I’ve been holding onto today’s image for a while, waiting until my good friend Katherine Matthews had released the knitting pattern featured here along with my other good friend Jennifer. I am normally primarily a black and white shooter but I just love the vibrancy of the colour Katherine chose for her pattern here, and of course Jennifer completes the image :-). If you’re a knitter, you can get Katherine’s lovely pattern here.
Nikon D7100, 18-200 Nikkor lens
The final post from my shoot with Grace was made with my Rolleicord Va Twin Lens Reflex Grace shows a dancer’s grace, and in a sense my old Rollei is part of another dance — over fifty years old and still going strong; its dance never ends either. 🙂
Rolleicord Va, 75mm/3.5 Xenar lens
Kodak Tmax 400 developed in Xtol 1+1 for 9.5 minutes @ 20 C
In this post, while Grace is amazing in showing character in her posing/expression, I am actually going to talk about the character of a film I have tried for the first time: Svema Foto 200 film, made in the Ukraine, and available from The Film Photography Project. What I like about this film is the grain structure: it’s not fine grain, but it is organic, it just feels right, and it has a lovely tonality! Now if I could only get it in 100 foot bulk rolls!
Nikon F4, 85mm/1.8 Nikkor lens
Svema Foto 200 film
developed in Xtol 1+1, 10.5 minutes @ 20 C
I have said before that a successful portrait/model shoot is part dance and part acting: dance skills allow for relaxed and beautiful poses, and acting ability allows for expression and emotion to flow unhindered from the subject. Grace (with whom I worked with yesterday) has both, and I think we got some good results. All I had to do was suggest a scenario and she found an inner dialog and a real expression to go with it.
Nikon D7100, 50mm/1.8 AF-D Nikkor lens
Post processing in Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2
Three years ago  I worked with Amy Braun as a model, and today I want to congratulate her as a published author! Her urban fantasy story Call From the Grave has just been published on Kindle. I read it last night, and was really impressed (and I have read a lot of Fantasy and Science fiction in my time). I would highly recommend her writing. Well done Amy!
Mamiya 645J, 80mm/2.8 lens
Tri-X at E.I. 1000 developed in Diafine 3+3
One of my shoots this past weekend in Ottawa was with Maggie Kyoko Tan. We had been friends on Facebook, but had never met until this shoot in Ottawa, and she was a delight to work with, as she understands instinctively that posing is (as I have often said) a combination of choreography and acting. We were able to get into a rhythm very quickly, and I am very happy with the (digital) results so far. (Film to come!!)
Nikon D7100, 18-200mm Nikkor lens
Post processed with Lightroom and Nik Efex
Today another image from my photo shoot with my friend Maria Rozynska this past weekend. This is one of the colour film images, taken using Kodak Ektar 100 colour negative film, using my Mamiya 645 Pro TL medium format camera. I really like Maria’s expression here (this may be my favourite), as well as the slightly retro look of the colour film.
Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80mm/s.8 Mamiya lens,
Kodak Ektar 100 C-41 Film
I had the pleasure yesterday to do a film/digital shoot with my friend Maria Rozynska, who I first met as a fellow cast member in the Alexander Showcase Theatre’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Maria is an excellent actor and dancer, and these talents translated well for the photo shoot! The concept for the shoot was 1960’s. Maria provided a perfect wardrobe, and a pair of retro style sunglasses topped everything off. This image is one of the digital shots. Film to come!
I had the pleasure of working with two very talented women recently. Katherine Matthews designs knitting patterns, and readers of my blog will recognize model/musician Jennifer Santos Bettencourt from previous posts. A lot of the photos I took for this shoot were close-up, in order to showcase the detail in the knitting pattern, and the level of detail in the shawl being showcased was quite impressive — I could learn a lot from Katherine regarding attention to detail! (Note: You can see Katherine’ pattern, and more images here.)
And of course working with Jennifer is always a pleasure — she understands that posing/modelling is like acting and choreography, and requires a lot of focus and awareness. It is certainly not a matter of just standing there waiting for the shutter to click.
It was also great to see how well the Jennifer and Katherine collaborated, and there was talk of future work together, so stay tuned!
Nikon F2, 85mm/f1.8 Nikkor lens
Kodak Portra 400 film, post production with Lightroom and Nik Efex
Here is another image from my photo shoot this week with model Cat Huntress. I again used my lensbaby muse lens to get the focus effect, as well as doing some post processing in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
My Third Eye 