Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm
Exposure: 1/200 sec. @ f/5.0, ISO 320
Strobist: Nikon SB-900 in a 28” Westcott Apollo softbox (camera right, manual @ 1/8th) triggered with a PocketWizard Plus II, and a reflector held by my smoking hot wife (yes, I mean it honey…).

Richard contacted me a few weeks ago in reply to an ad I posted on Craigslist about me wanting to shoot local bands, actors and singers. The reasoning behind this little madness of mine is that I want to diversify my wedding photography style as much as possible, in order to offer something unique to my clients. So after a few phone calls and emails to get things moving, we all decided to fix a date and go ahead with the shoot. Let me tell you that I admire these guys for going along with some of my crazy ideas of photographing them outside in the cold with no coats on. A funny thing that occurred during the shoot is that in all three different locations we shot, we either got warned by an STM employee or triggered the curiosity of a few cops. Luckily enough, that was the extend of our issues with the law. Anyways, we weren’t panicking that much because we knew we could count on Andrew’s knowledge of the Law to get us out of trouble…

All that being said, my wife and I can’t wait to see them live in action. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures from our shoot.

P.S. The blue garage door has a new special meaning in my life…but that will a story for another post…

More to come…

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm
Exposure: 1/125 sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 200

However, the only caveat with this plugin is that I couldn’t use it out of the box for my Twitter profile widget because the container’s width was smaller than the widget’s width…too small even. That’s when the software developer in me decided to tweak the plugin to enlarge the its default width to 240px and therefore properly display the Twitter profile widget on my blog.

And you know what? You can also make these changes yourself by following these simple steps:

1. Edit the sidetab.css file in a text editor.
2. Locate the #drawer_1 element and replace its left property’s default value of –203px for –280px. You should note that the difference between these values is 77px. That’s how much more width I want from the side tab plugin when it opens to properly display the Twitter profile widget.
3. This time locate the #drawer_content_1 element and replace its width property’s default value of 163px for 240px. You should notice that once again the delta of 77px is kept.
4. Finally, for this file, locate the * html #drawer_1 element and replace its left property’s default value of –203px for –280px. You should see the pattern now.
5. Save, close and upload this file to your FTP.
6. Edit the dynamic-css.php file in a text editor.
7. Make a search for (minus the quotes obviously…) “echo ‘#drawer_content_’” (this should be line 55, but it could’ve changed by the time you’re reading this, so just search for it to be safe), and replace the value for the width property for 240px instead of its default value of 163px.
8. Save, close and upload this file to your FTP.
9. Edit the side-tab.php file in a text editor.
10. Make a search for “<div class="drawer"” (this one should be in line 233), and replace the value for the style’s element’s left property for –280px instead of -240px.
11. Save, close and upload this file to your FTP.

And there you have it! You can now comfortably add your Facebook profile widget too if you wanted. Keep also in mind your visitors’ screen resolution so that the side tab won’t overlap your posts or pictures. With Google Analytics, I can see that my visitors tend to use a pretty big resolution, so with a width of 240px for my Twitter profile widget, there’s enough space to breath, read and enjoy the images.

Photographing people inside their home can be a bit of a challenge, as I’m constantly trying to visualize and balance my composition with the foreground, middle ground and background, while at the same time being conscious of time. But it’s a challenge that I welcome with open arms because it’ll hopefully make me a better wedding and portrait photographer.

Something funny that occurred at the end of the shoot, was that I asked them whether they were willing to being photographed outside…when it was a chilling –25 degrees Celsius.  They both accepted, however they didn’t want to have their coats in the frame!. As I was juggling the concept in my head (cold, winter, no coats, hhmmm…), I accepted. Hey, anything to make a good photograph for my clients! Compared to them, I was pretty much a wuss of a photographer outside with my big coat, warm tuque and fat gloves.

It was a great moment to be with them that day and I wish them all the best in their next life adventure!

What I thought would initially be an hour long session actually turned out to be double or triple that…but it was awesome nonetheless! More to come…

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm
Exposure: 1/200 sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 200

I wanted to expand my portraits portfolio with couples, so I asked Basem three days prior to the shoot if he wanted a few photographs for him and his girlfriend, Catherine, and he immediately accepted. That’s what I call a really cool client…and friend!

So on a beautiful Saturday morning, we all went to Mount-Royal park in Montreal for about an hour to photograph this fine looking couple in one of the most captivating places in the city during the autumn. Here’s the result of what that day brought forth for us all.

For this shoot, I brought along my Nikon D700, a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G and a Nikon 85mm f/1.4D. The lighting was controlled with a Nikon SB-900 speedlight in a Lastolite Ezybox softbox (24”x24”) and triggered with PocketWizard Plus II transceivers.

This bokeh panorama is the result of 70 frames stitched together with Autopano Pro. It was taken with a Nikon D700 and a Nikon 85mm f/1.4D. However, I was too excited to try this method (for the very first time) that I stopped down my aperture at f/1.6 instead of f/1.4. Patience is key in photography. Lesson learned!

A sidetrack idea that I was going for was also that this kind of event was the perfect opportunity to try out my brand new D700 that I got a few days prior to the event. In fact, I knew that the light wasn’t going to be super good or even flattering, so that pushed me to use high ISO, sometimes even up to ISO 6400 to get the proper exposure I wanted.

In all, the D700 is phenomenal. Had I used my D90 instead, I wouldn’t be able to use most of these images that were shot in very dim light because even at ISO 3200, it would’ve been too grainy for my taste.

With all the technicalities behind us, here are a few pictures which tell the story about how I experienced this event…

It’s Saturday afternoon, cloudy, and there’s an electric sense of passion and excitement in the air. The reason? Jennifer and Marco are hosting their engagement party at the magical Château Vaudreuil.

Prior to this event, I had no idea what an engagement party was. I guess we missed that in our pre-married life, but at least we got a chance to see it live and at the same time photograph a young man and woman madly in love with each other. This couple, as destiny would have it, met and fell in love during those mystical high school years. Now, I’ve seen movies and read books about stories just like theirs, however it was the first time that I met a couple who fell head over heels for each other in high school.

I’ve had the pleasure of working in the same workplace with Jennifer for a while, and when she asked me if I would be willing to photograph their event, I (very) nervously accepted. Sometimes life throws things at you for which you have to decide whether it’s an opportunity or not. I’m glad we had the opportunity to showcase this special little thing called love between these two high school sweethearts. Congratulations on your engagement, Jennifer and Marco!