That was a short chapter

It has been almost a week now since I got lay'd off. The first job I have ever lost in my entire life. It was very quick and clean, the way things should be. I didn't screw up or anything, they just decided that we were going down a different road than they intended when they hired me. Besides, I was expensive and they needed to keep things tight and lean. Although I was taken by surprise, it barely phased me. I was not happy there anyways.

The truth is that I am an entrepreneur at heart and working for someone else is just not my thing. This is the universe telling me to give my head a shake and stop expecting someone else to look after me. After all, I have been looking after myself for most of my life and I just need to get off my ass and grab the bull by the horns and whatever other metaphor you can think of for getting it done myself.

With that short chapter closed now, I find myself realizing where I belong and what I need to do. I am much happier now than I have been in a very long time. I am back at the helm of my own destiny and each decision I make and every path I take is up to me. The way it should be.

I currently have numerous exciting things on the go. I have a successful photography business, not to mention my "day job" as President & CEO of a software company. On top of that I have a podcast with a significant and quickly growing fan base and I am about to start another podcast very soon. I have a wonderful family with two amazing kids, and so many incredible friends that I adore.

Yup, sometimes you just need a kick in the ass to open up your eyes and see what is right in front of you. My advice to anyone reading this is to listen carefully to these words by Joseph Campbel. He once said "Follow your bliss, and invisible hands will guide you." Words to live by for sure.

The Priceless Value of a Photograph

Here is something that we have all heard before in some form or another, but I feel is important to be reminded of on a regular basis.

I was recently reminded by a good friend’s post on Facebook regarding his grandmother, about how priceless a photograph is.  He posted a series of photographs from when his grandmother was younger.  As I looked through the images I thought to myself how many memories would be completely forgotten if people had not taken pictures.

The first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce titled “View from the Window at Le Gras”. Since then things have changed, technology has advanced and millions and millions of pictures have been taken.  There are many moments in history that were captured in photographs.  Families all over the world clicked away and took pictures of themselves, their children and families as they grew and experienced life.  Photojournalists took pictures of famous events, politicians, wars, celebrities, celebrations, sports, and local news events.  Without those pictures the only historical records we would have are what people wrote.  Obviously you can’t always trust what people write and the visual reference of a photograph makes a big difference… that is until the invention of Adobe Photoshop. 

Motivated to write this post, I decided to go through some of my own old photographs.  I was just going to grab one or two old shots to stick in this post and the coolest thing happened.  My two young boys (5 and 6) came in to see what I was doing.  They started looking at the old pictures with me and it was really cute.  My oldest son, Tony, saw a picture of me when I had long hair, glasses and a moustache and he said “who is that?”  I laughed and said it was daddy when I was younger.  He gave me a strange look and said “you look like a bad Elvis!”.  My wife and I laughed so hard we were crying.

I hope you all go out and take lots and lots of pictures.  They don’t necessarily have to be good pictures, but capture those moments, those places, those people.  It is so important for the future, for yourself and for your family and those that follow years and years down the road.

Technorati Tags: Artistic Expression,Blogging,Calgary,Creativity,Photography

Model shoot at Rat’s Nest Cave in Canmore, Alberta

This past Sunday (June 29th), I had the most amazing experience as a photographer.  My friend Paul Spenard organized a model portfolio shoot inside a real cave called “Rat’s Nest Cave” in Canmore, Alberta.  The brave and talented model that Paul managed to convince was the lovely Tabitha Alice, and she was amazing.

Just to set the scene, you arrive in Canmore and meet with the folks from Canmore Caverns who are the only group that literally have the keys and the permission to take people inside the cave.  There is a huge steel grate covering the only entrance into the cave and it is locked behind you as you enter to prevent people from coming in behind you.  They are very strict about safety and you feel very comfortable under their care.

You follow the guide in your vehicle as they drive up to the cave site, which is about a 20 minute hike up a mountain.  Some of the most beautiful scenery too which made the long hike carrying all my heavy camera gear a little bit more bearable.

