Donald's Eye Photographic Services

Galleries

Vancouver Pride 2012 : My way to enjoy the Pride Parade is to wander about the marshaling point talking to people, and taking pictures as I go (as opposed to trying to take pictures from the sidewalk -- behind 12 other people all trying to do the same ;-)). This way I get to meet people and find out a little about them :-). So here are my favourite pictures from this year.

Vancouver Pride 2012

Cool and Flaming : Model: Mieke; makeup/hair: Cathy Lee; date: 27 May, 2012
This set is an honest and hopefully respectful homage to a New York photographer I met online named Lexy Page. Lexy specializes in glamour headshots, which sounds very limiting... until you see just how much creativity she pours into each one she does. Her work is inspiring enough that I definitely wanted to try doing something like it myself, and Mieke and Cathy Lee were game to play along ;-). We did two looks for the set, the first one cool and flirty, and the second one rather more, um, passionate! I have to say as well that this set benefited enormously from Lexy's generous advice and feedback. I just hope we measured up!

Cool and Flaming

A Walk in the Park : Model: Mieke; makeup/hair: Sarah; date: 25 May, 2012
This shoot was inspired by an earlier "photo walk" I did with Monica, but this time instead of the New Westminster Quay, I wanted to take Mieke on a walk through Burnaby Central Park. So Sarah gave Mieke a wonderful natural makeup and hair look, and we proceeded to wander. As before, we stopped whenever we found something neat to play with, be it friendly wildlife, or exercise equipment (which somehow we never did quite use the way we were supposed to ;-)), or a tree stump, or a bridge, or... :-)

A Walk in the Park

Gravity Games : Model: Mieke; makeup/hair: Lawrence; date: 23 May, 2012
Toward the end of the Fabric shoot I did with Yvonne, I noticed that in some of them, gravity didn't quite seem to be working the way one expected. And I thought that might actually make for an interesting theme for an entire shoot. So I was very pleased when Mieke agreed to give the it a try :-). And Lawrence did a wonderful job with the makeup and hair!
So the basic idea is this: in the pictures that follows, gravity is never down. Never.. If it looks like Mieke is laying down, we probably took the picture with her standing upright. If it looks like she's standing, she was probably laying down ;-). And if it looks like she was flying... well, you figure it out! :-)

Cometh the Auditor : Model: Mieke; makeup/hair/wardrobe: Carolina; date: 6 March, 2012
Steampunk has interested me as a visual genre for some time, so I guess it's not altogether surprising that it surfaced when actress/model Mieke and I were considering possible shoot themes. And I was very pleased when Carolina (with whom I had last worked on our Superhero shoot) agreed to take on the makeup, hair and wardrobe. The result was surprisingly spontaneous: neither Mieke nor I had any idea what Carolina had come up with until we arrived at the Westminster Club for the shoot. But once we saw what she had in mind, the following narrative line suggested itself ;-):

"When the East India Company asked The Firm to have their best forensic auditor examine the books, so as to determine just how the fraud had been carried out, they little realized just whom they would be sent."

Cometh the Auditor

Let the Fabric Fly : Model: Yvonne; makeup: Gabriela; date: 2 March, 2012
This shoot arose from Yvonne's interest in exploring what we could do with a single large piece of fabric. The one we eventually settled on (fabric stores can be interesting places! :-)), was black, translucent, and shiny on one side, and after some practice, Yvonne developed some quite creative ways to throw it about -- all of these images were produced without the benefit of props or assistants. Some of them even came out the way we expected! :-) But for me, the most interesting ones may have been the ones we did in the stairwell at the end. It looks eerily like Yvonne is actually standing upright in them, but in fact she's sprawled out (elegantly, of course!) along the stairs. Gravity really didn't seem to work the same way in that stairwell the way it does elsewhere... But I mustn't forget to give a big thank-you to Gabriela: the shoot would have been much the poorer without the wonderful beauty look she came up with for Yvonne!

Let the Fabric Fly

Photo-Walk with Monica : Model: Monica; makeup: Gabriela; date: 23 February, 2012
Since Monica's efforts in the previous shoot I did with her were, well, kind of invisible ;-), I thought I owed it to her to give her a shoot where we could actually see what she looked like! :-) And I had the thought that it might be fun just to walk along the New Westminster Quay and take pictures whenever the mood struck us. Monica was game, Gabriela gave her a wonderful beauty look, and even the weather cooperated... well, at least in terms of sunshine. It was also pretty darn cold for a short, sleeveless dress! But Monica worked through it like a real trouper! So maybe now I owe her a shoot where she doesn't have to freeze...

Photo-Walk with Monica

La nuit d'or : Model: Natasha; makeup: Anne; date: 7 February, 2012
The idea behind this shoot was to produce a conceptual video advertisement for a non-existant (as far as I know) perfume called, "La nuit d'or" (The Night of Gold). Advertisements frequently feature an alluring and beautiful woman to help sell their wares. Natasha is all of that, and an actress besides, and when I suggested we take the idea and see how far we could push it, she was all for it! Anne gave us a suitably glamorous beauty look, and Natasha proceeded to turn it on -- and up! (I'm glad my camera didn't melt! ;-)).
The intention for this shoot was always to produce a video as the final output. These stills will give you a good idea of how the video goes, but you can see the video itself here. Be warned: there is no soundtrack -- at least for now. Any volunteers to produce one? :-)

The Golden Hour : Model: Erica; makeup: Anne; date: 1 February, 2012
The two previous times I had worked with Erica had involved lots of makeup. So I thought it might be a pleasant change to do a pure beauty shoot with her instead :-). She liked the idea, and Anne gave her a wonderful beauty look :-). And while that was going on, I had the task of deciding between two dresses Erica had brought with her, a lovely "Little Black Dress" and this gold one. I eventually decided for the gold one -- which decision revealed itself to be the correct one when we walked into the room we were shooting in and discovered it to be streaming with sunlight! So between the dress and the sun and Erica's red hair, it truly was a golden hour.

