Dear George,
I like the photos you took of my friend Andreea. Keep it up.
I wish she still lived in Canada.
Another Photographer: Sai Sivanesan
Seasons of Discontent by Sai Sivanesan
I’ve always been drawn to Sai Sivanesan’s work. Part of that comes from knowing him since high school. He’s a hundred times the photographer I am and focuses mostly on fashion, which I only dabble in from time to time. I was happy to see his website was recently updated with new projects, one of which drew me right in because it was shot at one of my favourite places: the RC Harris Water Filtration Plant in Toronto. Doesn’t really sound all that exciting, eh? But I assure you it is. Built in the 1930s, it’s an art deco masterpiece. It looks like a castle! I’ve photographed at this spot often — check out some of my Waterworks photos on Flickr. Sai puts the location to great use, keeping much of the focus on the surrounding sterile concrete and railings rather than on the building itself which could distract the viewer too much.
A couple years ago I shot there with a model, Amanda, the results of which you can see below. I hope to get get back there again soon to shoot some Night Nudes.
Another Photographer: Maya Washington
I can’t believe I’ve only ever talked about my friend Maya once on the blog before. Maya recently (like ten minutes ago) joined Flickr and you can see some of her work by clicking above. I met Maya waaay back in 2002 or so when she was a customer at my store and dropping off the odd roll of film here and there with some stunning images on them. I later hired her to work for me. She’s an energetic free spirit, having lived in Toronto and Vancouver (and soon New York City!) in the last couple years. In addition to being a stellar photographer, she’s also a fantastic model and actress, which means I’ll have to shoot her again before she heads down south. And now that I have a new Nikon D300s with HD video, maybe she can be my guinea pig for some video experiments too.
What has impressed me most about Maya’s photos over the years is her ability to do so much with so little. She started out with the most basic of basic digital SLRs and has very minimal amounts of lighting gear. She shot many of her photos in her Vancouver apartment (screw you, expensive studios) and makes trips to the thrift store part of her everyday life. Maya even has a blog devoted to her frugal ways: Frugal Artist.
To see more photos, check out Maya’s website.
Another Photographer: Heather Windsor
Meet Heather.
Heather is a friend of mine who takes pictures and today she opened her brand new studio space in Bowmanville, Ontario.
But before we talk about that, you need to know more about her!
Heather friended me on Facebook about a year ago, after realizing that we had each shot two of the same models. We hit it off right away, sharing our best photographic stories and insights. With Heather based a fair distance away from me in Oshawa, our first real-life meeting didn’t happen til many months later… at Hooters. Yes, Hooters. We had fried pickles and they were delicious. Hush.
She doesn’t like talking about herself on her website, but she’s a bit more chatty on her blog. And if you like what you see there, join the Facebook fan page.
Heather is a hardworking mom and fabulous photographer, so when she asked me to drive the 70km or so to Bowmanville and photograph her grand opening, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
There were tasty treats from Custom Cakeworks:
Check out this crazy nice wallpaper:
The size of these windows makes me very excited:
Mayor of the Municipality of Clarington, Jim Abernethy, even came out for the ribbon cutting:
I’ve been bugging Heather a lot about when I can start using the space to shoot in, and I’m glad the answer is… now! I hope to get in there before the end of February and have a whole bunch of brand new content for everyone to see.
Another Photographer: Rankin
Rankin (wiki), celebrity photographer extraordinaire, embarked on a very ambitious project earlier this year. Having photographed the likes of Lindsay Lohan, David Bowie, Hugh Grant, Britney Spears, and other mega-celebs, he opened up his photography services to the British public. A paltry fee of £50 would get you fifteen minutes with Rankin and a print of your final photo, with all the profits going to Oxfam.
There’s a site, of course, and you can find some of my favourites from these sessions below:
Back in 2005, I embarked on a project where I tried to photograph 100 people in two months. It didn’t work out, but I ended up with one slightly Rankin-esque image from those sessions, well before I even knew who he was. Overexposure and desaturation are the keys here, but there’s still far too much colour in the skin compared to Rankin’s shots. I shot this with one hotshoe flash in an umbrella, directly in front of the subject, about six inches above my camera and angled downwards:
