji and Craigslist like a madman. A few months ago, they were going for over 2000$ for used ones, I almost went for it. Then I delayed my camera cravings just in time for the D600 release which shot the prices down. I’m getting one tomorrow for 1300$. Used from a Montreal photographer who is switching entirely to Fuji cameras. So why the old D700 and not the new shiny D600? I’m saving 1000$, I already have video on my D7000 and I don’t need 24MP (and my almost full hard drives certainly don’t want 24MP pictures). I’ve been waiting for full frame for a while now. I slowly eliminated all my crop-sensor lenses and now have all full-frame lenses. What I’m most excited about is the even shallower depth of field I’ll be able to get (okay okay, if you want to get technical it’s the same, but because of the wider frame there’s the impression of a shallower depth of field).

So I will definitely report back soon. We’ll see if knocking off a 0 in my camera improves anything!

Mont St-Hilaire Research Photography

Right now, I'm lying down in a hammock, sipping on ice coffee. In the forest next to me, Black-capped Chickadees, American Goldfinches, and White-breasted Nuthatches are calling. By my side, a pair of binoculars just in case I see something cool, and my camera in case I see something crazy. After working in the lab every day for the past few months, I started getting desperate and wanted to go outdoors more. The Gault Nature Reserve is a great spot to go to get your outdoors fix and still stay close to Montreal. I contacted the staff and managed to get a sweet deal: I'd stay in the chalets with all the researchers (which includes my girlfriend Claudia) in exchange for pictures they could use for promotional purposes. So now here I am, enjoying the outdoors like a true bio nerd. I started out with Jorge (+ Lucia & Marisol) a.k.a the proud owner of the Ratmobile, a black rental car equipped with Radio Caliente. His work focuses on the expansion of Lyme disease in Quebec by tracking White-footed Mice, since they are hosts for the Black-legged Ticks which carry the disease.  TéléQuébec also came one day to film the research, and long story short, I ended up filming some footage that they will be using on their show :D It's supposed to air some time in September.

Marisol, Jorge, Lucia & Professor Virginie Millien preparing their setup. Nikon D7000 + Tokina 12-24mm 4.0 @ 19mm, 1/100, f/4.0.

Jorge contemplating the meaning of life. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 98mm, 1/160, f/2.8.

Marisol weighing the mouse. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/100, f/2.8.

Mouse team putting the radio collar on the anesthetized mouse. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/100, f/2.8.

Lucia preparing the telemetry equipment for tracking the radio collars. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 80mm, 1/125, f/2.8.

White-footed Mouse with radio collar. Poor guy. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 105mm 2.8, 1/80, f/3.2.

Next, I went with Kyle (+ Sarah & Julien) who studies the relationship between the diversity of bees and the pollination services they provide, and how this is influenced by the surrounding landscape. I was lucky that their sampling site was in one of the prettiest spots on the mountain: a huge field of golden rods filled with blackberry patches you can pick on. As you walk through the goldenrods you just hear buzzing around your head from all the bees. They were scanning the flowers and catching the bees in nets, putting them in vials. When I ask the number of bee stings he's accumulated over the years working on this project he says "Probably about 30 or so."

Bumblebee doing bumblebee things. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 105mm 2.8, 1/1600, f/3.2.

Kyle sampling in a field of goldenrods. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 120mm, 1/640, f/2.8.

Sarah investigating potential catch. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 120mm, 1/640, f/2.8.

Julien recording the results of sampling. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/1250, f/2.8.

If you don't like bees, maybe you'd like Carly's (+ Claudia & Katriina) work on the role of forest fragmentation on carbon storage and biodiversity. But like Claudia's thumb will attest, trees can still sting you. I learned from that day that 1) mosquitoes don't care whether you have some OFF on you or not, and 2) when you find branches that look vaguely like antlers, the obvious thing to do is to take a break from science and prepare for a death match.

Pretty forest! Nikon D7000 + Tokina 12-24mm f/4.0 @ 12mm, 1/100, f/4.0.

Carly tree hugger. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/160, f/2.2.

Carly measuring DBH. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/160, f/2.2.

Claudia taking some canopy pictures. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 116mm, 1/160, f/2.8.

Katriina holding up a soil core. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, /50, f/3.2.

The collected soil samples are then dried out on coffee filters. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/200, f/2.8 + SB-600 Bounced off the wall.

They had 2 full tables of soils. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/200, f/2.8 + SB-600 Bounced off the wall.

Katriina and Carly fight to the death in plot 3. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm, 1/180, f/3.5.

Finally, I went with Dory (+ Thomas & Camille) who is studying the effects of forest fragmentation on insect herbivory. The field work involves climbing up trees, collecting insects with cool weird traps, whacking branches, and sucking up insects.

Dory putting a harness on and climbing up a tree like a pro. 1) Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/60, f/2.0; 2) Nikon D7000 + Nikon 18-70mm @ 55mm, 1/40, f/4.5.

Trap 1: Burlap traps. They caught 72 catterpillars in a single one of these once. The burlap coziness is irresistible apparently, and catterpillars just crawl up to cuddle. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 50mm 1.4, 1/200, f/1.8.

Trap 2: Lindgren trap. It has 7 funnels that leading into a container of ethanol where the insects accumulate over time.  Here Dory is about to send the trap down for the others to collect their sample. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8, 1/160, f/2.8.

Trap 3. Malaise trap. This tent-like trap is mostly for flying insects. They fly right into the walls and similarly to the Lindgren trap, they are funnelled into a container of ethanol. Having to empty these bottles out really stinks apparently. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 @ 90mm, 1/250, f/2.8.

Thomas climbing up a tree. Little did he know he was about to get stuck there for 10 minutes. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm @ 70mm, 1/125, f/2.8.

Here Thomas is whacking branches with a stick and collecting the falling insects on a white sheet. He then proceeds to suck up the insects in the vial. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/200, f/1.8.

Camille collecting leaf samples. Out of focus Dory scratching mosquito bites. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/200, f/1.8.

And what was great is that in between going out with the different research teams, I spend my days hiking on the mountain.

This is an abandoned apple orchard. I saw a deer last time I came here but my stupid self didn't have my camera ready. He was intimidated by my predatorness and ran away. Nikon D7000 + Tokina 12-24mm f/4.0 @ 12mm, 1/160, f/5.6.

Little red squirrel enjoying the view of the town of Mont St-Hilaire. Nikon D7000 + 70-200mm 2.8 @ 200mm, 1/2500, f/1.8. 

A Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). Remember for macro shots, think of the angle in which you shoot. If I shot this just a bit higher, the background of the shot would have been all in focus. Here, I was really lying on the ground to get the background far away from the butterfly and become out of focus. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 105mm 2.8, 1/320, f/3.5.

Birding, good food, Claudia, marshmallows, cool people and hiking; this ended up being the perfect break from the lab.

I had a blast doing research and fieldwork photography and I'd love to do some more. I think it's important for scientists and grad students to have great visual aids to support their posters and presentations to ultimately communicate their science more clearly. If you're a part of a research team that does research in the field, I'd love to offer my photography services to you. Check out my explorations portfolio for other related work. I want to hear from you!

Wedding in Fort Chambly

I wake up at 6:30AM, get dressed in 15 minutes. Random thought about how wedding photographers are the first ones dressed up for the day. Coffee. Final weather check. No rain. NO RAIN! A few days before they were announcing 100% chance rain. I guess my lucky streak still continues. If you're a future bride-to-be reading this, keep in mind that it does not rain on my weddings :D I arrive at Chantal’s place, she’s getting her make-up done (by my cousin Han!). The flower girl is sitting quietly beside her, mesmerized by the make-up process. Big windows, tons of soft natural light in the room, everything is calm. Fast forward a few minutes, the chaotic nature of weddings starts kicking in gradually. Chantal is late for her appointment at the hair salon and rushes out of the house, flower girl grabs an eye liner and draws all over her face, and suddenly I’m in this room holding a dress in each hand with Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time blasting from the radio.