The Golden Hour

The Dark Flare vs The Ghost : Models: Rachelle (The Dark Flare), Monica (The Ghost); makeup: Gabriela; hair/wardrobe: Carolina; date: 3 February, 2012
What kind of project do you come up with for a model like Rachelle who is a full six feet tall (183 cm), and who is superbly fit -- owing to having been until quite recently a member of Simon Fraser University's track and field team! Well, if you have the sort of ill-disciplined imagination I do, it strikes you she would make a brilliant superhero! And if you are lucky enough to have collaborators like Gabriela and Carolina, said superhero comes out looking absolutely amazing! And add Monica to the mix, a friend of Rachelle's who was willing to be photoshopped into unrecognizability :-), and you get The Dark Flare vs The Ghost -- absolutely the most fun I have had behind a camera since I don't know when! :-D

The Dark Flare vs The Ghost

With Catlike Grace : Model: Zoë; makeup: Anne; date: 8 December, 2011
When Zoë, last seen here, suggested we do "some kind of feline shoot", I don't think either of us had any idea at all of where it would lead. But when you put a challenge like that down in front of a talented makeup artist like Anne, what happens next can be... extraordinary! And when Zoë saw the results, she fairly lept into character! :-)

With Catlike Grace

Inflorecence : Creative director/styling: Sammy Tong; model: Yoshimi; makeup/hair: Andy; date: 3 December, 2011
This shoot came about when Sammy Tong, a design student at VCAD, approached me to photograph an editorial she was developing as a class project. In the past I have frequently been the "creative director" of my own shoots; in this case, Sammy had already lined up Yoshimi and Andy to be the model and makeup artist respectively, she had already lined up a location and "dressed" it with a mixture of flowers, pictures and jewelry... All I had to do, basically, was show up, light the place, and shoot! :-) It was actually quite refreshing in some ways, and startling in others (I had to figure out just what kinds of shots Sammy was looking for, rather than just shooting what appealed to me ;-)). But the results of all the work we all put into the day were really wonderful, and I hope I get to do another shoot like this soon!

Eni and the Post : Model: Enikő Viglás; date: 16 November, 2011
Enikő, Eni for short, is a young model who has just moved to Canada from Hungary -- their loss, our gain! :-) She has a definite taste for dark and alternate subjects, but when I asked her if she was interested in doing more "normal" gigs as well, she indicated she was. So I thought it might be useful to get some pictures in her portfolio that showed her full emotional range, as it were. When we got to post-production, however, Eni suggested that each picture should get its own style, specifically suited to its own emotions. And so we wound up deploying a large number of different techniques to try to enhance the mood (some of them definitely a bit more off the wall than others! :-)).

Eni and the Post

Zoë's Test Shoot : Model: Zoë, date: 8 September, 2011
I will admit this is about as spontaneous a set of pictures as I have ever posted. The last time I worked with Zoë, it was to record her impressive fire spinning skills. A couple of weeks ago we met for coffee, and to talk about her interest in doing some modelling. And after we finished our coffee, it was a natural idea to proceed to a nearby park and try out a few test shots. Well, not since Tess have I seen someone blow away a test shoot like that! Indeed, when we finished going over the pictures, I had to ask her if I could post them! :-)
So here, with no preparation, no plan, and no makeup whatsoever, allow me to present to you the remarkable Zoë Collins. It will not be the last time you see her here!

Zoë's Test Shoot

La boda de Sara y Pedro : Date: 21 August, 2011.
Wedding photography is not exactly a speciality of mine, but when my friend Sara called me up and asked if I would photograph hers, I couldn't refuse :-). It was, in fact, a very small wedding: Sara and her fiancé, the two friends who had introduced them :-) and the marriage commisioner (and me, if I count!). But it was no less heartfelt for that. The location was wonderful, and Sara and Pedro looked somewhere between ecstatic and stunned :-). Just what a wedding should be, I think!

La boda de Sara y Pedro

The Three Martini Picnic : Model: Alicia; makeup: Anne; date: 15 August, 2011
I have been hoping to get the chance to work with Alicia again ever since we did A Girl and Her Closet two years ago. So I was very pleased when we recently agreed on the idea of a somewhat tipsy, but nevertheless definitely glamorous suburban picnic. Anne provided a great makeup look for us, and Alicia knocked the glam out of the park! (so to speak :-)) And hopefully it won't take another two years before I get to work with her again!

The Three Martini Picnic

Vancouver Pride 2011 : Date: 31 July, 2011
This is a personal and somewhat quiet perspective on Pride, which is certainly not namely for being quiet! But the truth is, my favourite way to attend a parade is not to stand on the sidelines, nor even have an official position that allows me into the street for the best possible shots ;-). Rather, what I like to do is to wander around the marshalling point, and talk to people and find out their stories: why they're here and why they're excited about it. And Pride can be a very special place to do that :-).

Vancouver Pride 2011

Lady of the Lake : Model: Levon; makeup: Anne; hair: Carolina Jean; date: 10 July, 2011
The "Lake" in this shoot is not actually a body of water, but 1940s film star Veronica Lake :-). My second shoot with Levon started when she suggested she might like to do a shoot in the style of that lady. I was lucky enough to get Anne to do the makeup, since she had worked with Levon in our previous shoot, and Carolina Jean to do her hair -- actually my first shoot with separate people doing makeup and hair (though I have worked with Carolina Jean before as well).
When we finished the shoot, however, we found ourselves with a conundrum, namely whether to render the pictures in black and white, or in colour. The period argued for black and white, but especially the pictures we did in the nearby Friendship Gardens look so wonderful in colour that it fealt hard to “reduce” them to monochrome. Though it must be conceded, they do look very like production stills from a 1940s movie that way :-). However when Exhaustive Research (thanks, everyone!) revealed that everybody else seemed as divided as we were ourselves, I resolved simply to split the difference, and put roughly half of the pictures in colour, and the other half in black and white :-). So now you can decide for yourself which looks better! :-) (I did leave the very last few pictures in colour, because they just don't seem to have the magic in monochrome.)

