I was in the mood for something a little more film noir like. Shot this with camera in hand and had Angela hold the flash behind the kids toy work bench which has holes for all the tools to hang in. That is where the hot sopts are coming from, the light passing through the holes. But it looks like I could be peeking out the window of a motel into the parking lot waiting and watching while someone is pulling in.

Art, Edmonton, Edmonton Portrait Photographer, Expression, Film Noir, Korsan Studios, Photography, Portrait, Self Portrait Hide

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

In order to get this picture I had to enlist the help of a 3 year old. Owen was playing with play doh earlier today, hence the tie die play doh, and wanted to cut out all the different shapes. He had a square, triangle, circle, star, and heart. I stole his heart to use as an eye patch and have to say that play doh is not the stickiest of substances. That is the reason for the goofy expression.

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Of course it is still snowing, it is winter after all and we need the snow to make our igloos! I am a little tired after yet another weekend of lots of snow, if you recall last weekend we had a storm as well which you can read about here. My spirits are high, maybe not quite as high as the snow banks, but aside from the bitter cold (-30C) it is actually not that bad and its kind of funny. I am actually hoping the that snow in our backyard gets higher than our fence which is 4 feet tall. We are maybe 8 inches away but apparently it is supposed to get warm this week, around 0C. Hmm.

Anyway I wanted to get a picture of me all bundled up and excited just heading out to shovel the champange powder can’t you just see the excitement of my expression, ok well I was smiling but you can’t see it =)

After I was done shovelling our Driveway and deck I was a little gassed, wet and sweaty, notice the water dripping off my nose. But I did conquer the savage snow storm, at least this round anyway.

Once I towelled off I went to help the boys eat supper. They were watching How to Train Your Dragon, which is an awesome movie, and it was just finishing up. They both wanted to show me their Dragon faces and so I grabbed the camera. The main Dragon in the movie is named Toothless so I feel these names are fitting.

I present to you a Carrott Tooth and Goofy Tooth Dragon.

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Still on the self portrait kick, not sure for how long but if you like them I can keep them coming just let me know via the comments. I will be shooting them as a personal project for a while longer anyway as a friend of mine challenged me to making a self portrait everyday for an undetermined period. I just thought I would share some of the early ones here and I will continue to post them via my Flickr account at the very least. It is very challenging to come up with an idea that can be carried out from start to finish in under 30 minutes but tonight I came up with a special agent theme with a light in a briefcase. While not incredibly original I have always wanted to make a shot like this so I can now cross it off my list.

Edmonton Portrait Photographer, Korsan Studios, Photography, Portrait Hide

Ok so according to the Weather Network it is -23 Celsius but with wind it feels like -30, which is about -22F. Brr. So I was looking through some old photos of a trip to Florida and came accross this surfer walking down the beach on a nice and hot +98F day, that is only a 120 degree difference in temperature a drop in the bucket.

and so the silly shots continue because apparently I am suffering from brain freeze

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Tonight I was trying to think of what to do for a self portrait, you know just throw something together because self portraits are easy right. Well I could not really come up with anything on the spot and was felling a little bit silly and wanted to just shoot something fast, just on a whim. I was wearing my Top Gun t-shirt and was thinking I could pull off a little fighter pilot attitude. The problem is the only props I had on hand to play up the theme besides my t-shirt was a pair of aviator sunglasses.

Then I thought that I could pretend to be a super fan or something and I busted out some gaffer tape, put it under my eyes like the football players do and fliped my hat backwards. Don’t ask why, it just felt cool. This is the only frame I got of this as after this shot the batteries for my flash were dead and I though it would be a good time to end my silly stuff and go to bed.

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I recently got the Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 and was messing around in a parkade with Kris. He thought it would be cool to pretend he was launching a ball of light from his hands. Both of these images were lit with a single Canon 580 EXII attached directly to a Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 and triggered via a Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 all TTL. Kris is holding the flash in his hands and there is a wall in front of him that the light is bouncing off of to light him and everything else.

I am not sure which look I prefer to the images but if you have some thoughts please comment on them.

Settings for both images:
Canon 7D Manual mode
1/60
2.8
50mm
ISO 200
TTL

580ex II, Action, Canon, Edmonton, Edmonton Portrait Photographer, Flex TT5, Korsan Studios, Mini TT1, Photography, Pocket Wizard Hide

My Grandma called me tonight, she was worried about everyone because of the poor road conditions. We just had a huge storm over the weekend and she knew we would all have to travel the roads to and from work today. She just wanted to make sure that everyone made it home safely. You have to love Grandmas for that, just like Moms!