About 2 hours later, we’re back at the house, ready for the Vietnamese ceremony. The groom arrives at the house with gifts and is welcomed by the bride’s family. And by family I mean Vietnamese family, so that’s 5000 people waiting at the door for him.

The ceremony starts with the father of the bride lighting up incense sticks and mistakenly starting the ceremony with: “Today is the wedding day of Benoit and Tina.” (That’s his other daughter’s name.) I love the shot of his reaction after he realized his mistake.

 

Wardrobe change!

We went to Fort Chambly, a beautiful national historic site. The sun was out blazing with no clouds to diffuse the harsh light, so I had to find pockets of shade like these pictures. Or angle my subjects to be side lit, between myself and the sun.

Fast forward a few hours, I’m setting up my lights in the reception room in Hotel Mortagne not too far from Montreal. It was a fun wedding reception, they had everyone on the dance floor at all times, the first dance was really cool, and it’s the first time I see a piñata at a wedding so some points there.

Congrats again to Chantal and Benoit!

I'm still alive!

I haven’t updated this website in about 6 months. Fortunately I’m not dead. I’ve been super busy with grad school applications. So it turns out I’ll still be sticking around at McGill for my M.Sc. for the next two years. Not in Montreal however, I’ll be heading back to Panama to do my research there and go hang out with toucans. Definitely expect some pictures when that time comes. Anyway, although I’ve been slacking off on the blog, I was still taking pictures during the year. Here’s a little overview of the few assignments I’ve been doing. First, I’ve had a few assignments from McGill News. My relationship with them started back when they asked to use a few pictures of my field course in Mont St-Hilaire including this shot of a Red-backed Salamander.

We caught this little guy under a rock. When they feel threatened, they have a really cool defense mechanism where they will just drop their tail and run away while the tail, detached from the body, squirms around like crazy. Crazy diversion tactic. The human equivalent would be something along the lines of cutting our own hand off when surrounded by a street gang and then running away while the dismantled hand is flipping off the very confused enemies.

Okay back to McGill News. For this one they ran a story on the McGill Daily and asked me to get a shot of Joan Moses, the coordinating editor of the Daily. One of the images from this story ended up making the front page of the McGill website which was pretty cool.

These next shots were part of a story where professors and students of McGill picked their “favorite spots” on campus. Professor Watson (top), an economics professor, chose the Faculty Club restaurant, which is this ridiculously fancy looking restaurant hidden right on campus. Chandeliers and tuxedo-wearing waiters in an old mansion. Or maybe my memory is just over-glorifying this. I’ll try to sneak back in there one day. Then there was Professor Friedman, in architecture, who chose the Redpath museum as his favorite location, notably because he appreciated the arching windows in the back.

I also had an assignment with McGill Faculty of Science Alumni Newsletter on our Bio lounge, but the story never went through, so I can’t show you the picture now. Maybe next time. Aside from these assignments I’ve also had a few regular people/portrait shoots in Montreal, just like with Devin & Michela.

And a maternity shoot (this is Melanie, you may recognize her as the bride from one of my weddings!).

And then these guys, Architek Percussion, a cool all-percussionists band.

 See? So I haven’t been that lazy. I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule. So come back for more!

My Camera Gear Path, Part 2.

So here is the second part of my gear path. Part 1 is here, in case you missed it. Just to remind you, this was a post to answer the numerous questions about what gear I shoot with. I'm just showing you a step-by-step process of what I bought/sold to eventually get where I am gear-wise. Okay so what did I buy next?

4. Nikon D90. I was probably tempted solely from Chase Jarvis’ video, making the camera look really badass. It was also the first DSLR with video, so that caught my eye right away. I was really happy with the low-light performance of the camera, and the ability to trigger my flashes wirelessly. Video was cool, but it was lacking fully manual controls that appeared in later cameras. To be honest I could’ve stayed with my D90 until now and I would’ve been just fine. Tons of them are going down in price rapidly, since they’ve been replaced by the D7000. You can probably find some good used ones for not too expensive too.