Lady of the Lake

The Letter : Model: Levon; makeup: Anne; date: 29 May, 2011
Levon would technically be classified as a novice model, but I have seldom seen anyone absorb the craft as quickly! For this shoot, we were working with the idea of reading a letter and reacting to it. But it kept getting more interesting! :-) I thought the library of the Westminster Club in New Westminster, BC would provide us with a terrific atmospheric and classy location, Levon thought it had a sixties feel, and Anne, our makeup artist thought Audrey Hepburn would be an interesting look! And then we did a set of kind of "warm up" shots before moving on to our main story... only they turned out so well I have to show them off! :-)
Finally, while the rich, warm, wood and leather tones of the Club make for some lovely colours, we also decided we wanted to render at least some of the pictures in black and white -- and even there we went for a twist: leaving Levon's lips in colour for some of those :-). Shoots with this much creativity are absolutely the best kind!

The Energy Drink : Model: Alex; date: 13 May, 2011
This shoot tells the story of an energy drink commercial gone, well, rather off the rails ;-). Alex and I had a lot of fun with it, right from coming up with a suitably bilious colour for the liquid (no photoshop involved here, folks!), to the hilarious sequence of expressions from Alex. All my shoots should be this much fun!

The Energy Drink

Celebrating Leeann : Model: Leeann;makeup: Anne; date: 10 May, 2011
Some well-meaning people sometimes accuse fashion models of looking anorexic. Actually, no one who has ever known a real anorexic would make that mistake -- real anorexics are honestly scary to look at. And no one today would look at Leeann and believe that was ever what she looked like. What she does look like is: comfortable with herself, healthy and radiantly happy. And that is definitely something to celebrate!

Celebrating Leeann

Charlie Sepúlveda Big Band : Date: 24 April, 2011; location: El San Juan Hotel
Charlie Sepúlveda is a Latin jazz trumpeter who has performed with the likes of Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Paquito de Rivera. For the last couple of years he has been putting together a glorious old-style Latin big band: four trumpets, four saxes, three trombones, plus the usual Latin battery, bass and keyboards :-). This was the second year that my wife and I had the privilege of hearing them at the El San Juan hotel in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico, and it was a real treat -- again! They cover a lot of the traditional repertoire, putting their own spin on classics from Pérez Prado to Tito Puente. My only disappointment is that they still haven't put any of this on CD!
Photographing the band in this venue was, to put it mildly, a challenge :-). They played in the hotel lobby: a wonderful space of rich dark woods ... and no theatre lighting of any kind! So after trying more or less everything else, I eventually cranked the ISO all the way to 6400 and finally managed to get an acceptable balance of ambient light and flash -- at the expense of a lot of grain. But then I thought: you know, that grain might actually look good in black and white...

Charlie Sepúlveda Big Band

Hats Off to Spring! : On April 17, 2011, the New Westminster Lions Club held its sixth annual fashion show and auction, “Hats Off to Spring!”, in order to raise money for the Monarch Place women's shelter. The event was held at the Westminster Club and featured fashions by Nygård, and I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to photograph the event.

Hats Off to Spring!

Fire in the Night : Model: Zoë; date: 7 April, 2011
Fire spinning or poi spinning is something that I have seen before, but never had the opportunity to photograph with anything better than an old point-and-shoot. So when Zoë offered me the chance to photograph her in action with as much lighting gear as I liked :-), I was absolutely overjoyed. Flash may seem like an odd thing to bring to a fire spinning shoot, but in fact I think the judicious mixture of flame, flash and the deep blue of the evening sky came out really well. What do you think? :-)

Fire in the Night

CelticFest 2011: The Parade : Of course, the main event of CelticFest 2011 was the parade :-). Fortunately, the weather was perfect (such a change from the rain and snow in 2009!) It is very hard to convey a parade in just a few pictures, but hopefully these will give you an idea :-).

CelticFest 2011: The Parade

CelticFest 2011: Workshops : CelticFest 2011 included the usual wide variety of workshops ... as well as some new ones! They ranged from an informative and witty talk about the origins of the kilt and its accoutrements ("Why DO They Wear That?") to workshops on how to perform on various instruments used in Celtic Music. The last workshop, and one of the most popular, featured Stephanie Cadman explaining how to stepdance :-).

CelticFest 2011: Workshops

CelticFest 2011: AfroCeltic Dance Party : After 2009's Celtic Salsa, one of the most eagerly awaited events for this year was the AfroCeltic Dance Party, which brought together local talent from the Mad Pudding and a host of well known talent from across Canada ranging from guitarist Alpha Yaya Diallo to violinist/stepdancer Stephanie Cadman and mad percussionist Boris Sichon -- and the evening ROCKED!

CelticFest 2011: AfroCeltic Dance Party

CelticFest 2011: Outdoor Venues : This was my second year serving as an Official Photographer for the Vancouver CelticFest, and once again I wound up taking rather a lot of pictures :-). Many of them have already been published on the official CelticFest website, but this is my own personal selection. I hope you like them!

For this year (unlike the previous time), I thought I would break the festival up into separate galleries, for the different sorts of events I covered. This gallery is devoted to the outdoor concerts (the parade will get its own gallery!).

CelticFest 2011: Outdoor Venues

Dances With Broom : Model: Donya;makeup: Tess; date: 25 February, 2011
This shoot attempts to answer the question of what happens when dancers clean house :-).
Okay, more seriously, one of the delights of shooting with Donya is that her years of ballet training have given her a wonderful grace of movement: shoots with her frequently feel rather like stop-motion interpretive dance :-). So one day, I wondered what would happen if we turned that grace loose ... on ordinary housework. I asked Donya, who was delighted, we brought Tess in for the makeup -- her last shoot with me before she headed off to New Zealand -- and magic happened!

