leica
Day 3 of 3 - Reception at Swaniset
The final day of the wedding consisted of a reception at Swaniset Bay Resort and Country Club, located deep within Pitt Meadows. It was great being able to document all the people and friends and family interacting with one another. Also, there was a Lamborghini.
Read More…A prior conversation with Elizabeth gave me the story of Tallie. While initially a dog person, Elizabeth fell in love with Tallie and soon became a cat person (cats tend to do that to us... hehe). I can't recall the reason why Tallie was in the shelter but that's where Elizabeth found her. Tallie was a mother of some kittens at the shelter but as the kittens were soon adopted off, Tallie was left all alone. Elizabeth wanted to adopt a cat that would have a tough time finding a home and found Tallie at the shelter, who approached Elizabeth and they instantly bonded. I found Tallie to be a shy cat but after a few moments of walking in and around the place, Tallie got used to the commotion in her home that was me and my various clattering cameras.
Read More…Regardless of whether it’s a model, a family, a bride and groom and their friends, a little cat or the people of Chinatown, I shoot documentary photography. It’s my passion and forms a major part of my vision and how I see things. Even on a styled shoot such as this one with lots of posing and a professional model, there’s a lot of storytelling behind the scenes that I desired to convey…So my role was that of telling the story that was going on behind the entire project….
Read MoreWhenever I get a chance to walk around Vancouver, I'm always amazed at all the little surprises we have. Continuing from my last post, here's a few more photographs from January 2014 of last year, when the sun was out but the heat was not (it was cold...). Ah well, that's Vancouver :)
Read MoreI like to spend my time walking. Outside. Even when it's cold.
The January before last (that is, January 2014) proved to be an especially cold January. Brisk winter air was sharp on the skin but it was still strangely sunny. I took this opportunity to take some photos and, on this rainy February day in 2016, I thought I'd share a few.
Read MoreAs a documentary photographer who photographs many weddings, I’ve had the opportunity to observe people through the emotional tides that arises from a wedding day and it’s such a privilege to be able to be with brides and grooms in this amazing time of their lives. From anticipation to the sense of relief of having completed the ceremony (without tripping or losing the ring!) to the sense of celebration and exuberance at the celebration in the end, a wedding day is full of moments that are easy to miss in the hustle and bustle of things but are there. I’ve always focused on getting those genuine moment and telling stories through them.
Read MoreMarch seemed like ages ago but I feel like we're feeling that cold Canadian weather now as we did then. I've taken a lot of images since that time but haven't really had a chance to share them with you all. My walks are usually around Downtown Vancouver but I like to explore other places too, including Chinatown and also areas by the Vancouver Public Library (which is where the sushi photo is from). Occasionally my wife and I get into our car and we make a bee-line for some unknown place... take an exit off the highway and see where it leads.
Read MoreNo Words, Just Pictures
Read MoreThe "Day In The Life" Documentary Photosession is something I am now offering to you all!
Regardless of where you may be in life, I enjoy creating photographs that tell a real authentic story of who you are and photographing true life moments. This is quite different from sessions whereby you are posed and asked to "stand there" and "say cheese". I leave directing to a minimum.
Read MoreIn this (not entirely serious) post, I briefly review an accessory I acquired recently that has turned out to be actually pretty useful... and a cheap alternative to what I was looking for. Really, it was pretty cheap. These things cost like $200 and up. How did I get it so cheap? Connections :) ... and it's a custom part that someone threw together.
But seriously, it's ingenious. I saved like $185 dollars.
I've been the owner of a Leica M6 for a while and I use it constantly for almost all of my photography work. It's perfection of a camera. If the Lord created a camera, it would be a Leica M6 with light rays shining from it. It shoots rainbows at all angles when you rewind the film. It puts magical photography dust in your images when you least expect it (and in your scans). It automatically photoshops velociraptors into your wedding photos. PEW PEW! INSTANT MAGICAL PHOTO AWESOMENESS.
NOT.
Actually, in all honesty, using a rangefinder has been a difficult process for me and has required a lot of "re-thinking" on my part in terms of how I photograph. It's a whole different experience from what I've been used to before and, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, it revealed to me how much I needed to improve my photography.
So what did I do? How did I solve this difficulty? What any photographer would do... BUY AN ACCESSORY OF COURSE. THROW MONEY AT THE PROBLEM!!!!! CHUCK MONEY AT IT WITH PASSION!!!
Alright, let's get to it.
Without getting into the details of rangefinders, frame lines and limitations and what not, I will simply say that I was looking for a viewfinder attachment/accessory because of two reasons:
1) The Leica M6 I have does not allow me to see the full 35mm framelines when I have glasses on.
2) The lens I use is relatively large so it blocks the viewfinder so I can't see a bit of the lower right edge of the frame.
Enter the accessory viewfinder. This is placed on the top of the rangefinder in the accessory shoe (where you put the flash) and gives me framelines from which I can look through and provides an equivalent view of looking through the 35mm lens I have on the camera. So I mentioned that it was cheap. Why? It's... taped together.
This viewfinder is actually made from parts of an old 35mm film point and shoot camera, an accessory shoe and some pretty slick black duct tape (there is always the option of putting stickers on it if you don't like the black... maybe like a scratch and sniff strawberry sticker...or even Hello Kitty?).
After some movement in my bag, I noted that it had already started to fall apart. The tape was starting to shift (not stick) and the glue holding the old viewfinder part to the shoe part was no longer .... attaching. So I did what I would normally do in such a situation: break out the electrical and double sided tape and tape things back down. Mwa ha ha. The battle station is now FULLY OPERATIONAL. Where are your rebel friends... ....
Does it work? Actually... yes, it does. Quite well for that matter. Nowhere near as sturdy as the more expensive Voigtlander and Leica ones but it certainly gets the job done. If I needed one of these and was heading into the jungle or dense bush and trudging through mud and snow and bushes... well, I'm sure the camera would be fine... but I'd be a complete mess!.... and the viewfinder probably would've been lost somewhere between the jungle and the dense bush... in pieces.
The reality is that I don't really need it and I just need to continue to practice with the viewfinder and the framelines built into the Leica M6 and work around the little nuances. Just because I place a viewfinder on top of the camera does not mean it's going to magically make my photos better. I have to learn and practice and work at it. (It's kind of like that unicorn attachment for cats... Totally don't "need" it and your cat is still awesome).
That all being said, at this point, I'm keeping it on my camera. While I can definitely live without it and just work around my technical hurdles, having this viewfinder is actually a nice option. There are times where I just want to look at a scene without focus patches, huge lens distractions and also to see the scene in the context of my lens.
The Last Word: this is a cheaply built viewfinder and won't take a lot of punishment (bring tape with you, or just buy the real thing. There's lots of options). That being said, it serves the purpose for which I got it: to provide a clean view with frame lines to aid in estimating what the photo may look like before actually committing to it... and it cost me very little.
Rating out of 5? How about a 250,891,023,789,172,897,389 for those days when you feel awesome, a -14,123,182,038,910 for days when photo-taking is kind of a downer, and a 53.56 if you had Subway today. I told you this wasn't a serious post ;)
This viewfinder is Hikari-The-Cat-approved.
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