When you arrive at the cave site, you suit up in coveralls, knee pads, safety harness, and a helmet.  Then you are briefed on what you are about to endure.  Apparently many people chicken out at this point, but the three of us were eager to get started.   Once inside the grate, the best way to describe the next few minutes is that you do not want to be there if your claustrophobic!   I had to pass my camera bag down through the passage that was just a bit larger than my body as I made my way down.  There are a lot of animal bones inside the cave that are moved around by the rats (yes, I said rats) as they make their nests (hence the name of the cave).  We did not see any rats while we were there, but there was the odd patch of rat droppings that were actually quite a bit larger than I expected.  I must say, it was cool to have Paul with us as he is an archeologist and was explaining what each bone was and from which animal it came from.  

We continued down through the cave headed for an open cavern called “The Grotto”.  This was supposed to be the most spectacular area of the cave and it did not disappoint.  There were formations nearly everywhere including these crystal looking things on the ceiling that look like soda straws.  Other formations look like pigs ears and bacon, which are apparently their names, so not too hard to remember.

This was, by far, the most difficult lighting situation I have ever been in.  Basically we were in the darkest place on earth.  Just for fun our guide, Adam Walker, told to turn off our lights to which we basically saw NOTHING.  He said to go ahead and close our eyes to see if there was a difference, and there wasn’t.  So if you are a photographer and you have experience working in low light situations, I challenge you to get a good shot here!!!  Especially when you are limited to what your allowed to bring in (basically two small bags per group).  I brought a Nikon SB800 and a Nikon SB900 plus a few LED lights to just give us a bit of ambient to work with.  To make the situation worse, the place had about 100% humidity and a very very very fine dust that gets into everything.  I dared NOT change lenses, so I just went with what was on my camera (Nikon D300 with an 18-70mm DX lens).

Tabitha had a couple different outfits to work with.  The first one was a nice white and pink dress that I think worked well.  The second outfit was a custom made “cave girl” animal skin.  Oh, did I mention the temperature in the damp dark cave was 4 degrees Celsius?  Yes, Tabitha is an amazing girl.  She was determined to get the shots even though she was standing in a very cold, dark cave in freezing cold water with bare feet and a barely there outfit. 

Regardless I think we got some amazing shots considering what we had to work with in those conditions.  All the LED lights I brought along with the lights on our helmets came in really handy when Tabitha wanted to do a shot that made her look like a ghost.  We lit the place up with every light we had (excluding the flashes) and then with a 15 second shutter I had Tabitha stand perfectly still and then after a few seconds run out of the way to finish the exposure.  I think the shot turned out exactly like she envisioned and it is quite cool.

After we got to the point where Tabitha was completely freezing and could not take it any longer (what a trooper), we packed up and headed back out.  Half-way out Adam asked if we wanted to attempt “The Test”.  Not wanting to be a chicken and miss an unforgettable experience we all agreed.  This test involved shuffling along through an opening for about 12-15 feet that was barely large enough for our body to fit through.  You had to have one arm ahead of you and one behind you and you couldn’t really lift your head to see where you were going.  Eventually after a lot of grunting and squeezing it opened up into a vertical fissure that you could stand up in, but not much else.  Of course, that wasn’t bad enough, but now you had to go back out the same way you came in.  We all made it and gave each other high fives, proud of our accomplishment.  By then Tabitha was starting to thaw out a bit, so the hard work was good to get her blood flowing.

By the time we got back up to the mouth of the cave and climbed out we were all completed exhausted and sweating like crazy.  It was a beautiful sunny warm day, and we had to hike all the way back down to the vehicles.  Thankfully I had a cooler with some water on ice in the back of my truck.  That was the best water I have ever had in my entire life.

All in all it was an amazing experience and I would do it again in a second.  I think next time though, I would like to leave most of my gear behind and just enjoy the adventure without having to do a photo shoot.  The cave is extremely large with numerous passages that you can explore if your not hauling a lot of gear with you.  There are areas that you can rappel down and a long tube called “The Laundry Shute” that sound like it would be a challenge.  If your not claustrophobic and you are looking for an incredible adventure I recommend you contact:

Canmore Caverns (403) 678-8819 or 1-877-317-1178

Technorati Tags: cave,model,photography,canmore,alberta,rat's nest cave,aduro photography

Very very very very Impressive Technology

As a web developer myself, I find it a little awkward to be recommending Square Space to people because it pretty much puts me out of work for basic website development projects.  Luckily if the client needs a web-based application they still have to come to people like me to design from the ground up. 