Dances With Broom

Bejewelled : Model: Dane; makeup/hair: Elizabeth; date: 23 February, 2011
Like the recent Pair of Sparkling Eyes shoot, this one was also driven by Elizabeth's makeup (which took five hours to apply, by the way). But remarkable as that was, the shoot would only have been half as effective in the hands of a less experienced model: Dane took one look at the result and slipped into a fey, unearthly and definitely unsettling character that is a very long way indeed from her own easy-going personality. This is one shoot it was a privilege to be part of.

Tess's Down Under(s)

Gillian at the Wall : Artist: Gillian Hobbs; makeup: Nicole; date: 21 February, 2011
Gillian Hobbs is a Vancouver-based singer, guitarist and songwriter whom I have photographed before. But the nice thing about doing promotional pictures rather than pictures taken during a real performance was I didn't have to worry about a microphone in the middle of her face :-). I can't say that these pictures convey much of what Gillian is like as a performer (for that, head on over to her website ;-)), but what with Nicole's wonderful beauty makeup (a side benefit of doing a photoshoot is getting a professional makeover ;-)) and the atmosphere of the Ironworks Studios, perhaps these visuals can help set the mood for you :-).

Gillian at the Wall

The Pink Mask : Model: Marie Hélène; makeup: Tess; date: 19 February, 2011
This was the second of Tess's avant-garde makeup creations, for which she brought in a friend of hers, Marie Hélène, to be the model. Marie Hélène did not exactly have a lot of modelling experience coming in to the shoot ;-), but after Tess transformed her into a glittering icon of style, she set to with a will, and we got a lot of very cool shots!

Coloured Black and Silver : Model: Rochelle; makeup: Tess; date: 12 February, 2011
I had had a hankering to play with coloured gel filters for my flashes for a while, and Tess was so kind as to produce a remarkably vivid black and silver makeup job for it. And Rochelle sat patiently in the light while I tried every colour combination I could think of (well, actually we kind of ran out of time :-)).

Coloured Black and Silver

Medium Toasty : Model: Ava; makeup: Tess; date: 10 February, 2011
My friend Tess has always been telling me she wanted to do a special effects type shoot with simulated burn makeup, so when she told me she was going to move back to New Zealand for a while, I knew it was now or never. So I thought of the Batman villain Two-Face, and offered the following idea: "On one side of her face, she was a beautiful society woman; on the other, she was ... Medium Toasty". Tess was delighted with the idea, and Ava was happy to be the vict--, oh, sorry, I meant, "be the model" :-). And here's the results!

One word about the lighting: my original idea was to have glamour lighting on one side, and a dramatic red filter on the other, but Tess pointed out that the burn makeup actually looks even grosser (and more realistic) without the red filter. We tried both (the red filter shots start at #13); what do you think? :-)

The Colour of Dark : Model: Erica; makeup: Tess; Date: 30 January, 2011
This shoot reunited the team who produced The Elf & Ivy last year. Tess had always wanted to do a blacklight makeup job, Erica was game to try, and I thought it would be really interesting to light! And the results were fascinating: personally, I think Erica looks like she's wearing some kind of camouflage -- but not for this planet! :-).

The Colour of Dark

A Pair of Sparkling Eyes : Model: Tammy; makeup/hair: Elizabeth; date: 11 January, 2011
Different shoots are about different ideas, and this one was specifically about the makeup. Elizabeth had a look she wanted to get for her portfolio, and Tammy and I were basically just there to help her get it ;-). In fact, Tammy gave us a perfect attitude: elegant and sophisticated, and it was a seriously amazing look! :-D

A Pair of Sparkling Eyes

Contest Number 2 : Welcome to Donald's Eye's Second Contest! They way this one works is I publish a small fragment (initially, a very small fragment :-)) of one of my pictures; and you guess which picture it is from. If a day goes by and no one has guessed it correctly, then I will publish another, larger fragment of the same picture. The fragments will get bigger quickly, and by the seventh day or so, I'm sure it will be very easy for just about anyone to figure it out, so the only question is, who will figure it out first?

To be a bit more precise, I am publishing the first clue on Wednesday, January 19, at noon, Pacific Time (3pm in Ontario/Québec, 8pm in London, and 6am Thursday in poor, soggy Brisbane in Australia). Thereafter, each day at noon, I will examine all the comments on the previous day's clue. If someone has guessed correctly, I will declare that person the winner. Otherwise, I will add a new, larger clue to the gallery. Bear in mind, by the way, that you can only submit one guess for each clue (and as before, the comment has to include your name and email address).

A word about the fragments. They are taken directly from the original image, and they have not been rotated, distorted or had their colours changed in any way. Note they have been taken from the original, full-sized image, whereas most of the pictures I publish on the site are at a reduced size (roughly 25 to 33%, depending). So the fragment is actually going to be higher resolution than the picture you are comparing it with :-).

As before, there will be a prize; in fact the same range of prizes as before: a large (approximately 8.5x11 inches) print of your choice of any of the pictures from the solo shoots featuring following models: Alex, Ava Rose, Donya, Erica, Kim, Natasha and Tess. Or if you prefer, you can choose a picture from one of my galleries without models instead (Travels, Studies, Paprika).

There will also be a second prize for the person who figures out first how I am picking the sizes of the clue fragments -- including the starting values! :-)

Contest Number 2

First Great Scavenger Hunt -- Solutions! :

First Great Scavenger Hunt -- Solutions!

First Great Scavenger Hunt : A Scavenger Hunt on Donald's Eye!

This Scavenger Hunt is now finished -- the clues have been solved and the prize has been won. Feel free to have a go yourself, however, if you wish :-). Warning: everyone tells me it's pretty difficult!

First Great Scavenger Hunt

2010 Viewers Favourites : This gallery is a small tribute to the sets that you, the viewers, liked best in 2010. To rank them, for each set I first took the average over the year of how many times each of its pictures had been viewed. Then, since some sets have been there longer than others, I averaged that number over the number of days the set was up during the year. So for each set, I was comparing the average views per picture per day :-).

And according to that number, these were your ten favourite sets! (I also included three honourable mentions ;-))

2010 Viewers Favourites

Petrifying Pooch Parade! : Date: 30 October, 2010
On the Saturday before Hallowe'en, I had the great pleasure to be invited to photograph a Petrifying Pooch Parade!, that is, a parade of dogs wearing hallowe'en costumes :-), that had been organized in New Westminster by Calli Co Pet Services. We had a great turnout, the weather was awesome (the forecast was for rain ;-)), and three lucky dogs walked away with prizes for their costumes! By the way, a number of pictures from this gallery have been published by the Royal City Record newspaper!

Petrifying Pooch Parade!

Rock It Babe! : Model: Ava; makeup/hair: Carolina Jean; date: 22 October, 2010
This set started life as an "extreme posing" exercise, but of course the person doing the posing still has to be someone, and who better to incarnate extreme posing than a flamboyant rock goddess? Ava Rose supplied oodles of attitude, and Carolina Jean provided some expertly flamboyant makeup, plus a totally amazing hairdo, and we were off and rocking!

Steam to Strand : Model: Tyler; makeup: Tess; date: 19 October, 2010
Tyler is an aspiring model and a friend of Natalie who did the Impatience set with me. She suggested a couple of evocative locations around Port Moody for our shoot, one being a rail car museum that evoked a kind of "Orient Express" feeling, and the other a marshy area down by the Burrard Inlet. So we decided on a somewhat historical look: Tess gave her a wonderful old-school glam look and Tyler came up with a marvellous dress for the part, and off we went! And the results were wonderful!

Steam to Strand

A Flash of Glam : Model: Hayley; makeup/hair/wardrobe: Carolina; T-shirt: Sunro Printworks; date: 6 October, 2010
This shoot came about as part of a project to highlight modelling in the city of New Westminster; hence everyone involved in the shoot was from New Westminster, and the shoot itself took place partly on the lawn, and afterward in the "factory" at Sunro Printworks, in New West's Victory Heights neighbourhood. And we were all very pleased to get a clear shot of Mt Baker in the background, too!
Incidentally, the image on the t-shirt was also taken in New Westminster, namely on the New West Quay -- and those are in fact the same shoes Hayley wore for the shoot!

A Flash of Glam

New West Side Story : Models: Ava, Steve; makeup: Lina; date: 3 October, 2010
This shoot came about as part of a project to highlight modelling in the city of New Westminster; hence everyone involved in the shoot was from New Westminster, and the shoot itself took place on the Skywalk leading to the New West Quay :-). For this shoot, we decided to tell a 50s story of a romance between two people on opposite sides of the tracks, as it were.

New West Side Story

And This Time We Mean It!

Introducing Tess : Model/makeup: Tess; date: 13 September, 2010
Tess is actually a makeup artist by trade, but people have been telling her for years she should try getting on the other side of the camera. So one afternoon, after she and I had worked with Ava on the Afternoon Light shoot, we did a kind of impromptu shoot with her too! She gave herself a kind of "office/glam" look :-), I set up some hopefully suitable lighting, and we proceeded to shoot away. You can decide for yourself how you think she did, but as for me, well, let's just say you will be seeing her on this website again soon! :-)

Introducing Tess

Afternoon Light : Model: Ava; makeup: Tess; date: 13 September, 2010
This was the second of two shoots I did with Ava that were largely lighting studies (the first was Evening Light). In this one, I had in mind not so much direct sunlight, but rather indirect, diffuse light coming in from a large window in the afternoon. Tess gave Ava a beautiful, soft beauty look, and Ava just sat quietly, musing on -- well, I'm not sure, maybe her next film? ;-)

Afternoon Light

The Elf and Ivy : Model: Erica; makeup: Tess; Date: 11 September, 2010
This set is not about a pub :-), but rather arose from Erica having created a costume covered with ivy leaves. And once you have an ivy leaf costume, what do you do with it? Well, for one thing, you could turn yourself into an elfin pixie type forest creature. OR you could turn yourself into the Batman villainess Poison Ivy! Or indeed both! :-) (Especially when you have a talented makeup artist like Tess around!)

The Elf and Ivy

Evening Light : Model: Ava; date: 8 September, 2010
This was the first of two shoots I did with Ava that were largely lighting studies (the second was was Afternoon Light). In this one I wanted to explore balancing evening sunset light with my flashes, so Ava and I went down to the New Westminster Quay and found a nice spot overlooking the Fraser River -- fortunately the evening sky did not disappoint! And neither did Ava!! :-D

Impatience : Model: Natalie; makeup: Nicole; date: 29 August, 2010
This shoot divided into two parts. In the first part, Natasha went through some various modelling-type poses -- the sort of thing that will hopefully look good in her portfolio :-). For the second part, we did a little scenario, of Natasha arriving to meet someone at this fountain, then waiting more and more impatiently, and then finally walking off, annoyed at having been stood up. From her expression, I would want to have been the one who made her wait!

Fire, Flowers and Fountains : Model: Kerbie; date: 26 August, 2010
This set was photographed in Vancouver's beautiful Queen Elizabeth Park, where they have flowers and fountaining waters in abundance! :-) But the fire was all Kerbie's own: she is a very experienced model indeed and I have rarely met anyone whose connection to the camera is so intense!

Fire, Flowers and Fountains

At the Water's Edge : Model: Natalie; makeup: Nicole; date: 16 August, 2010
This set came about for no better reason than Natalie wanting some casual pictures of herself at the beach for her website. So Nicole gave her a lovely casual beauty makeup and we all trooped over to Kitsilano Beach and even managed to find a nice secluded, shady little nook for ourselves. And Natalie looked totally radiant :-).

