Helena & Davin

It was a perfect storm. We were driving to this location outside of calgary last week, and according to the radar, the storm was supposed to stay out of this area. However nature doesn't follow weather predictions.
We were just a few kilometers off when hail started falling. It was borderline terrifying. The only large cover I had, a reflector, I offered it to cover their car. Ha ha. In retrospect, I may have been sarcastic. 

We could spot all the cars pulling over to the side of the road, some, foolishly, continued on. 

It soon stopped and left a lot of hail at the shooting locations, and also some fog. There was a lot of low lying fog in the area, making for a romantic setting. Besides the fact that it wasn't a comfortable warm, the conditions were perfect for a photo-shoot.  

While I did have a whole lighting setup for this shoot, the three photos below are all natural light.   

At shambhala

Shambhala was transformative for me. I would like to take every single one of my friends next year. 

Shambhala is a music festival . There are 7 stages, nestled into the woods. Like seriously, they are built in a forest [Like Fairholme Colony]. Being barefoot is normal, naked also. It's dusty, warm, and friendly. There's a river with a stage right beside it. There's really good food stands, and 10,000 people. The camping space is either on a open field or in some pine forests. You could be there for a week, just walking around and you still wouldn't have found every little corner, hammock, treehouse, or beach. It's absolutely my dream vision of a world. 

This is all built on a farm. Near Salmo, BC. 

Everything I could say about it, is not enough. You have to be there, to experience it. To experience yourself. The photos below, are but snapshots. I had far too much fun in experiencing it, that photography simply took a second seat.  

Oh, did I mention there's music almost all day. Yes. It runs from around 11am in the morning to the 8am the next morning. For 4 days.  

Love this place: Karyn Lee

My second instalment of "love this place" photo series.  

This is Karyn Lee, a Photographer from High River, AB. [Karyn Lee Portrait Couture] She owns a couple horses on a small farm just outside of High River. A farm owned by Deb and Keith.  I travelled there with her to shoot photos as she spent time with her horses. 

It was a learning experience to be using strobe lights with large umbrellas around horses. They get spooked rather easily. The first time setting up an umbrella, it was a small one, 3 feet in diameter, and a good 20 feet from the horse. The horse reacted really suddenly, enough to give Karyn a rope burn. I was a little wiser the next time, I set the large, 7 foot reflector umbrella up before the horse arrived, and kept flashing the strobe as she came closer just to get her used to it.  

The best part came at the end of the photo-shoot when talking to Deb who owns the farm. She said I could come back any time to have a photo-shoot with her horses, but more specifically to paint one of her white horses.  

Karyn Lee: Facebook. Website

Photo-booth at Ascending Koi

My friends at Ascending Koi tattoo and apparel are the nicest group of people I know in calgary [period]. They have fundraisers almost weekly and usually in the form of a friendly block party anyone can attend. 
These are photos of the guests at one such party.

We had originally planned to have a standard grey background, but it was windy and I was like "I'm setting this up to create the most visually stunning photos I can with the given space". They had a shrub, I used it. A shrub, A Canon 60D, 24-70mm f2.8 Lens, wireless flash triggers and Alienbee 1600 light with beauty dish. 
Check out their Website. Facebook.  Twitter. YouTube

I love this place: Jen Gerson

This is my first set of photos in a series I'm just starting. My concept is to shoot people in their favourite place doing what they like. 

This is Jen Gerson, a reporter for the National Post, working on a news article from her office at home.  She interviewed me a year ago a day after I left the colony. At that time she called me, having seen another article about me in the Western Producer. She didn't realize I had left the colony at that time, and when she called me from her office here in Calgary, I surprised her by telling her I could just stop by the national post office for an interview. All the while, I had a BBC film crew following me around for a documentary they were shooting about hutterites, and they filmed me running away. A segment which can be seen here.