Customizable

Square Space is an amazing technology that provides a very intuitive and incredibly flexible user interface for building web sites.  It has templates that are almost infinitely customizable, and easy too, with no coding at all.  It makes full use of CSS so if you want to get your hands dirty, you can really change things around.  If you don’t know CSS that is no problem because there are easy-to-use interfaces to allow you to pick colors and size columns, and change various aspects of the look, layout and feel of the site.

Modularity

If you want a forum, or a photo gallery, or a blog, you just create a new page and specify the type from the exhaustive list of options.  A few clicks of your mouse and you have a fully functional web form that you can use to request information from your site visitors.  A file storage component lets you easily upload and maintain a file structure that you can share through an authenticated user interface. Detailed analytics allow you to monitor site traffic and other details about your visitors.

Scalability

The grid-based architecture behind the scenes ensures that your site can handle ANY traffic load from 1 visitor to millions of visitors a day.  All with no headaches for you.

In my humble opinion, this solution is the only solution for people who want to put up a very professional, feature-rich web presence without investing a lot of time or money.  It is powerful, flexible, and very affordable.  Damn, I wish I was getting paid for this, but in reality I am just so impressed I had to tell everyone.

Technorati Tags: web,hosting,development,css,style sheets,websites,blogging,forums,gallery

Mac & Rob : The RAW Files

A photographer friend of mine (Rob Caleffi), and coincidentally the guy that got me into shooting artistic nudes, and his friend (Mac Swift) have been working over the past two years on a very creative project called "The RAW Files".

For starters, both Rob and Mac are amazing photographers. Photographers in general are visual artists, and the good ones have a burning inside their souls that forces them to express themselves. It is not good enough to be a great wedding or portrait photographer, the freedom of expression is too confined that way. Sure you can be creative and original, but you can only go so far because you are still working for the client. True artistic expression has no boundaries, and it can lead to some amazing creativity.

Rob and Mac have found a way to express their creativity by taking one model each and shooting their model over a period of one year at all sorts of different locations. The best part of this project is that the photographers and the models all blog about their experiences. It is a fascinating project and you will find yourself captivated by the words and the images that are presented. I encourage you to have an open mind and visit The RAW Files.

The most amazing day

Today was amazing. After taking the kids to their last class of swimming lessons, we decided to go out and have Celina take some pictures of me (a very rare situation indeed). I really don't have any pictures of myself that are all that good.
Anyways we drove out west a bit and down the Old Banff Coach Road. We came across this huge old tree at the edge of a farmer's field just inside the fence and I thought it would make a nice backdrop for the shoot. I never trespass so this was a great location as we could stay outside the fence and still get a great shot. It was kind of windy and a bit cold so Celina took a few shots and then we headed back to the truck.


Just as I was about to get in the truck, Celina started yelling and pointing back towards the tree. I looked over and there were a bunch of horses that had come over to the tree to see what was going on. I didn't see any horses at all while I was over there, so I have no idea where they appeared from. I decided to head back over to the fence myself to take some shots wondering if the horses would run away or not. Turns out they were really curious. They posed nicely for a few pictures then they ran a bit to the right, then over to the left, then back to the tree jumping and bucking here and there to make sure the pictures were good. I couldn't believe how amazing this was, they seemed to be acting up to give me some nice shots. I was shouting out "nice job" and "great work, thank you" and the horses looked like they were having a great time.

A cyclist rode by on the road and a couple of the horses ran over to the fence to have a look. They were like little kids, curious and wondering what was going on. It was really fun for me and I think I got some decent pix. Unfortunately the sun was coming from behind the horses so the lighting is not perfect, but sometimes you take what you can get.

The Auto Show

Every year it comes around and every year I somehow manage to get free tickets, so I go. As a photographer I have brought my camera in the past, but today seemed a little different and I don't know why exactly.