At the Water's Edge

Aurora's Hats, and Kitchen Couture : Model: Aurora; makeup: Tess; date: 6 August, 2010
This set had two parts. The part first we shot in the Spectral Theater where she performs; she did her own makeup, and we organized the shoot around a motley collection of hats that Aurora thought would be interesting to improvise with.
The second part was quite different. Aurora has a very lovely champaign-coloured gown, and we were trying to think what kind of location we could do that hadn't been absolutely done to death (e.g. hotel ballrooms and industrial sites :-)). And we thought one place where one seldom sees haute couture is in the kitchen! :-) For this part, we brought in Tess (last seen in Olga's maternity shoot), and proceeded to see what we could create in Aurora's kitchen. Some of the pictures are hilarious, and some of them more than slightly menacing (!), but none of them are dull!

Aurora's Hats, and Kitchen Couture

Vancouver Pride 2010 : It would be a sad year that I didn't get to go to Vancouver Pride, but this year I was unable to stay for the whole parade. So instead, I decided to spend all of my time at the marshalling point, wandering around and talking to people and taking pictures. And in the end, I didn't really miss the parade at all! :-)

Vancouver Pride 2010

Ava's Double Vision : Model: Ava; date: 30 July, 2010
This rather odd set came about because I wanted to experiment with my camera's ability to do more than one exposure in a single picture. (No, this isn't Photoshop!) So Ava and I thought it would be interesting to have the two exposures illustrate contrasting sides of her personality.

Ava's Double Vision

Katie Maternity : Model: Katie, date: 24 July, 2010
My second maternity shoot took place in the incredibly peaceful surroundings of the farm that Katie and her husband Brad have near Abbotsford, BC. It was also assisted by Katie's young son Owen ... and a number of curious cows! :-)

Katie Maternity

Desperate, Poolside : Model: Ava; makeup: Cayley; date: 20 July, 2010
This shoot started because Ava felt she needed a bikini set for her portfolio. However many bikini shoots look very similar, and Ava wanted something that would really stand out from the crowd. So how does one do a bikini shoot that is different from most others? Answer: one does a High Fashion bikini shoot, of course! :-) So we set ourselves the question, what would a bikini shoot look like if it were done by one of the major fashion houses? We brought Cayley back to do the makeup (last seen here in The Audition), and she really came through for us! And in the end, I think what came out of the shoot was stylistically quite reminiscent of a certain television program...

Desperate, Poolside

Olga Maternity : Model: Olga; makeup: Tess; date: 18 July, 2010
This was my first maternity shoot ever, and I could not have asked for a more enthusiastic subject -- or rather collaborator -- that Olga :-): she was eager to try all sorts of ideas.

The Trippie Hippie : Model: Ava; date: 15 July, 2010
With the arrival (finally!) of some nice summery weather, Ava thought we should go out and "commune with nature" (in this case, Queen's Park in New West) for this shoot. She is of course far too young to have experienced the hippie movement first hand, but her flower child looked pretty convincing to me! :-)

The Trippie Hippie

The Forest Flute : Model: Fija; date: 8 July, 2010
This set came about because Fija was interested in doing a "medieval faerie tale" shoot. She suggested Burnaby's Central Park for a location, which turned out to be perfect -- though the day was hot enough that I'm sure those gowns must have been really warm!

The Forest Flute

The Creature of Victoria Park : Model: Kim; makeup: Lyndsay; date: 4 July 2010.
This was the third part of my Great Shoot with Kim in Regina. For this one Lyndsay turned her imagination wild, and transformed Kim into a strange and alien creature whom I then had the pleasure of photographing amidst the dragonflies and voracious mosquitoes of Victoria Park :-).

The Creature of Victoria Park

Fashion on the Street : Models: Kim and Curtis; makeup: Lyndsay; date: 4 July 2010.
This was the second part of what seems to be becoming my annual shoot with Kim (we might work together more frequently if she didn't live 2000 km away!). For this segment, we wanted a High Fashion feel: both models came up with terrific outfits (we all ooh'd and ah'd over Kim's shoes!) and Lyndsay delivered a brilliant makeup job. I then asked Kim and Curtis to give me a look as if they completely owned the street around them. And I'd say they delivered!

Fashion on the Street

Just Beachy : Models: Kim and Curtis; makeup: Lyndsay; date: 4 July 2010.
For the first part of what is apparently becoming my annual shoot with Kim ;-), we decided to head to the beach -- Regina Beach, in fact (yes, there really is such a place!). We were there early, and we could not have asked for better weather! And though Regina Beach is a nice place, personally, I think it looks even better with a couple of great looking models there! :-)

The Sword and the Squid : Model: Alex; date: 27 June, 2010
This set originally came about because Alex told me she wanted to get some pictures done of herself and her cat, who is named Squid :-). But I should have known that wasn't all she had in mind! By the way, if the sword reminds you of anything (hint: "There Can Be Only One"), it should. And it's not a replica :-).

The Sword and the Squid

In the House Festival 2010 : The In the House Festival is a bit different from the norm -- as the name kind of suggests, it is staged in or outside various people's homes. This past June I was one of several photographers covering different events; this is what I got to see :-).

In the House Festival 2010

Jeffery Straker performing in Burnaby : Performer: Jeffery Straker, date: 30 May 2010.
Jeffery Straker is a dynamic singer/songwriter/pianist from Saskatchewan, and I had the remarkable fortune of being able to attend a house concert he gave recently in Burnaby for members of the Maple Leaf Singers (who had just performed an arrangement -- in six parts -- of his song "Slippery Slope"). Still photography really doesn't do justice to Jeffery's animated performance style, but hopefully these pictures will give some idea of what he is like to watch. To find out what he is like to listen to (a much more interesting question!), feel free to visit his web site!

Jeffery Straker performing in Burnaby

Mother's Day Runway : On Monday, May 3, my wife and I decided to spend the last day of our vacation in Puerto Rico at "The Mall", i.e. Plaza las Américas ("the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean"). To our surprise, we discovered that they were holding a fashion runway show there -- in fact, there were going to be fashion runway shows there all that week, leading up of course to Mother's Day. The clothes shown were from various stores in the mall, in this case, Brooke's Brothers, Chico's, White House, and even Brookstone (yes, the gadget store) got in on it (as you can see). And I'm sure there were other's I'm forgetting :-).

