Well, I’ll break it down to give you the basics but there is no way I’m going to be able to write creatively on this one.

Who; For the Weekend (Pop-Punk Band, from Calgary, Click for their Myspace)
What; Well, dudes in a bathtub, promo photoshoot
When; Less than 24 hours before i went in for knee surgery
Where; Band Member’s house
Why; I’ve been wondering for a long time, if anyone finds out let me know.

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1; Lighting faces from low angles
Every day we see people lit from above, the lights in your room are on the roof, the sun and bright sky are above you. We almost always see people with light from above, yet all too many generation S photographers light from low angles. Light stands get heavier and more expensive the higher they stand, they’re more vulnerable to falling and destroying your gear, but photographers should be after great images, not excuses.

2; Over-lit and Over-powered
Over-lit: How much lighting is really needed to make a great picture? Of course it depends on the concept, location and other variables, but have you considered the natural light, or what about just slightly modifying the light that’s already around? Try one reflector/mirror, a window, the light reflecting off a building downtown, or just one strobe? You can do a lot with a little if you see the light as you camera does, and how you can use it. Simplicity is Sexy
Over-powered: When that rim light is at zone 15 you might be able to tone it down a bit. When you’ve send your subject into convulsions you might have enough strobes pointed at them. I’m sure we all threw too many joules of energy at our subjects the first time we played with some off camera flash, but all the power isn’t necessary all the time.

3; Ignoring the best natural light.
Screw Mother Nature’s best efforts, we can make our own light and it’ll be better than her’s. Right? Well, not really, especially if you’re shooting on location; we can’t quite over-clock your sb800+CTO gel to light up that mountain range/cityscape/baseball field. Why force lighting on location when the ambient light sucks?

4; Technical first, concept second.
Photography is light, but images are concepts. You as a photographer are; concepts, skill, and vision. Lighting is what facilitates ideas; one of the bridges between a concept and presentation. When you shoot an image you use; lens choice, lighting (distance, spread, colour, quality), angle, composition, aperture/shutter/ISO, and every other technical skill you’ve learned to show people what you want them to see.
Use light as a mastered skill to convey your concepts; don’t rely on it as a subject or destination.

5; If I had… If I had…
We all want more gear, more assistants, a bigger studio, and more creative time. Make those things goals and find paths to work towards them. Sitting around using the excuses ‘If I had…. If I had…’ doesn’t make your pictures better, and the excuses don’t inspire great work.

Add Yours
Got beef with a trend? Add your opinion for Generation S failures

6; Having Strobes In Your Photos;
“A completely obnoxious trend. We get it, you have multiple flashes, no one is impressed. Hide them, re-compose, change your set-up but its not cool to leave them in your shot. There, its off my chest, a solid number 6!” -Baxter Redfern (Click here for his site)

**Note I made this list as a personal reaction to work I’ve seen by photographers who exhibit styles and techniques influenced by Dave Hobby’s blog. I don’t attribute these to any type of shortcoming or error on his behalf. In the nature of blogs being updated and adapting to trends and new ideas, I anticipate Dave has/will/would have recognized these trends, and comment on them.

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Stereotyping is fun, I’m glad I checked the weather before heading down to San Francisco for the wedding of my friends Kevin and Jesse. Being the first time to california I was in delusion about warmth, it was really chilly for most of the time, only managed shorts for a couple hours on one day.

To start of we’ve got some obligatory tourist imagery from the big ‘ol bridge.

A picture I took of Jesse taking a picture of touristy things;

The wedding was about an hour north of San Francisco in a little area called Inverness by Point Reyes.
Jesse and Kevin practicing their first dance

Some beautiful light in Inverness two days before the wedding

During the Rehearsal Dinner the power went out so we had to go by candle light for part of the evening;

Then for the wedding I got a remote camera shot of the ceremony (which was awesome)

A little video of how I got the shot

Click Here for Jesse’s Website and Blog

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Inspiration
- I wanted to make some photographs where gravity is acting strangely; photographs where the viewer’s perception would throw them in loops, questioning what they see, if its real, and how it was done. My first little attempt at this technique was this self portrait.
- The second major piece of inspiration was this Stella Artois Legere ad;

From those two pieces of inspiration I had the idea of beer pouring up against gravity -lighter than air beer- into a glass. Next I had to figure out the best way to do it.
Wanting to most of the shot done in camera I needed to get all the ‘live action’ in one frame, then I could use photoshop to finish and clean up the rest of the shot. I setup a bottle of beer in the studio suspended from the bottom of a large board.
I opened the beer upside down and using a glass in hand catch the beer pouring out. Over several takes with beer pouring into a bucket on the floor (i’m sorry beer lovers I did lose a beer or two to the battle) I got a great action frame.

The shot below shows the studio setup for the live action (Only half the lighting is firing in this frame)

The raw ‘live action’ frame is above to the left, and one of the final bottle’s live frames above right. I photographed the bottle separately, using a lot of transmitted light from behind to complement the very beautifully designed bottles. In photoshop the live action and bottle shots were put together making the final image.

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Theres a whole new gallery of my architecture photography, here are two of my most recent shoot of some calgary architecture photography

The Advertising Gallery is also shiny and new with work you have and haven’t seen.

My mountain bike photography got quite a few new frames;
Evan

A self portrait diptych of fall Mountain Biking in Calgary

Some new faces in my Band and Music photography

Ski got two new frames, you’ve seen them before if you’ve been reading the blog.

At any rate the shots are bigger and thus better looking over in the portfolio pages. If you know of anyone who may need the types photography I specialize in, please share my work with them.

PS: the home page has a new shot up too

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