Baby Steps

I've been very fortunate over the last couple of weeks to have a few of my photos included in some great online sites. One was due to pure luck (and my love for music), while the other attributed to a concentrated effort to promote myself and shoot daily.

1) Fazer Magazine - At a recent show for God Made Me Funky, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the writers who had reviewed their new CD. My photos ended up accompanying Alex's article on the show and the new Disc: Photos/Article Link here.

Lesson #1: ALWAYS have business cards on you. I had run out the day before and forgot to replenish my stock, luckily I was able to get the writer's email but I missed a valuable opportunity to market myself properly to a future collaboration-partner.

Lesson #2: There is nothing like capturing a live show! It's definitely becoming one of my favourite photographic pursuits. I have made it a rule to learn how to photograph artists with no-flash, however stage lights are a killer! My new rule is to shoot a LOT - sometimes stage lights give unbelievable effects, but the moments are fleeting.

2) BlogTO / Nuit Blanche. At the annual overnight arts event, here in Toronto, and a perfect opportunity for photography. My main focus was to photograph using off-camera flash work (strobist style), however I also managed to get some nice shots of the artists at work with available light.

BlogTO is a fantastic site that supports local photographers through their Flickr group site, from which they populate their articles and reviews. My photos were used in a review of the Distillery District. I've been contributing steadily over the last few months and finally, I see my photos on their site. Thanks BlogTO!

Lesson #3: Never delete any photos in your camera. I had actually taken a series of the above photo. My finger hovered around the delete button with this one, when I was distracted by a phone call. I don't know why I was about to delete it, other than I had a lot of the same shot. But this was the only one in which the artist was pointing at his work (which I think ads to the charm of this shot).

Lesson #4: It's nice to have a game plan, but don't ever let it distract you from any event that materializes before your eyes. Although my goal that night was to experiment with off-camera flash, most of my best shots were available-light.

FYI - my favourite "strobist" shot of the night was this one (it's also really nice to have friends that are patient and willing to model over and over and over again):