At all events, I happily sat myself down at the corner of the end of the runway, and pulled out my camera. And I even met one of the models later ;-). A very nice way to finish our vacation!

Mother's Day Runway

The Three Graces - Part 1 : This photoshoot was devoted to the Three Graces of Classical Greece. It featured Robyn as the Grace of Beauty, Donya as the Grace of Mirth, and Alex as the Grace of Feasting, plus Sean as the Obligatory Attendant ;-). The makeup was done by Cat, Hailey and Jessica.

The Three Graces - Part 1

Babe in the Woods : Model: Ava; date: 18 March, 2010
This set came about firstly because Ava needed some new headshots -- which resulted in my quickly getting a lesson in the meaning of the word "sultry"! However she also wanted to show off another new dress (see here for a previous "new dress" shoot ;-)). We thought that New Westminster's Moody Park might be a nice location, and indeed so it was. "Model in front of a tree" can be a dreadful cliché, but with Ava you never know what you're going to get!

Babe in the Woods

The Last Tea Party : Model: Ava; date: 25 February, 2010
This set centres around someone apparently staging an increasingly strained tea party for her stuffed animals, who include a remarkably expressive green frog.

The Last Tea Party

Donya's Dressing Room : Model: Donya;makeup: Tessa; date: 19 February, 2010
This was the third shoot I did with Donya. Her idea for this one was to take the viewer back fifty years ago or so, to the dressing room of a lady getting ready to go out, with it might be with her husband (i.e. the camera) watching from the other side of the bed.

Donya's Dressing Room

T-Shirts for Two : Models: Alex, Lily; date: 10 February, 2010
The purpose of this set was to produce some advertising images for Sunro Printworks, who produce high quality t-shirts using a Direct to Garment Printing process. The models were Alex and Lily, who also provided a design of her own for a custom t-shirt, which she models at the end of the set. The rest of the designs are images designed by Sunro themselves.

T-Shirts for Two

Dominated : Models: Alex, Lily; date: 10 February, 2010
This set came about mostly on account of Lily, the blonde model, wanted a chance to show off her new corset. So I thought to put her together with Alex, who has one of her own, and then the gears started to turn... Lily's was a beautiful pale blue and Alex's was black with red trim, surely an obvious chance for a "innocent vs dominatrix" scenario. But then I wondered how it would look with the roles reversed? Both models loved the idea, and the results were all I could have hoped for!

Soft and Wild : Model: Ava; date: 5 February, 2010
This was my second shoot with Ava, and we decided to go for two sets, both based around a lovely pink dress she had just bought -- only the moods of the two sets were rather different! The first was indoors: very soft, feminine and even romantic, while for the second, we went for seriously weird on the makeup and put her against a fence around a children's playground, hence the cheerful flowers (which we thought would make for a strange contrast!).

Chef! : I have to admit that Chef Joshua Diotte is nothing like Gareth Blackstock in the British tv series -- other than being very talented at producing delicious food! Actually he is a very pleasant person indeed :-). And since his business is preparing gourmet meals for people in the comfort of their own homes, when he and I got together to do some promotional pictures for his upcoming website, I thought of my lovely friend Donya and her very appealing kitchen :-). She in turn called on two of her friends, and we wound up staging a very lovely dinner party :-).

Incidentally, further details about the dishes Chef Joshua prepared are available at his Facebook page (under the "Photos" tab).

The Audition : Model: Ava; makeup: Cayley; date: 26 January, 2010
Ava is a very enthusiastic, outgoing model with a background in film, so the idea we went for in this shoot was to pretend that she was auditioning for a role for some movie or tv show in some fairly non-descript producer's office. We tried a number of different genres, ranging from broadway to comedy to CSI, and Ava had a wonderful time chewing on the scenery! :-)

Faces of Alex : Model: Alex; date: 27 December, 2009
This set started as a kind of light-sculpting exercise: I was interested in trying to tell a story with just one narrow band of light. But for some reason that I can't fathom, Alex tells me that most photographers don't seem to be much interested in her face. So after that, naturally I had to try a couple of more conventional portraits as well :-).

The Night of All Soles

Star Dancer : Model: Donya, date: 13 November, 2009

Headshots : Models: Robyn, Snow Lady, Stevilee, Tiffany, Olga, Kim, Sarah, Caroline, Arabella, Angela; dates: November, 2007 - October, 2009
Headshots are a very underrated form of photography, in my estimation. While portrait photography in any form ideally will tell you all sorts of things about what a person is like, no other form does it with such immediacy. It is always a joy for me to work with someone to figure out what is the best way to show their face.

A Girl and Her Closet : Model: Alicia; date: 20 October, 2009
The idea for this shoot originally was going to be that Alicia was taking her closet apart looking for something to wear and getting increasingly frustrated at not finding anything suitable for the occasion. But somehow we kept slipping into glam — don't you find it annoying when that happens? :-)

A Girl and Her Closet

The Rainbow Bridge : Model: Snow Lady; date: 18 October, 2009
The location for this shoot was one of Calgary's so-called “+15s”, passageways that connect many of the major buildings in the downtown at the level of the second story (i.e. 15 feet above the ground). It basically means you can get from one place to another without having to face the weather, which in Calgary can actually get quite fierce at times. This +15 in particular has a lot of lovely coloured glass panels, and since we were photographing on a Sunday afternoon, we pretty much had it to ourselves — well, except for a security guard who wanted to make sure we were “just taking pictures” :-)

The Rainbow Bridge

The Touch of the Rose : Model: Stevilee; date: 16 October, 2009
We did the shoot in Calgary, in Fish Creek Park, overlooking the Bow River, which has all sorts of wonderful backdrops for a beautiful lady :-). The weather was somewhat less ideal, however: the temperature was only 10 degrees Celsius! (50 degrees Fahrenheit) So we made sure to take a lot of breaks to allow Stevilee to put her coat back on and warm up!

