Today I take you on a quick break away from the usual wedding related posts to bring to your attention an important cause that I took part in last weekend. It all started when I was contacted a few weeks ago by makeup artist Rhia Amio who I had previously worked with on Jenny and Brad’s wedding back last summer. She was wondering if I’d be interested in volunteering my photography services in a Hope for Haiti fundraising event. This beauty benefit would bring together many professional makeup artists, hair stylists, product sponsors, and photographers to raise money in support of Haiti. Attendees gave a small donation and enjoyed an afternoon of being pampered with makeup, hair, photography, free food, and generous surprise gift bags! I was one of the photographers who took some before and after photos of everyone but I also got to sneak in some videography which I always enjoy but seldom have time to indulge in.

Check out some of the photos and video! Also remember to do your part and donate today! www.redcross.ca/helpnow

Here are some of the people who helped make this event possible:

MAKE-UP:
Rhia Amio (http://www.artistrhi.com)
Joy David-Tilberg (http://make-upjunkie.blogspot.com)
Maggie Ng (http://www.maggieng.com)
Ande (http://www.makemeoverservices.com)
Donna Marie (http://www.makeupbydonnamarie.blogspot.com)
Nicole Robinson (nahmakeup@gmail.com)
Jennifer Min
Bernadette Howard
Delia Lupan (http://makeupbydelia.ca)

HAIR:
Suzie Choi Bridal Hair (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Suzie-Choi-Bridal-Hair/155570319978?ref=ts)

PHOTOGRAPHY:
Spencer Fu (http://spencerfu.com/blog/)
Nadia Cheema (http://www.nadiac.com)

CUPCAKES:
So Into Cupcakes (http://www.sointocupcakes.com)

SPONSORS:
CARGO (http://www.cargocosmetics.com)
BALMSHELL (http://www.balmshell.com)
Mary Kay (http://www.marykay.ca)
Shoppers Drug Mart (http://www.shoppersdrugmart.ca)
Face Atelier (http://www.faceatelier.com)
Vidal Sassoon (http://www.sassoon.com)
Cake Beauty (http://www.cakebeauty.com/home.asp)
CoverFX (http://coverfx.com)
LIFT Beauty Boutique (http://www.liftbeautyboutique.com)
Brill Communications (http://www.brillcommunications.ca)
Vasanti Cosmetics (http://www.vasanticosmetics.ca/can)
Lash Extensions by Maggie Ng (http://www.maggieng.com)

INTRODUCTION:
I took a bit of a break from work the other day to finish editing a video of a recent birthday party I attended several weekends back. Here’s a quicky summary as fFamily and friends gather to celebrate Victoria’s “sweet 16th” birthday party. Festivities included BBQ, dancing, presents, and over four different kinds of cake. This is also the first time that I had the chance to play with the video recording features of my relatively new Canon 5D Mark II. It looks like it definitely requires a whole new creative skill set compared to photography but I think I did an okay job with the camera and just a Canon 24mm F1.4L and 85mm F1.8 lens. Look forward to more videos in the future! It’s pretty neat that still camera technology has now evolved so we can film videos as well!

INTRODUCTION:
A couple weekends ago I had to pleasure to photograph staff of the Yoga Tree yoga studios based in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The owners of studio are none other than Debbie + Jason who I will again have the pleasure of photographing for their wedding in October. There studios super clean and modern and I can’t wait to enroll and try out some yoga! They even do baby yoga (see photo below). Check out some of the talented instructors of Yoga Tree in the rest of this post.

TECHNIQUE:
For this session in the middle of the day, the sun was out in full force. Normally we as photographers shun this sort of light but if we just embrace it and learn to use it we get many more useful photography hours during the day! All these shots were done using natural light and zero reflectors or crazy light modifiers like the Gary Fong Dong. Just position the subject so that the shadows don’t interfere with your subject’s faces/bodies and you’re good to go! Spend less time worrying about your background, camera settings, or flash output power and concentrate on getting your subject to give you a nice large genuine smile.

PHOTOS:

Introduction:
This weekend some friends and I participated in the Canadian Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life” event in Toronto. Our team raised over $2000 to support cancer research this year as we took part in the 12-hour outdoor relay/camping event. It was my first time really camping outdoors and it was surprisingly cold outside in the middle of the night. I think we all had a lot of fun taking part in the activities like walking the track, dodgeball, volleyball, cookie-decorating, movie watching, and free food eating! It was definitely a night to remember. Below are some photo highlights of the day. Thanks again to all who supported “Team Mophia”!

Photos:

I had the opportunity to shoot for the Queen’s University Main Campus Resident’s Council (MCRC) this past weekend and thought I would use this occasion to share not only the photos but some useful flash photography information. First off let met tell you about the event and the venue. The MCRC was celebrating it’s 20th year of operation and for the occasion they decided to celebrate by holding a formal dinner and awards ceremony at Grant Hall (which seems to be the go-to venue for on campus formal events these days). The venue is normally pretty drab and boring but it was beautifully decorated by the MCRC staff. Christmas lights were hung up in the ceiling, long pieces of fabric were stretched across the stage, tables were decorated, and multi-coloured spotlights were used to light the podium.

For people who are new to photography and have yet to purchase or use an external flash you really don’t know what you are missing. Natural light and “fast” lens are great but flash is a necessary tool in any photographers arsenal. Unfortunately most people don’t know how to use flashes properly and their images end up looking like most point and shoot cameras where the subject is brightly lit but the background is pitch black.

The simplest and easiest way to use flash for event photography is to set you camera on Manual Exposure. Generally in poor lighting conditions (most every indoor venue) you will need to dial in a moderately high ISO (800?), reasonable aperture for your needed depth of field (F4?), and a slower than usual shutter speed (1/30th?). The reason why I have question marks beside all those values as their is no one perfect setting for these values that will give you great results. It really depends on the lighting conditions at the time. Basically how this will work is your camera metering settings (ISO, aperture, shutter speed) will determine the overall exposure level of the background which is lit by the ambient light around you. While your subject is lit and hopefully frozen (ie. not blurry) by your flash. The slower the shutter speed the more ambient light you will pick up and the brighter the background will be. Having a larger aperture and higher ISO values will allow your flash to take a break and not have to flash so hard to light your subject. This results in longer battery life and faster recycle times for your flash!

If you take a look at the MCRC photos all of them of people not on the stage are taken with the above technique. For lighting up the people on the stage on camera flash really did not work. The TTL capabilities of the flash would not cut it when shooting from so far away at so many different angles. Luckily for static subjects such as a stage and a podium we can use remote wireless flash techniques! I placed two flashes, one on each side, of the second floor balcony in Grant Hall and fired them using my Elinchrom Skyport remote triggers. I set a power level (1/8th power) on the flashes that would give me fast recycle times and long battery life and dialed in my ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to light each scene accordingly. Easy and the results are much more consistent than using TTL.

This is really just a brief summary of how to use a flash for event photography and hopefully I will get more detailed with other interesting tidbit in posts to come. But for now I leave you with some of the photos from the evening.