I am going to tell you a secret but shhh, don’t tell anyone I told you. My Grandma asked me jokingly not to tell anyone that we talked for an hour. ha ha ha, You see the ongoing joke with Grandma is this: do you have a minute I want to talk to you for an hour. All joking aside though, I really enjoy those conversations. She always shares stories from when she was growing up or when we were growing up and relates them back to my own children. We could talk for hours and sometimes do. Tonight of course the conversation turned to the winter road conditions and how much snow there was to shovel. This led to a story about how she used to bug my Grandpa about taking the keys out of their snowblower during the summer as there was no need to leave them in. Of course his response was that they needed to stay in and there was no harm in doing so. Well as the years passed by my Grandpa was not able to do the walks anymore and so my Grandma was to take over. Now in charge she could remove the keys during the summer. Of course winter came along, as it does every year, and the first big snowfall arrives. Grandma bundles up and heads out to the frigid cold to fire up the trusty snowblower and rrr rrrr rrr poof, rrr rrr rrr poof nothing. After a few tries in the house she goes and has a “discussion” with my Grandpa on whether or not she choked it out, she tells him she is just warming up as it is cold out and she would give it another shot after she warmed up… Then it dawns on her that there are no keys in the snowblower! She quietly goes outside and puts the key in and presses the start button and vrrrooom off she goes, thumbs up to my Grandpa who is watching from the window to let him know she did it!

Next thing Grandma tells me is that I should look out the window and nod to the moon who is lying down, she tells me it is a sign of holding moisture and that would be a good thing for a few days as we are running out of places to put our snow =)

I love the conversations with my Grandma and I am not going to keep it a secret that we talked for an hour. In fact I am proud to have the opportunity to talk to her for that long, I just wish I could do it more often.

Conversations, Edmonton, Family, Grandma, Korsan Studios, Moon, Moon Phase, Snowblower, Winter Hide

Wow, what a storm we have been having for the last 2 days! The snow banks are close to 6 feet high where we have been piling it all. Everyone is getting stuck in their cars, including your truly. I would have taken a picture of it but I was too busy furiously digging myself out. It is a good thing I was a block from my sisters house and there were lots of people who came to help otherwise I might still be digging. Once I got home we bundled the boys up and went out to shovel. Angela took these photos of me and they boys in action shovelling our deck off.

I don’t think that Owen was feeling it, after a few minutes he wanted to go inside and “warm up”. I am sure he was plenty warm but was more interested in playing than shovelling.

Brandon stuck it out for another 10 minutes before he too had enough. It takes a lot of effort to move all that snow, especially for a 2 year old!

We were supposed to head to galaxyland as a reward for both the boys doing so well all week with potty training but after me getting stuck and all the snow that kept coming down… we decided to have a “popcorn and movie” night in with the boys. They were all over it and were quick to pick out what bowls they wanted their popcorn in.

We watched Toy Story 3 and of course you have to have the popcorn bowl to go with the movie, just like at the theatres. By the way when the four of us went to the theatre to see Toy Story 3 I spent the entire movie post previews sitting on the floor of the lobby with Brandon asleep on my lap. I am happy to report that we all successfully watched the entire “moody” as Owen pronounces it, but unfortunately it is still snowing so off to shovel for the 4th time today.

Children, Edmonton, Family, Korsan Studios, Photography, Storm, Winter Hide

We put our tree up a few weeks ago and while the lights were being put on (boring stuff) the boys and I relaxed waiting for the green light to start putting ornaments up.

As you can see once the green light came the troublesome two wasted no time in getting to work.

Brandon needed a boost from Uncle Phil

Not to be outdone by his little brother Owen needed a lift from Aunty Claudette. Who had the highest ornament? I think it might have been a draw as Aunty had her work cut out trying to lift the taller and heavier of the two.

Even the guy with the camera had to get in on the decorating.

hmmm where is there some empty space to put this?

Hey Owen right here, I found a great spot…

Apparently too good of a spot as there seemed to be quite the growing cluster going on.

Catching myself in the action of documenting the decoration of the tree.

And catching my grandma (gg to my kids) in the action of documenting the decoration of the tree as well.

Apparently I was not so covert and she caught me catching her! I wonder where I got my love of photography from?

The boys absolutely loved this musical house that Grandma Korsan had up. They would get real close and concentrate waiting for the next door to open with a Christmas figure popping out and then jump back and scream with excitement when they got startled.

A few shots of some festive decorations and ornaments…

This one has to be my favourite from the day! Nice um “earings” Aunty Claudette, maybe they will go great with your wedding dress…

More to come…

Children, Edmonton, Family, Holiday, Korsan Studios, Photography Hide