Next Personal Project comes from a love of mine.

Good Sunday from Prospect.

Here's a teaser for ya from my next personal project which involves, you guessed it, the sport of sailing. The primary rule to be a sport is simple, if you can get hurt then it is a sport. Yes it's a sport because participants can, and do, get hurt.

Weapon of choice: Canon 5D mrk II, Canon 70-200 IS f2.8

The project involves group and individual portraiture before, during or after an event, in the flavour of street photography. It is an editorial piece and no photos will be used in product endorsement or commercial purpose except for being in the final book and featured in online blog/website features.

If you're interested in participating, and sail locally, drop me a line and we'll see if we can work you and/or your team in. 

Sorry, no fees will be paid for sessions and all image copyrights will belong to the photographer, but you will get an online copy for your personal enjoyment.

A note on sailing: IMHO

Sailing is the utmost team sport, everyone needs to do their job for the team to succeed. No hot dogs or rock stars, they just rock the boat and create a lack of cohesion, unless the entire team, of course, are as talented. Then it's just an awesome team.

Some, those who have not partaken, say it's foolish and slow. Racing should be fast they say? Well that's all relative now isn't it. Sailing is not just about going fast, although doing 40 knots in 25 knots of breeze is quite a rush and it takes a tremendous amount of skill and superior technology to achieve. If all you want is speed then watch stock car racing, now that's foolish. Going fast left, left, left done.

In sailing you pit your experience and skill against your opponent. It's about making choices of direction as well as knowing how to trim and drive. It's also about becoming a better sailor. Practice makes perfect and what better way than to pit yourself against extreme conditions and other sailors to gain experience where it may otherwise be dangerous to experience for the first time.

Anyway, all I wanted to bring up is, yes, it's sailing season here in Halifax and the teaser is a sample from the gallery, and book, soon to come. 

Canon 5D mrk II, Canon 70-200 IS f2.8

This particular event is off point pleasant and run by the royal nova scotia yacht squadron, the oldest yacht club in north america.

Once a week every sailing club in the area runs at least one race night for the members. It's a great way to hone your sailing skills and, as it was for me, learn to sail.

If you'd like to spectate, other than go out on a boat, you can watch this specific event, from Point Pleasant Park on the Halifax peninsula or from Ferguson's cove off the Purcell's cove road.

I'm quite sure any sailing club close to you puts on a weekly event for you to see or participate in.

From August 14-17 Chester race week is underway. The photos included in this post is from last Wednesday nights rnsys race night. The clubs teams were gearing up for race week and so they were fine tuning their skills.

With fingers crossed, we hope the weeks weather will be awesome sailing weather with brisk breezes and bright skies. No I'm not forgetting about the great partying for the week, that's something you need to experience for yourself after the races in Chester NS.

Keep dropping back, or sign up for rss feed, as this project develops.

Maybe we'll see you in Chester, enjoy, Derek

Letting Your Work Breath

Good Monday from Prospect.

My favourite of the set. Processed through Nik Silver Efex.

This one comes out of a long and frustrating winter for me. I'm not a fan of winter shooting so I tend to shoot indoors and spend time going back over the years work.

I also take the time to update myself on new gear and software. Honing the skill set is always a good thing.

What I want to address is all those images we keep that don't make our first cuts. 

As all photographers know we hold onto, no, protect, every image we ever shoot, unless of course they are pure black or white.

It's not that they totally suck but are rather just over looked in comparison to what we had in mind when shooting. Sometimes we just over look a few gems.

There is a value in allowing your work breath. Taking a moment to go back and search for those images you may have passed over.

For instance here's one that, although I thought was okay but not great, turned out to be a wonderful image. When I went back to the RAW files, yup the Raw ones, I realized how good and interesting it is.

If this had been just a jpeg and fully processed I never would have had the opportunity to reprocess and bring out what truly makes it good.

This is the original (as shot). (ISO 100, f6.7, 1/180sec at 35mm)

I thought it was okay but I was more interested in everything else

I shot that day to put it up front

I regularly shoot RAW + JPEG. The Jpeg allows me to quickly and effectively meet short deliveries (especially when I need an image for social sharing) or to discuss the final goal with my client. I can even set my jpeg small enough to email, right out of the box, then go to the RAW and process for high res delivery. Yes this may take a bit more space but compared to duplicating files for back-up it's minimal.

Learned my lesson in 2010 following the New7Wonders of Nature campaign, for the Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership, advisory week events. Fortunately we made wifi stops on the road so I could process in the car until we arrived at an access point. But now I can shoot the jpeg, upload it to my ipad, attach a description and email from anywhere I have 3G. 

Slight HDR processing makes this a great colour shot,
but I think the B&W is best. Comment and tell me your choice.

Wish I had that when we were covering the event. To meet the on road demand I had to quickly update my laptop so I had enough power to process on the road and connect to the hotspots. I had a G4 Powerbook that just wasn't up to the task and ended up buying the last MacBook Pro available in Halifax and prep it over night to hit the road the next day (one of those last minute things).

I know it seems a bit much but you have to be prepared to meet the clients requests. Fortunately I was prepared for an upgrade, just not that one. I had just added an iMac (planned to process the images when I got back not on the road) and wanted to hold off on the laptop upgrade until I figured out what would fit best. Don't get me wrong, this macbook is great, just a little over kill. A mac air would have done as great a job beefed up to my needs and smaller to carry. Oh well, next one.

Any way, to get back on topic, here's what the original looked like. Not a wonder but has potential. I recently opened this up in Nik Silver Efex Pro and did a BW conversion. I don't know if you agree with me but what a difference. Diamond in the rough for sure.

So let your work breath. Go back over them during times of the year you're not shooting, like the dead of winter, and don't be afraid to experiment. Above all shhot those in RAW and you'll find you have a lot more to work with than you thought you did.

Enjoy, Derek

Summer Update from Nova Scotia

Okay, here I am again with updates to 2010.

Last time I left off talking about the Whale Car for the Bay of Fundy (June 5th launch). Which by the way has been a great success.

Terri McCulloch, Executive Director of the Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership, has travelled all over mainland Nova Scotia and New Brunswick including a couple of trips back and forth across the Bay of Fundy on the Bay Ferries Princess of Acadia.

If you go to the Bay of Fundy Travel Show you can see what she has been up to.

Of course I shared the Route Halifax Saint Pierre Ocean Race start here in Halifax , Nova Scotia on the 10th of July. That race was an amazing one with record finishes and strong winds at the finish. Go to the Route Halifax Saint Pierre site to see the results and to check out more photos. You can check mine of the start at RHSP 2010 July 2010 start.

But now for a few updates. August brought exceptional weather to these waters for one amazing Chester Race week, August 11 - 14. If you've never experienced this event it is a must.

It is an annual regatta that attracts racers from all over the maritimes for the bragging rights of saying you won at Chester.

The weather couldn't have been better and for me it was the most enjoyable to date.

Aboard Ann Acland's new Archambault A31, Anticipation, we battled and won first place position in the A3 class. I must mention this boat was brand new, and as a crew, we had only sailed her for 4 events. The crew, consisting of 7 of the greatest mates I've had the privilege to sail with. I have been consistently racing with most of them for the past 5 years.

So when we won it was fabulous. To top that off we garnered the privilege of landing on the cover of the September issue of Canadian Yachting. That's me in red.

Here's the crew list as we appear in the photo ( Ann is actually between Owen and Phil in the grey cap) : A31 « Anticipation » crew : Rob MacLellan (CAN/Bow) – Derek Mason (CAN/Mast) – Jacqueline Stevens (CAN/Trim) – Owen Grace (CAN/Pit) – Philipe Dumaresq (CAN/Trim) – Cindy Roberts (CAN/Main & Tactics) – Ann Acland (CAN/Skipper & Helm).

To finish this one off, there are a couple of photos of our return trip from Chester on the 15th {HERE}. Even that was amazing. Note how calm the seas were on the way back. You'll also notice a number of fellow competitors sharing the day home.

Tommorrow, Hurricane Earl and Prospect, September 5, 2010.