I have been doing a lot of studying in Photography lately. Much more than I typically have done in the past and I realized that I need to push myself more. Too often I try and be fully prepared for every situation, and if I am really a good photographer then I should be able to take a great picture regardless of the situation. So I took my camera, removed the battery grip, and with a single 50mm prime lens headed out. No flash, no tripod, no wide angle or zoom, just the body and my 50mm.

It was more difficult than I anticipated because with all the people crowding around the cars, you can't get far enough away to get much of the vehicle in the shot with a 50mm lens. So I decided that I would have to just make myself focus on the detail and forget about the "big picture". I am REALLY glad I put myself through this exercise because I am very happy about the detail I captured. In fact, I can safely say that this is going to be a much more common process for me. It is amazing what you notice when you are forced to point your attention on the little things in life.

There was an added bonus with the small lens and no battery grip. The camera was much smaller and lighter so my 6-year old, Tony, could use it much easier. In fact he managed to catch the "shutter bug" and kept taking the camera from me and shooting everything. He got a few really cool shots and I am quite impressed with his eye for composition. I guess the apple does not fall that far from the tree.

Online backup? What an amazing deal!

Ok, so I have been skeptical in the past of online backup solutions because on the front they appear to be a great deal, but when you get down to it... yuck!

Today I was listening to a TWiP podcast and the guys mentioned a solution that they used called BackBlaze I checked it out and ended up signing up right away. Some sites charge by the amount of disk space you use, and others charge by the amount of data transfer. BackBlaze simply charges $5 / month for each computer you want to back up. You get unlimited disk space, which is VERY handy for a photographer like me.

The key point that pushed me over the edge to looking at an online backup solution was Alex Lindsay mentioned his biggest issue would be if someone broke into his studio and stole his Drobo or the place burned down, all his photos would be gone forever. I got to thinking, I do have other backups of some of the older images, but nothing "real time" so that I would be sure not to lose anything. I was previously backing up my Drobo onto external hard drives, but if something happened to cause my Drobo to go bye bye, then it is very likely my external hard drives would be gone too.

Now with my Drobo and my online backup solution, I am very confident that my data is safe... that is... once the 216 hours it will take to copy all my data into "the cloud" has passed.

Copyright Information

It is interesting to note that if you live in the United States, you must formally register your copyright with the government if you intend to pursue litigation against anyone for copyright infringement. In Canada, and everywhere else in the world, this is not applicable.

In photography, the second you press the shutter button you own the copyright for the image that is taken. It is an international right that has been in place since 1886. For more information feel free to visit the Wikipedia entry on copyright.

Thanks to Blurb.com you can create a high quality book for dirt cheap!

Ever wanted to be a writer, or maybe to create a coffee table book of your photography? Check out Blurb Book Smart. You won't believe how easy it is to create very high quality hard-cover or soft-cover books with full color photography and creative layouts.

I plan to put together a portfolio book with some of my photography mixed in with my ever abundant verbiage and wit. Let me know if you would like to buy a signed copy :)

TWIP (This Week In Photography)

Well, they say nothing in life is free. I will suggest that this is one of the exceptions to that rule.

A while ago a close friend of mine and fellow photographer asked me if I had been following the TWIP podcast. I was like "TWHAT"? He said that if I went to iTunes and did a search under the podcasts I would find it, and it is FREE!

Well I downloaded a few of the TWIP podcasts and started listening to them on the way to work and back (my iPhone can play through my car stereo). I can't believe what an excellent show these guys produce. The information is golden, and the presentation is light-hearted and impactful. You can really tell that these gear heads enjoy talking about photography, and they definitely know what the heck they are talking about. All of them are high-end professionals including Fred Johnson from Adobe and Scott Bourne the author of four photo books.

If you even have a slight interest in photography I highly recommend that you get hooked on TWIP podcasts. Also, their blog is a mecca of information on anything from the latest Nikon and Canon, as well as other manufacturer product news to general photography tips and tricks, information on new products and advice for photographers new and old.

TWIP