Boat Show is HERE and an old pic to start the season off!

Good Friday from Prospect.

Me at the helm in Lake Louise 1963

The boat show has finally arrived here in Halifax. It rings in the short time we have to wait until we are back on the water. It also reminds us of the chores we have ahead of us before that can happen, including the Honey-do lists. Ouch.

I hope to see allot of friends at the show and some great deals. Look out, here I come. Wish the photo vendors here in Halifax would put on something like this. Now that I would go to.

Kodak Bullet

BTW, just incase you thought I was pulling your leg about how long I've had the boating bug. That's me in 1963, first time at the helm. Go cat go!

Kodak Hawkeye with flash

This would have been taken by my Mother with her Kodak Brownie, like one of the two pics at the bottom. I have a Hawkeye (pictured with a flash attached) here but I think that's my wife's. Still trying to track down my Mom's Bullet with flash. She thought she gave it to me along with here 8mm but as I discovered after she passed away that my Dad had stashed the 8mm so the bullet is still missing. I'll find it.

Hope to see you at the show, enjoy Derek

From the Past

Good Monday from Prospect. 

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been struggling with what I want to add to the blog. I keep coming up with stupid rants. Thinking they may be interesting but all I get out of them is negative so I drop them. It's a winter thing for me. 

Well here's some positive I can share and build on.

I was rummaging through my old negatives and came across this gem. I have to apologize for my scanner. The HP scanner I have sucks at transparency scanning. It's okay for prints, but that's about it.  But Now I can't wait to get a good scan of this and make a good print.

Ambrose as an aspiring young designer and musician

The time, 1979 or 1980. The subject, Ambrose Pottie. We were class mates at NSCAD back then and shared a love of Design, Photography and Music. Our hang group consisted of Jerry (Ambrose) Jim Mantle, Elaine Frampton and myself.

I'm not sure what project this is connected to but it really doesn't matter. It is however, one of my first "one light" shots (with some available to fill the background and side). Crude but effective desk lamp. Incandescent overhead with daylight to the right and back. Well, since it is black and white who cares about colour temp right?

This would have been shot with a Yashica, medium format, TLR (two lens reflex) on KODAK PLUS-X Pan 6057 b&w negative film.

I would have shot with something like this (photo courtesy wikipedia) 

I'll post the good version once I find a decent scanning source. Wish I had found this in one of my previous lives.

Enjoy, Derek

Head Shots that DON'T HURT

Good Thursday from Prospect,

My new Photography site is up and running and filling up with current works.

Check it out here [ http://derekmasonphotography.com ]. 

In need of that head shot that has life? You know what I'm talking about. one that shows who you are, not the Walmart or department store snap. The one that shows people what you're about.

Well check out the Portrait & Head Shot Portfolio page for some samples of what I do. If you're interested just drop a line through the contact page or place a comment here.

I also do editorial and commercial work, Just Sayin'. 

If that's the bag you're in I'd be happy to take the time to discuss what we can do together.

Hope to hear from you. Enjoy the pics.

Derek

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from We Three

Good Tuesday from Prospect. Special wishes to you and yours during the Holidays from we three.

Merry Christmas from Kathy, Deanne and Derek

One note: I have set my new photo site to live at derekmasonphotography.com (still working on Just That). That's where you'll find all my professional work along with a new blog covering assignments and projects. Feel free to link to that one as you have with this one.

I'll be keeping this one for more personal adventures just like I have to date. I think you'll enjoy both. I'll post a couple from this Christmas season coming. Although this will be my first without a parent, we have family and friends to share in the season.

Enjoy, Derek

Re-establishing the basics and moving

Good Wednesday from Prospect. 

Today I'm going to throw a hint at my recent projects. I'm also going to show a little how to.

Canon 5D mrkII, 85mm f1.8  at f8, 125sec 100 ISO

I've recently been following a photographer by the name of Zack Arias out of Atlanta Georgia. Great photographer. 

I probably follow him, not so much for his work, although I'm a fan, but because of his attitude to the business and his open attitude to share. He's been sharing his "One Light" philosophy with all of us. Thanks Zack!

Many photographers know this is a tough business to make a living. You gotta love it or forget it.

Personally I'm somewhat fortunate in that I have a background in the printing business and studied design and photography in college. 

I am able to put two hats on to feed myself but as the gear I use to create images matures I find myself forging ahead with shooting more and more. 

With the gear becoming mature, meaning you can rely on it, I can start forgetting about the gear and mega pixels and concentrate on what matters, getting the picture. 

Now it's back to basics for me. I went off on a tangent and forgot about getting the usable shot right away. Kinda blaming some of it on inferior gear I was using, but not all of it. I'm re-establishing composition and light in my head. Instead of cursing because the camera didn't fire because it was too slow to focus. Now I just set up and shoot, sort of. Well close enough in comparison to the hoops I had to jump through.

It's been said over and over, It's not the gear that makes the shot. Well to an extent thats true. It's just how much work you need to do after the shot to get it up to snuff. Instead of saying, "I'll just fix it in photoshop" why not just shoot it right. 

Well some cameras aren't up to that task (learned that the hard way). Between not being able to see the full frame you are composing to the camera over riding your set-up to awful noise at low light and failure to fire due to slow focus, it was becoming a burden to shoot and my confidence was failing. I mean could I honestly rely on myself to get the frame I was after. You don't get second chances when the moment is gone.

Anyway I started writing this blog and went off on a rant I don't need to get into so I'm deleting that part and carrying on with something positive, my new work.

The reason I started this blog was two fold. I wanted to share a "One Light" set-up on seamless with you and let you know I will be moving to my new site, Blog and all, to derekmasonphotography.com. It will be all fresh and new in about a week. Gotta finalize a few new images going up.

I won't abandon this one since I like the connection through Google, but I will be showing off my focused, professional work through the new one It will be more of an add on showcase while this one will be as it has been. Life in Nova Scotia, my own editorials so to speak.

Comments on both will be much appreciated to help me see what people like most. Don't worry, I'll add a link back to here from there.

For this post, here's an example of what one light, and a couple of reflectors, can do for an image.

This was on site for some corporate portraiture I did on the weekend. (In the board room with a 9 foot ceiling)

My set-up was one strobe set on a boom with a 48 in soft-box above the subject blowing slightly past so to throw some light on the white seamless, one 36" round reflector to lower stage right, for chin fill, and one 42 x 72 inch reflector to back stage left for soft back light. I also turn that big reflector around to shield a second strobe when going full white on the seamless, it doubles as a v flat or cutter to keep the second light out of the cameras frame and kill light flare (though that would be a "two light" shot wouldn't it?).

Here I had her lean slightly forward over a desk, we used as a prop, to get that spot light look on her eyes
Canon 5D mrkII, 85mm f1.8  at f8, 125sec 100 ISO

Once the shots are finalized and delivered I'll share some of those results. In the meantime, this is my wife who I dragged along as assistant. My daughter has taken up the challenge of assisting but had a minor medical procedure that stopped her from coming along. You may have seen her in my "Doin' it Seamless" blog a while back.

Enjoy, Derek.

Beauty from MAYHEM

Good Sunday from Prospect.

I want to share a little imagery I call beauty out of Mayhem. It's a study in space used up as soon as we get in it. 
As a project comes to a close, so does the usable space of my shop.

I find as I build these beautiful little boats (ready to race) my space tends to get more and more crowded as they come to completion. Sort of how I use up every inch around me.

Wonder if it's possessiveness or just working in cramped quarters.

Oh well…Do the chore, clean up, do the choir, clean up, so on and so on.

I hope you enjoy these.
(PS, I'd rather shoot these than dead trees in the fall)

Derek

Doin' it SEAMLESS

Good Friday from Prospect.

Ready for the ad

Well here I am back in the studio for a bit. And I wanted to share some seamless with you. I mean shooting with seamless backgrounds.

A little bit of fun before some serious work. We were setting up the next days early morning shoot. I always like to spend the time to prepare so my clients aren't waiting around while I set-up. When I do, I tend to grab a family member to model for me so I have a live set. 

This time it was my daughter. I told her to have some fun with it (as you can see she did, she loves making faces) and I'll direct as we go. 

In this blog you'll see some of the layout as I'm working it in and some of the final results after tweaking the positions. You'll even see a quick one with her holding the reflector to see if that's what I want.

Canon 5DmkII, 70-200 f2.8

These set ups usually only take about 15 minutes, after the gear is assembled, but I used this to try out a new lens I just picked up. The Canon 85mm f/1.8. Great detail but you have to watch the light flare from the background (I haven't received the lens hood yet, that's another story). It always adds headache in post production, which by the way is why I switched to Canon. I was just tired of spending so much time in post with the old Pentax gear. Great results, too much work.

The 5D mkII, and the new glass, cut that to 10 percent. Now I can spend more time on composition and get it done without all nighters.

Everything shot with Canon 5D mk II, Canon 85 mm f/1.8 (awesome lens) or Canon 70-200 f2.8 and Opus strobes, 36 x 48 softbox and one bare bulb with reflector for the back ground blow out. with Pocket Wizard III's. The third light source is actually a big reflector to get that fill light from the bottom.

These are all shot on white. What I like about using white is light control allows for white to black backgrounds and everything in between (almost).

Sometimes simple is better and in these cases that's absolutely true.

I'll post a few samples of the next days shoot once we're finished with the project.

Enjoy, Derek

Great b&w head shot 5D mkII, 85mm f1.8

Here you can see the basic set-up, at least as we were getting in position

Yes she likes making faces
Straight out of the camera, we're good to go
5D mkII 70-200 f2.8

Stomping it out!  5DmkII, 85mmf1.8