Mothers Day Sessions | Canadian Lifestyle Portraits

Not your average portrait sessions.....

Unless that is what your into. But the great thing about the type of work I do and people I meet is we get to do something different. Whether it's for a magazine or commercial campaign or just a private session, it's fun to capture who you really are. Especially if you have a lifestyle or favourite pastime/ recreation you would love to focus on.

 Sessions are 1-2 hours on location and include clothing change if needed. Geared towards your lifestyle and pre-planned like we would a magazine shoot. Session is $350 (plus gst) and custom prints or other products can be ordered from a private preview page on the web (or you may purchase the digitals outright for $100). Contact us for any questions or to book and plan your session.

Field Of Dreams | Canadian Adventure Photographer

A few weeks back I was able to spend an afternoon shooting with an athlete who I have had my eye on for some time now. I have known George Boutsikakis for years from the kite-skiing community and finally got him out for a kite-sesh near Crossfield. The area close to where I live on the foothills is amazing for field kite-skiing (when there is snow) and I wanted to get George out for a test shoot and try something new with the strobes. Sometime you need a real athlete or someone who is really good at what they do so that you can achieve exactly what you are looking for.

George Boutsikakis soars at dusk near Crossfield, AB

I love working with pros, especially when they take that extra step and go hard for the camera. This day was no exception. The temps were coming up fast and we could see the snow melting in the warm chinook wind. This would be the last day the foothills would see snow from the fall and by the end of the session there was almost nothing left.

George Boutsikakis styling it up as the sun goes down. Crossfield, AB

This meant that the snow was supper saturated and wet. Wet snow can cause suction under a snowboard and George kept telling me it was slowing him down. Mix that with high gusts up to 40km/hr and things start to become dangerous. Never the less as the sun dropped below the western sky, George pushed himself and blasted a few jumps over the 10 foot tree along the fence line. I realized I would have only a few frames to do this and managed to get the money-shot on the first one. What a great feeling.

Thanks again to an amazing athlete, George Boutsikakis for pushing the limits...even on a test shoot. Awesome.

My Office In February | Canadian Adventure Photographer

 It has been a busy week so far with video production and a number of other things I need to get ready for spring. And even though it is not yet spring you might think differently by the weather here in central Alberta as of late. A few days of chinooks and more plus temps than minus has pretty much made all but a few traces of snow disappear. Naturally, you pull out the boats.

KB after his seal-launch into the ice.

Actually KB has been bugging me to get the boats out on the river for a month now but it was so warm yesterday I figured why not. The best place right now other than the Kananaskis is the Bow River down from the Ghost Dam. The water was pretty low but still easy to get down and fun in a few places. And I still get cell service down on the river so I just took photos and answered emails, great place to be the office for a few hours.

KB carves through the green tongue on the big corner. 

No Off-Season In Alberta | Canadian Adventure Photographer

That's right, they say if you don't like the weather here just wait 5 minutes. But really if you want to get out for a paddle in the middle of winter or ski in August, you just need to work a little harder. There really is no off-season.

 Ken Brennan stalling the bow in low-flow on the Elbow River, AB.

On January 28th a buddy and I went down to the Paddy's Flats section of the Elbow River to try out a new lighting technique. The idea was to get some winter white water kayaking in (even in low-flow) to see what we would get. Turns out I didn't have to twist Kenny's arm as he was more than excited to make a few laps and play in a small hole.

Ear to ear grin after a 2 degree session on the Elbow River, AB.

Another photographer I work with (Matt) was good enough to rush out from the city to control the 12 foot boom I built to rig up 3 speedlites on a transmitter. The whole set-up created a "street light" kind of look and I'm hoping to use this again with some other sports. As usual I had to try the editorial / adventure portrait at the end.

8500 And Counting | Canadian Lifestyle Photographer

For the last 2 years I have produced a handful of video projects and currently on a few really cool pieces for broadcast and YouTube. This week the Canadian rock band Age Of Days released their new acoustic single "Afflicted". The band also released the lyric video I produced for them at the beginning of this month and I am pretty excited about the response we are getting (8500 views in 3 days).

Although I specialize in adventure lifestyle work, the band approached me after seeing one of the previous videos I produced. It is this kind of work that I love to do and the whole process was fun from start to finish. I really dig film and video and maybe even more than still-work. I could be that problem solving and producing images from ideas and collaboration are what I love the most, so it just makes sense to be doing this.

Have a look at the video, check me out on facebook.com/spindriftphotography and stay up to date with what I am doing. Thank you for the continued support.

Foothills Magic | Canadian Lifestyle Photographer

When things get a little slow I like to venture West of town along the Foothills here in Southern Alberta. It's nice to just walk out on the prairies or drive and look at the landscape and see something different every day. The light in the evenings here are amazing and part of what makes the Foothills magic.

Be sure to check out my landscape photography page on Facebook to see the latest low light and panoramic work. Foothills Magic

Afflicted (For Real) | Director Of Photography

A week before Christmas I was approached by the Canadian rock band - Age Of Days and asked if I would be interested in shooting a lyric music video for their up coming accoustic tour. The band had written a few accoustic versions of their work and the track they selected for this has not been released yet so I was stoked to say the least.

The crew (left to right) Olivier DuTre, Me, Jenna, Tim

We didn't have much time during the holidays to hammer out some clear concepts so when we came down to our shooting widow, I had to get creative. Last Saturday we set up at a cool location (so thankful for the brilliant friends I have) north of Calgary and built our set. The idea was simple (sorry can't reveal it yet) but by that night, neither the band or myself were happy with the look. Again we had only a few hours to put this together.

On  Sunday morning only hours before we were to shoot, we decided to scrap the whole thing and just go with simple. I was fortunate to be joined by another photographer Olivier DuTre who took a look at our set and arranged an amazing scene from what was parked and laying around. Stress level was high but having Oli come in for some confidence in the set made a huge difference in the final look of the video.

Frame grab from the video

After scrapping the original set, camera type, lights and half the crew showing up late from an accident on the highway, we finally got rolling and produced some great preview footage. Once we saw it would work we just wound-up our model and let her work her stuff, which was incredible. I can not believe how many conventions I threw out the window in exchange for just experimenting with the camera, not too mention locking focus and 1.8 and just walking around with a stedi-cam.

No script, just a page of lyrics and a pretty model and two days later I had this crazy looking 4 minute video in the can. The video went to the animation studio the next day and this time next week we will see the roll-out for my first music video. The band is great, Tim Morrison is an awesome guy and I can't wait to see how their tour goes. Shout-out to Jenna our amazing model and the rest of my friends who helped us out. Thanks also to Tim (owner of the location), we couldn't have done it without the great setup.

I love photography but I am really starting to love video. I love coming up with concepts and putting everything together to create a cool story. And that is just it, it's about cool stories, I love to tell cool stories.

PS. As I write this, everyone on the crew, including singer Tim, is severely sick with this nasty virus going around. The song is about being afflicted in a relationship but for us I think we were all just afflicted with the seasonal bug.

Watch for the video to drop next week.