We are never too arrogant that we can not continue to learn from others whether it be pros such as these or your friendly neighbourhood shutterbug...

With warmer weather comes … photo shoots!! Finally, I had the opportunity to get outside and start doing shoots in the Ottawa area. Using Facebook to network with models and other creative people,I have managed to work in some diversity in the types of shoots. Joining Meetup groups have gone a long way to meet fellow photographers as well as the models. They also have introduced me to other areas of the region. So the next few weeks should be featuring many new photo sets in the area of cosplay & fantasy and several portrait shoots.

Before the advent of digital cameras, people rated cameras by the quality of the pictures that the cameras were able to produce. It was highly subjective of course. Brand names were important of course but there many factors involved: the type of lenses used, the type of film used to capture the image, and the controls used to handle the picture taking process. I remember when I had my father’s Minolta 35mm with its fixed lens, and the controls used to set the ASA speed and the aperture and shutter speed settings. Later on, I had a compact 35mm with a zoom lens and the limited ability to program the camera for various environments but no ability to set any controls as the camera set the shutter speed accordingly (the aperture was fixed). While father’s Minolta was thirty years older than that compact, the quality of the photographs from that camera was superior in all respects. When digital cameras started to become more popular and became more affordable, one of the biggest drawbacks to having one was that to compare a digitally generated photograph to one from film illustrated that the quality of the resolution of the digital image was […]

This past weekend I had the pleasure of working with Natasha, a young model from North Bay. This is the first model shoot in Ottawa I have done. Since it has been only a few months since my arrival in Ottawa, my knowledge of shooting locations is limited and since she was headed back to North Bay later that afternoon, my time was brief. So a totally improvised shoot in the Byward Market area of Ottawa followed by a trip to Confederation Park allowed me to set up a few set pieces. On the whole, it was a nice introduction to shooting models in Ottawa.