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.

]]> http://www.vtography.com/blog/2011/04/29/another-photographer-sai-sivanesan/feed/ 1 http://www.vtography.com/blog/2011/03/22/nightnudes-ca-has-launched/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nightnudes-ca-has-launched http://www.vtography.com/blog/2011/03/22/nightnudes-ca-has-launched/#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:46:23 +0000 vtography http://www.vtography.com/blog/?p=1664 I felt that my Night Nudes deserved a home of their own, so I’ve launched NIGHTNUDES.ca. I’ll be adding to this series a lot over the coming months. The photos seemed kind of out of place next to the “smiling girl in her underwear” photos that I post here so often, so now they can live on their own! The site will also serve as the home for a photo book that will be compiled down the road.

And if you’re interested in volunteering to be a part of the series, you’ll find more info on the Night Nudes site. Go check it out!

It took about 30 shots to get this one. Self portraits are something I’ve never been good at, nor even interested in. However, after shooting a model today in the studio, the light streaming in from the windows was too good to pass up.

The biggest challenge was getting myself in focus, since I can’t see myself through the viewfinder. I put a Nikon D700 on a tripod with an 85mm f/1.4 lens. After a few attempts at guessing the focus and failing, I eventually removed the camera from the tripod and brought it with me to where I would stand for the portrait. I then pointed the camera at the tripod and focused on it, to simulate the distance. Initially I was trying shots at f/2.8 because I wanted to make sure the depth of field was shallow enough to throw the background out of focus. This left very little leeway for any mistakes in my distance from the camera, as even an inch or two closer or further away could render myself blurry. I eventually bumped up the aperture to f/4 which gave me a bit more room to play with, without impacting the background too much.

The light was very, very warm as the sun was setting, but I cooled it down and desaturated it using Adobe Lightroom.

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.