Finally a "Professional"

This year was the first time I ever submitted any of my work into any competition and I'm proud to say I was accepted into the PPOC (Professional Photographers of Canada) show.  Today I was listening live for hours and it was kind of intense hearing what the judges had to say. When they reached one of my submissions (image below) I couldn't help but feel surprised as the word "accepted" was announced.


Go to this link to listen live as they continue the rest of the portraits being judged tomorrow:
http://www.ppoc.ca/audio.html You can also view the images while they are being judged live.

Although, some of the classes (categories) are not going to be judged live, I will keep you guys posted as to what the result is to the rest of my images I submitted (4 in total). I submitted in 1 portrait, 1 pictorial, 1 fashion and 1 wild life.

This image means a lot to me. It was my very first creative photoshoot that I did with two Taiwanese girls I lived with on campus last year. Angela and HsuanYun came in with their own traditional outfits, chinese fans and the traditional umbrellas. Their make up was done by Mary Beatty who also does a lot of modeling for me. When I shot this image I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was trying to show off the make up or maybe I was bringing out an innocence that Angela seemed to have? Overall, I seem to have good feedback on this piece of work and it is definitely one of my favourites.  Goodluck to the rest of you!

I called this image "A Peaceful Elegance"

The Green Living Project

On Wednesday I completed my last commercial photoshoot assignment, also known as the "Green Living" assignment. At first I was a bit worried how my concept would turn out because it did involve a lot of post production work, 1 assistant and a hand model, but with the help of a photographer/friend Tyrone Mitchell and my hand model Connie Wong, the overall image came out a lot better than I had anticipated. 

I started off taking a picture of my hand model holding the water bottle up. I used a green gel for the background, a fill card and 1 soft box (main light). The second image was taken of Connie pouring the water out of the bottle. We had to do this twice to get it right but afterwards came the tricky part. We took the water from the bowl and threw a nickel in the water until the splash came out looking like water was actually being poured with subtle waves. The last image was the globe which I pen tooled out and placed onto the shot I took of the background with the rest of the images. I threw in some text and presto, it was fini.

Camera: Hasselblad, 120
1 backlight (green gel)
1 main light (soft box)
1 fill card

2 full waterbottles
1 glass bowl
1 nickel
1 globe
1 hand model
1 TOWEL!!!

Project: Water Droplets

Before I was back to school in the beginning of September I was in the mood for shooting but as I recall, the weather wasn't so great. I had just moved back on campus and there was nothing to do. I grabbed my Nikon D300s, a desk lamp, my tripod and my SB900 flash and set up a mini shoot in my kitchen (which sadly has no windows in residence). I carefully placed small water droplets of different sizes ontop of a CD and this is what I got. It was until today that I found these images on my external hardrive. Enjoy!

I balanced Flash with Tungsten and took longer exposures with my camera on a tripod.

Twist Gallery: Ubiquity

I'm proud to say this is going to be my first gallery where I can show off my photography works to the public. My theme will be Nova Scotia. Hope to see you all there! For more information, read the description below.

Twist Gallery requests the presence of the public and media for the opening reception of Ubiquity by Humber College. Ubiquity is a collection of personal photographs by students from the graduating class of the Creative Photography Program at Humber.

The students were as...ked to create images referencing their passion for photography and visual communications. With these photographs, the possibilities of people, places, and life, are explored and examined. From simplicity of line and form, shades of black & white, to exploring human emotions with rich colour palettes, Ubiquity is a diverse and eclectic collection. This exhibit celebrates personal photographic work, by Toronto’s next generation of professional photographers.

The show will run from Tuesday April 3rd to Friday April 27th, 2012 with an opening reception on Wednesday April 4th, 2012 from 7-11pm. Please join us for drinks, appetizers and music while welcoming these emerging photographers into the art world.


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Update + Sneak Peak

As I mentioned in my previous post this will be a double post for today just because I've been so swamped with work and assignments I haven't had the chance to share any of them with my fellow readers/followers. There will be plenty of new stuff to post in the month of March but all I ask is that everyone just be patient with me. I already have three photoshoots going on tomorrow and here's a hint as to one of them!

Celebrity Shoot Sneak Peak!

I know it's been a long long wait since today's post so I will make a double post to make up for lost time.

First off, I'd like to say that my celebrity shoots went surprisingly well. The day started off a bit hectic when Massimo arrived over an hour late at the exact moment I left the restaurant Mistura to shoot the Pigott Brothers. Oliver and Sebastian Pigott were very friendly and cooperative even after noticing my injury. Of course, Connie was there assisting me but once the shoot was over I headed back to the restaurant where I finished the photoshoot with Massimo and got a signed book from him before I left.


***The photograph of the Pigott Brothers standing with the Canada flag in the background was the image I submitted for my assignment and in the end, it was picked for display along with a candid shot of Will Farrell and Richard Simmons taken by my classmates!***

Here are some images of that day:

-------------- The Pigott Brothers -------------- 

  

-------------- MASSIMO --------------

Massimo Capra has an amazing personality and true character with a 

great sense of humor. Here's a video of him: 

 

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Images (including mine) picked for display: