vtography.com blog » Ryan

Randall… Again

Ryan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:34:03 +0000

Why? Because I can.

Randall Sutton

Ryan — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:33:49 +0000

Oh Randall, I love thee.

Natasha

Ryan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:48:28 +0000

Meet The Twins

Ryan — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:42:22 +0000

A while back I showed you a video of Sam at the beach, which we used to garner her some votes for the Miss Hooters Canada texting contest. Well guess what? It worked! Samantha won the text vote — thanks so much to all of you who voted. She really appreciates it! Still images from the shoot are ready to be unveiled, with more to come:

These were shot at the nude beach at Hanlan’s Point, on the Toronto Islands. It was a super-sunny day and the sun had just ducked behind some big puffy clouds when we took these shots. The top shot is augmented with a bit of on-camera flash (SB-900) diffused with a Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible.

The nude beach is an interesting place. Long a hang-out for the gay community before it was recognized as an official clothing-optional beach, it tends to be overrun by tons of naked old men. Many of them were obviously interested in our shoot and walked by our stretch of beach multiple times to catch a glimpse of Samantha. The various states of undress were amusing — some walked down the beach in only a shirt and shoes, but lacking anything in between. Why leave the shirt on?

As the clouds grew more dense and the sky darkened, we found ourselves with a visitor. One of the gawkers decided to come and stand right next to me as I was shooting Samantha. He obviously knew nothing about personal space. As I tried to keep one eye on my gear to make sure he didn’t run off with anything, I turned my attention away from my light stand/umbrella/flash combo, which promptly fell over into the sand. One of the umbrella arms broke. Sand will pretty much destroy electronics on contact, but luckily I was able to get the sand off my flash before it had a chance to worm its way under the buttons. We decided to call it a day at that point, since Oldie McCreeperson wasn’t going anywhere. He continued to stand right next to us as we packed up, and then paraded his naked self a couple times in front of us as we worked our way back to the paved path.

Monica

Ryan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:57:55 +0000

Jacqueline

Ryan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:11:15 +0000

No Photoshop. Sunny day, but in the shade of a building. Large white reflector from underneath.

Night Nudes: The Lookout

Ryan — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:58:51 +0000

Night Nudes: Valley

Ryan — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 02:57:01 +0000

Night Nudes: Stars

Ryan — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:55:39 +0000

Mayor David Miller for Vantage

Ryan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:06:18 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to photograph Toronto’s mayor, David Miller, for Vantage magazine. Vantage is published by the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance to promote foreign business investment in Toronto.

The perils of working for something so high-profile became immediately apparent as I met the mayor in his office. He was in the middle of an interview and I had about five minutes to snap some shots of him talking, answering questions. There would be no posed pictures, no setups. Just candid shots as I circled around the mayor and the interviewer, all while trying not to add any noise to her audio recording of the conversation. I failed miserably at this aspect, as a long, loud beeeeeeep emanated from the wireless flash after each exposure to indicate success. There was no time to switch if off, though — the mayor is a busy guy!

Wait a sec — that last photo looks kinda weird. They mirrored it! If you glance at the top right corner, you’ll notice the “Mayor Miller Way” street sign is completely backwards. A totally bizarre editorial decision. Why not just leave the photo as is? Or crop out the sign? Or Photoshop it away? So many options. For reference, here are both the original photos:

Publishing weirdness aside, I was only able to fire off about 20 decent shots during the time I had. I used my trusty Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens for all the shots. For lighting, I had a Nikon SB-900 mounted on the hot-shoe of my D300S, pointed up for a little ceiling bounce. On a small tripod to the mayor’s right was a Nikon SB-800 with a LumiQuest Pocket Bounce, fired with Nikon’s wireless CLS technology.