The circumstances in which this photo came to be was something of a comedy of errors, but I’ll just give you a quick overview.  When we drove up to her rehearsal space where we were going to shoot, there was a car literally hanging from a power line a half block from the space.  An odd sight, but we drove by and carried on with the day and set up to shoot.  I took a couple test shots and just as I said “alright, lets start taking some shots” the power went out in the whole windowless building.  So that wrapped our one minute shoot, and this was one of our test shots that ended up being a final shot.

As soon as we packed up in the dark, using my laptop as the only source of light, we had to deal with a bunch of locks to secure the room. As she pulled her key out of the last lock, all the lights came back on and full power had returned… but we figured we nailed it with our one minute photo shoot.

Follow him on twitter, he’s throwing down new stuff all the time!

She and Bill Richardson (CBC Radio Host & Author) have paired up for a performance I personally cannot wait to check out at Vancouver’s Push Festival this year.  It’s called Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata.  I was lucky enough to get a little teaser of the performance while I was photographing Veda at her piano, and I have to admit it was difficult to keep my camera steady while I was giggling through her lyrics.

I highly recommend seeing this show if you spend any time on Craigslist, or even if you don’t!  Check out the interview and article HERE, or pick up a copy this week!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE

I was told that the shoes were an important feature to capture that day, so I wanted to grab a dramatic image for the lovely bride.  Her husband (to-be, at that time) had sent a big boquet of flowers to her earlier that day, so I brought the shoes and flowers outside when the rain and clouds had cleared and the sun revealed itself to help me light the shot.  Below is the feature shot of the shoes..

I wanted to share my piece and the story.  When I first received my package, I was told I had an 8 year boy who wasn’t allowed to leave his property, and the setting I was given was a small park in Kerrisdale.  Off the top I assumed I would have to do a composite based on my model’s limitations.  I checked out the location and started brainstorming imagery that would work with an 8 year old.  When I spoke to my model’s mother she told me she had no problem bringing him to the location and that he was 13 years old and 6ft tall!  This changed my vision, so I went back to the drawing board.  I was having a difficult time with the location too, but when I met my model there and had him bring all kinds of props and a little tickle trunk of clothes we had a blast.  I had him in a cape up in a tree, laying on the ground in a suit, posing in the parking lot with a grass skirt around his neck and blowing into a conch shell.  The latter is what you see in the image.

To incorporate the location I decided to take the empty shots of the park I took when I first scouted it, and overlay them with an effect to create the textures you see.  As I found out from the Photographer who submitted my location when we chatted at the exhibit, the location I should have been given was a beach in Tsawwassen that had the same name as the park in Kerrisdale.  Quite different!  But the experience pushed me to move outside my comfort zone and create something I never could have planned any other way.

Thanks again to the crew involved with the show for having me on board!