Saturday, July 19, 2008

Happy Birthday Isaak and Elias!

My nephews celebrated their 3rd and 1st birthdays this summer. The Tsos held a grand party to celebrate. What fun it is to see them grow, and to see them celebrate another year. I love these photos because they show so much of their individual personalities.

Elias, is quietly content and happy to be held by Opa as he blows out his candle. Isaak, the adventurous explorer is already curious what happens if you should touch the candle!

Happy Birthday Isaak and Elias, and many more to come!


Sunday, July 06, 2008

Sarah's Photo Shoot

With graduations come graduation photographs. This past July, I had the privelege of taking Sarah's "seniors" photos. Sarah, who has spent the last several years in Vancouver along with her missionary parents, is moving back to Kansas where she will begin her freshman year.

She is a beautiful young lady, and a joy to photograph. Some bystanders even mistook her for a model! Not a bad situation to be in considering we got a free cruise on the harbour because of that!

Exposure Information: Canon 10D, EF 70-200mm f/4L lens @ 200mm, f/4.0, 1/800 ISO 200. Gold reflector camera left.

From a photographical point of view, this was my favourite shoot yet. I had a lot of fun, and I was able to employ techniques I hadn't tried in 'production' before. For instance, I made heavy use of off camera diffused strobe lighting: first as the fill, then as the key light as the evening wore on. It made for a great learning experience and good confidence booster.

Many thanks to the Conners who trusted me with this opportunity and also many thanks to my wife Karen for encouraging me to pursue my photographic skills. (plus she's pretty good at getting people to pose also!)

Here are some of the results.

Exposure Information: Canon 10D, EF 70-200mm f/4L lens
@ 70mm, f/5.6, 1/60 ISO 200. (Strobist) Shot into sun, fill flash from off
camera flash @ 1/4 power through white umbrella, camera right.

Exposure Information: Canon 10D, EF 70-200mm f/4L lens
@ 104mm, f/5.0, 1/40 ISO 200, tripod mounted. (Strobist) Shot into
sun, fill flash from off camera flash @ 1/4 power through white
umbrella, camera right.

Exposure Information: Canon 10D, EF 35mm f/2 lens @ f/3.5, 1/60 ISO 100
(Strobist) Off camera flash @ 1/2 power through white umbrella, camera left.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Happy Canada Day!

The Ng family took a journey to Canada Place to celebrate Canada Day today -- probably our first time since our early university days. It's amazing how having kids will kick one's sorry butt off the couch and out doing something fun instead! Erich had a blast. We saw concerts, mounties, bagpipe bands, military equipment, and even tasted the very quebecois treat of maple-syrup taffee.... where they roll the maple syrup on packed snow into a lollipop. Mmmmm.... I remember having those in Quebec in the dead of winter as a kid. Of course, one does have to wonder the wisdom of having ice cold taffee (which melts almost the instance it leaves the ice) on a hot hot Vancouver day.