My sister's cat. Nikon D90 + Nikon 85mm f1.8.

5. Then came in the Tokina 12-24mm f4.0. I THOUGHT I needed something wider than 18mm, so I bought this off B&H. To this day I still use this lens a lot in every single wedding, and it’s often the lens that I bring if I can only bring one lens (say, for a weekend trip somewhere). But I hate this lens, I don’t know why. I feel that the focus is slow in low-light, there’s too much distortion, and while it does go to very wide, I find that often have to switch lenses, since the 12-24mm range is still very limited. It’s been very useful, but I feel it could be better still, and I’m looking to upgrade soon.

Elisabeth in a field. Nikon D90 + Tokina 12-24mm f4.0.

6. Next up is the #1 lens that I would recommend for anyone with a DSLR camera. Nikon 50mm 1.8. This is the cheapest lens you can get and one of the best. It’s tiny, weighs nothing, and has a maximum aperture of 1.8 to produce really great low-light photographs with shallow depth of field. The AF-D model is the one I had (although not fully compatible with Nikon cameras without a built-in motor), and it only cost about 120$. There’s something about these 50mm lenses that just create beautiful portraits, and if I lost all my lenses today a 50 would be my first purchase.

Bride's shoes, my first wedding. Nikon D90 + Nikon 50mm f1.8.

7. I then got a Nikon 85mm 1.8 since I was addicted with prime lenses at this point. I didn’t use it as often as the 50mm, as the focal length was a bit too long for my work, but I never had any problems with this one. It’s a sturdy compact lens that shot great portraits. I love using long lenses for landscapes.

My bio prof in Barbados. Nikon D90 + Nikon 85mm f1.8. 

8. And as a nature nerd, I obviously had to get a macro lens: Nikon 105mm 2.8 AF-S. This lens is often used for portraits as well, but I find it focuses a bit too slow for that. This is more of a specialty lens, I don’t use often but when I do use it it does a great job.

Golden silk orb-weaver, Panama. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 105mm f2.8.

This was my kit for about a year, and I loved it, but what became difficult for me was too much lens switching during weddings (I had a back-up camera at weddings, but I wasn’t using it as a dual camera, so I always had to switch lenses). Then, what changed my kit was just a great opportunity that popped up on Craigslist.

9. Finally, after all these years of lusting after it, I found a surprisingly cheap Nikon 70-200mm 2.8. The lens looked new and at 1200$ I would’ve bought it even if there was vomit on it. You hear everyone talking about this lens, and when you use it you understand why. The lens compression and the wide aperture blend backgrounds to a creamy blur. I often use this lens as a landscape lens as well, picking out details from vast scenes. The one downside of this lens is the size and weight. I had to buy new camera bags to accommodate this lens.

Happy Kirsten. Nikon D7000 + Nikon 70-200mm f2.8.

10. And last step to my kit today, I added a D7000, mainly for better video during my trip to Panama. I love this camera, I feel it's one of the best cameras you can get for the price. To be honest my upgrade from the D90 wasn't really justified, but I don't regret it either. I've shot most of my weddings with this camera, going to ISOs up to 1600-2000 without too many problems. I’m trying to go full-frame next, using this one as my back-up.

There you have it, you now know what's in my camera kit!

Wedding in Montreal's Centre des Sciences

Finally done with finals! :D And close-ish to being done with Christmas shopping too. So here's a wedding I shot with Vadim several months ago. I was really excited since this was the first Hindu wedding I got to photograph. We actually received a PDF file with all the detailed steps of the ceremony (I had to google half of the terms on it). Unlike churches with a priest, the bride, and the groom, there was sometimes up to 8 people surrounding Kamalina and Steve, making it challenging to photograph them through the chaos. You basically pre-focus, wait for an opening and shoot as soon as you get an opportunity. It makes you feel like a sniper. It was a big, fun, colourful wedding at the Centre des Sciences in Montreal's Old Port. You can't really go wrong with the Old Port can you?

