A Couple Photos

I always get a little nervous before even the simplest portrait shoots. Most times, it’s just my mind shifting gears and focusing on the work ahead - ejecting all the extraneous thoughts and daily blah blah blah and leaving (hopefully) only the person(s) and the photography.

But on a few rare occasions, the slight buzz comes from photographing another photographer. Is there a photographer that doesn’t find that at least a little intimidating? After all, they’re privy to what we think, how we work and they’re uniquely qualified to assess what we’ve done.

This was the case recently when I photographed Dwayne Larson and his fiancé April, in advance of their wedding (which they paid me the honour of photographing). Dwayne and I have worked in Winnipeg and known each other for years and although we’re different in style — he’s cool and I’m not, let’s not mince words — we both have devoted our lives to photography. What an honour to have him specifically choose me, and my style of working, to make images of this very particular moment in the life and he and his life partner.

Meeting up at the unsung gem Langside Grocery all my nerves were quickly put to rest. Here were two people who made others feel as comfortable as they clearly did in their own skin. Best of all for this photographer, here were two people who are so obviously at ease and great around each other. Great subjects, great location, great light — it was the kind of portrait session I always hope to have!

<<Technical Notes>> My remote trigger stopped working almost immediately upon arrival, so on the fly I was switched to ‘available light’ mode. Thankfully, the late afternoon sun was perfect in Langside Grocery (did I mention how fantastic that location is..?) and so the shoot went on. I used the magical (no other word for it) Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 on my 5D Mark IV, with a few EF 50mm f/1.2 images thrown in when the moment was right.

For more samples of how I photograph people, take a look at my People section on this website.

The front counter at the wonderful Langside Grocery, avec April and Dwayne.

As the world turns

I’ve never tried my hand at astrophotography, but recently I learned of a traditional Thai “spirit house” in rural Manitoba. This phenomenon is commonplace almost everywhere in Thailand, a devoutly Buddhist nation with a prior history of animism and spirit worship - but understandably rare in Manitoba.
Once I saw it for myself, though, I knew almost immediately that its juxtaposition with a faraway land and culture would best be expressed by a show of the Northern Lights with it. While the aurora did not make an appearance - yet - I did have a crystal-clear sky to work with and a perfect vantage point centering on Polaris, which would offer a focal point for my image.

Adding to the excitement was the fact Manitoba is currently in the grips of a brutal cold snap, and my set-up was done in temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius. It’s nothing proper clothing and preparation can’t handle, but it definitely made working slower and more challenging. As did hearing a pack of coyotes howling in the woods surrounding the site - something the resident sled dogs responded to in kind!

I’m happy with how the shot turned out - while I would have preferred a show of the Aurora I was lucky that a ‘radial’ type display of star trails could still be had with this unique cultural marker. On the technical side, I used a free program called Star StaX and combined 60 separate photographs (looking basically like the second shot here) to make the final lead image. I’d recommend this program, it’s easy and basically self-explanatory to use, does not downsize or reduce your final image, and did I mention it’s free? The third image gives a view of the app’s homepage; be sure to select the download that corresponds to your Mac’s current operating software.