The Touch of the Rose

Who's the Tallest One of All? : Model: Olga; date: 23 September, 2009
The New Westminster Quay features an object billed as The World's Largest Tin Soldier, and I thought it might be fun to let Olga, who is actually pretty tall in her own right (especially in heels!), appear even taller! :-) Technically it was a challenging spot — I was shooting almost straight into the setting sun, I had to crank my poor lens all the way to f/29 in order to get enough depth of field (no, this wasn't done with Photoshop!), and I had to dial my D80 down to ISO 400 to permit a shutter speed of 1/30. But I do like the result!

Who's the Tallest One of All?

Body Parts : Model: Alex; date: 19 August, 2009
The idea for this set was to take a set of pictures, each of which told its own little story using just one part of Alex's body. Alex found the idea very entertaining, and we had a fine old time shooting it!

Il Dialogo delle Maschere : Model: Lily; makeup: Melissa; date: 30 July, 2009
I had the idea for this “Dialog of the Masks” when it occurred to me that my wife's Venetian mask practically had a personality of its own, and that it might be interesting to get a really good makeup artist to create a makeup job that might have come kind of from the same universe, and then let the model and the mask interact. I was truly blessed in my collaborators: Melissa's makeup job was everything I could have hoped for, and Lily "got" her character right from the start.

Il Dialogo delle Maschere

Special Tee : Model: David, date: July 12, 2009
The purpose of this set was to produce some advertising images for Sunro Printworks, who produce high quality t-shirts using a Direct to Garment Printing process. David and I picked Vancouver's Granville Island for our location, and in fact it gave us a lot of different and interesting backdrops for the pictures, without distracting the attention from the t-shirts!

Royal City Centre Fashion Show

Off to a Party!

Kesseke Design Catalog

2009 Vancouver CelticFest : I had the amazing fortune to be chosen to be the official photographer of the Vancouver CelticFest for 2009, a five day celebration of all things Celtic centring around St Patrick's. This entailed photographing all sorts of music and dancing, indoors and out, and also (of course) the parade. Alas, CelticFest did not take place in 2010 (owing to a little event called the Olympics!), but I can hardly wait for 2011!

2009 Vancouver CelticFest

Baraa, Gillian and Caroline performing at Lugz :

Baraa, Gillian and Caroline performing at Lugz

Modelscaping Meetup : Models: Victoria, Keith :-), Cindy Fay, Jeanine; makeup artist: Daniela; clothing designer: Veronica Hall; date: 17 January, 2009
This set is from a photo-meetup in January, 2009. I have mixed feelings about meetups: you certainly don't get as much opportunity to experiment with the equipment, nor as much time with the models, as if you were working solo. But you do get to play with equipment you might not ordinarily have access to, and you may get to work with models you would't normally get to work with as well. And in the end, I did get some good pictures! :-)

Modelscaping Meetup

Gillian and Caroline performing at Lugz :

Gillian and Caroline performing at Lugz

Own the Night : Model: Angela; makeup: Lyndsay; date: 24 November, 2007.
This was the very first fashion-oriented photoshoot I ever did. The camera was a rudimentary Panasonic Lumix, the lighting consisted of a pair of 250W tungsten lamps off to camera left (plus a reflector panel at camera right, for fill), and I needed to do, let us say, a certain amount of post processing to bring out the light and the colours ;-). But Angela was wonderful, Lyndsay's makeup was exactly what we needed, and I have to confess I am still pretty proud of the final results. It was a good beginning, in fact :-).

Travels :

Studies :

Paprika : Some pictures of one of the world's most adorable cats :-)

Fan Favourites :

What's New :

Portfolio: Fashion :

Portfolio: Fashion

Portfolio: Other :

Portfolio: Other

Portfolio: Performance :

Portfolio: Performance

Portfolio: Portrait :

Portfolio: Portrait

Portfolio Possibles :

Portfolio Possibles

Exhibition: Look At What We Do :

Exhibition: Look At What We Do

Retouching : I have been retouching my own photographs for years; now I have decided to offer the skills I have acquired and polished to others as well ;-). If you have a photograph that needs serious help, or if you just want to take your picture to that next level of dazzling perfection, do drop me a line. My rates are very reasonable :-).

After all, everyone deserves perfect skin!

Architectural :

Featured Galleries

The Three Martini Picnic : Model: Alicia; makeup: Anne; date: 15 August, 2011
I have been hoping to get the chance to work with Alicia again ever since we did A Girl and Her Closet two years ago. So I was very pleased when we recently agreed on the idea of a somewhat tipsy, but nevertheless definitely glamorous suburban picnic. Anne provided a great makeup look for us, and Alicia knocked the glam out of the park! (so to speak :-)) And hopefully it won't take another two years before I get to work with her again!

The Three Martini Picnic

A Girl and Her Closet : Model: Alicia; date: 20 October, 2009
The idea for this shoot originally was going to be that Alicia was taking her closet apart looking for something to wear and getting increasingly frustrated at not finding anything suitable for the occasion. But somehow we kept slipping into glam — don't you find it annoying when that happens? :-)

A Girl and Her Closet

The Night of All Soles

Cool and Flaming : Model: Mieke; makeup/hair: Cathy Lee; date: 27 May, 2012
This set is an honest and hopefully respectful homage to a New York photographer I met online named Lexy Page. Lexy specializes in glamour headshots, which sounds very limiting... until you see just how much creativity she pours into each one she does. Her work is inspiring enough that I definitely wanted to try doing something like it myself, and Mieke and Cathy Lee were game to play along ;-). We did two looks for the set, the first one cool and flirty, and the second one rather more, um, passionate! I have to say as well that this set benefited enormously from Lexy's generous advice and feedback. I just hope we measured up!

Cool and Flaming

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