The highlight for me was working with Ioan Films, the best videographers I've worked alongside with. Robert, Cristina, Mihai and Tudor were friendly, professional and I could tell even before seeing the final result that they were producing high-quality work. Although I may be biased because they're Romanian. Cristina also taught me a few Romanian things to say to my Romanian girlfriend's mom to get some brownie points.

As a kid with a Vietnamese heritage born in the francophone province of an English-speaking country, I've always been drawn to other cultural mixes. It was great to see people from both the bride and the groom side sharing the dance floor unlike some other times I've seen. And these folks stayed on the floor all night! It was the longest working day I've had, but one of the most rewarding and memorable.

I'll end this post by wishing everyone happy holidays. Take lots of pictures and take time to relax!

TEDx McGill

Last Sunday I had the chance of being one of the photographers for TEDxMcGill. The event took place in Montreal at Bain Mathieu. In a POOL. This year, the theme was Redefining Reality. They had 15 great speakers, including legendary scientist Brenda Milner. Ok so a few things to talk about. First, the TED sign. My high school friend Gabriel (part of the Salvaging Activity Workshop) was in charge of creating the sign, and within a week, his team created this cool, bold, TEDx sign. They lit it from a bathtub below and had running water, creating the ripple effect you often see in reflections near pools. Really cool.

Next, we set up a photobooth in the corner where speakers and guests got photographed with these cool red X’s made by TEDx volunteers. I even bought the Eye-Fi cards and tried out the wireless transfer to iPad to display the pictures right away. Here are some of my favorite pictures from this set up. Ehhh I wish I had all the speakers on these.

I need to thank Chloe & Marie (for helping me get this gig), as well as Sam, Nida and Matt (for helping me out the whole day)!

In the end though, the person who was most inspiring and memorable for me wasn’t a speaker but rather a visual artist: Aquil Virani. He started the day off handing small pieces of paper to all guests, asking them to draw or write anything. He then collected all the papers and started his live painting, blending pieces together from everyone, while still managing to do it in a consistent style. In just a few hours, I could already see the fantastic piece of art shaping up. He also included slides and quotes from the TED speakers. Reaaallly really cool. (Btw I drew Hexapus, the 6-tentacled octopus.)

In the end, the whole day was great. I’ve always been a fan of TED so I was psyched to be able to photograph this event. I actually used to have a morning routine that consisted of coffee with a TED talk. I should get back on that.

My First Wedding in a Montreal Mosque

Meet Sue & Arif, my sister’s high school friends, and recent newlyweds. For the first time, I had a second shooter at a wedding with me, my sister Tina Tran. Since she already knew the bride and groom, and this wedding required both a male and female photographer (you’ll see why), she was the perfect choice for a second shooter in at the wedding. 2-days before the wedding, I photographed Arif’s Pithi ceremony, which is an Indian tradition. It starts innocently enough until eggs are cracked on his head. Then Arif gets bombarded with ketchup, flour, maple syrup, etc. I wish seeing this was a more common occurrence in my daily life. Everyone had a great time and hopefully he wasn’t too traumatized.

Arif probably spent the next two straight days showering until the big day. I started off at his house and I got to eat samosas. That made my day right there - perfect way to start a 13-hour shift. For those who don't know, I've developed an addiction to samosas during my time at McGill University, where samosas were often sold in enormous quantities. For others that share the same addiction, there's even a Twitter account to track those elusive samosas down on campus.

OK let's move on before I start craving some again. We moved to the mosque where the ceremony took place. Shoes off! This was my first muslim wedding, so all the traditions and ceremonies were new experiences to me. With men and women in separate rooms, I had absolutely no idea what went on in the other room until I uploaded my sister’s pics.

By Tina Tran!

Then, off to the Montreal Old Port! They must’ve felt like celebrities because EVERYONE was staring. Even the horses.

Best wishes to Sue & Arif, and thank you for the great day!