About 30 hours of shooting, and a similar amount of editing went into producing the video.  and LOTS of running.  Well, probably not that much for Kriste because that's what she does, but lots for me, and sprinting backwards on a single track in the forest with a steady cam is NOT easy!

We experimented a lot, steady cam shots, under water shots, slider dolly shots, painters pole shots, and UAV aerial footage with a quadrocopter, and a GoPro Hero HD  (fun Toys!)  I have a whole new respect for film makers, and especially editors, and I am looking forward to growing my motion experience into a product that I can include in my product offerings.

One of the great things about living in a time of such amazing technological change (especially in the photo/film industry) is being able to try new things, step outside of your comfort zone and experiment and create.  Go out and try to make something, anything.  no matter the outcome, it will be inspirational and a learning opportunity!

We were responsible for shooting the time lapse sequence that runs in the background of the Bing concert commercial, plus a few of the concert shots in the "Photosynth" section of the ad.   More about how the shoot came together after the jump...

In what turned out to be a fairly epic endeavour, we went from first discussion of licensing This time lapse clip of mine from the Sasquatch Music Festival 2009, to a new shooting concept, to production in less than a week.  Thanks to the organization of the creative geniuses at JWT in New York we were able to co-ordinate my 5 person local team, A Vancouver Producer and assistants, rental gear from the four corners of the continent, co-operation with brand.LIVE the concert promoters in just four days to pull together a grueling 56 hour non-stop shoot.  The two Nikon D3's ran continuously from 5:00am on Saturday morning until 1:00pm on Monday, shooting 5 - 24 megapixel frames every 15 seconds.  My on site team checked the cameras constantly to ensure operation, and swapped memory cards every few hours. We had an 8 core 12GB computer system renaming, archiving and backing up files continuously in the "Production RV" (our awesome little VW Euro-van parked on site for the whole festival).  Post production, time lapse assembly, and colour grading was (awesomely) performed by BlueRock in New York (much to my relief, we shot over 113,000 frames at 24MP each!)

Art Buyer Sara Levi and Creative Director Scott Bassen from JWT flew from NY (via Timbuktu I think due to last minute bookings) on Friday to be on-site for the shoot.  Most of us got only a couple of hours sleep the entire weekend, Sara & Scott had to head back out first thing Monday, and the rest of the local crew were aching for their beds after an exhausting but awesome weekend of photography, music, all-nighters and even a bit of fun!

5:00am setting the cameras by the security lights

Techie how we did it stuff....

• co-ordination with the venue was key, we had to co-operate with the right people to sort out access, camera positions, an on site production location, press access, and parking.
• We built two scaffold towers each 5 meters high, and anchored them to 1200 kilo concrete blocks with heavy duty tie down straps.  Each tower was surrounded by a 6 foot high fence so that the towers would not be disturbed by the fans.
• Very heavy duty tripods were then strapped down to the towers.
• A Nikon D3 was perched on each tripod. Once the camera positions were set, the cameras had to stay in position throughout the shoot.  If we moved them, the frames for the time lapse would not be aligned, causing a nightmare for post production. We had to be prepared for all weather eventualities, September in the Coast Mountains is not always sunny!
• Each D3 was adorned with a Kendrick Astro Firefly lens heater, and neoprene Camera Cozy to prevent dew from forming on the lens and the cameras during the cold nights.  The cameras were then bagged with a good ol ziploc in case of rain.
• Each D3 and the Lens Heater was wired to run from one 12 volt deep cycle marine battery that would provide enough power to last throughout the entire shoot without having to change the power source.  The batteries were placed at the bottom of the towers, with long power leads running up the scaffolding.
• Each camera was also connected to a video out cable that ran down to the bottom of the scaffold and was connected to a 4 inch LCD screen.  This allowed us to monitor the progress of the photography from the ground frequently without having to climb the scaffold and risk shaking the cameras.
• The Nikons were set using the built in intervalometer to shoot a bracketed sequence of 5 photos every 15 seconds during the day, and every 5 seconds during the evening concerts.
• During the day when the available light overpowered the stage lighting the camera were set to shoot on aperture priority, but in the evening when the highly varied stage lighting overpowered the dusk we manually adjusted the shutter speeds every few minutes using a third D3 as a chimp meter light meter.  Once the sky was dark the settings were changed to manual to carry on throughout the night.

the two camera positions as seen from the stage

• All of the images from each of the two camera angles were carefully renamed, archived to a hard drive for the client, and backed up onto a third drive for safekeeping.  One drive was handed to the clients to take back to New York, another was couriered the next day, and a third copy kept on file at my office, just in case.

JWT has created a great concept for Bing.  I love the way the final ad looks, and how prominently it features my beautiful and amazing home town of Squamish, BC Canada.  Great thanks to everyone that made it all come together.

By the way, the Live at Squamish Festival was fantastic, they did everything right.  It was "Happy Times in a Big Field with Great Music" in the mountains.  Hope to see you there next year!

I will probably spend a few days on the Olympic buses, visiting some of the Whistler Live! and Vancouver Live! venues, checking our the international pavilions and free concerts.  I can't let the party completely pass me by, but I will likely spend most of the Olympics editing the architectural photography I have been shooting over the last month.  Then, when the 2010 chaos, and fun is over, breathe a sigh of relief, and get beck to work.

Some of my recent shoots have been Olympic related, I took photos for the Ontario Pavilion, and shot some hospitality spaces for Coca-Cola.  I have also been busy with a few other cool architecture projects including Tyax Wilderness Resort, and the Bank of Montreal.  I will post some details of all of my recent shoots soon (after the images have been delivered to the clients!)  but here are a few tidbits so you can see what I have been up to recently.

Ontario House 2010 Olympic Pavilion - Hariri Pontarini Architects

Heli-Ski Chalet at Tyax Wilderness Resort

Olympic Hospitality space - Designed by Imagicorps

Bank of Montreal Vancouver - Iredale Group Architects

More Photos and some Behind the Scenes coming soon!  GO CANADA GO!!!

Cannon Design Architecture has leased my daylight long exposure images, along with a few others to be used in marketing and award applications.  It is fantastic to be a part of an application for such a prestigious award.

The 2010 Olympic Oval has already been honoured several times, including recognition from the Globe Foundation and World Green Building Council for projects that employ Green Building Practices, and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's 2009 Award of Excellence for Innovation in Architecture. The RAIC award is partly due to the use of more than a million board feet pine beetle kill lumber that forms the 100 meter span gluelam roof supports.  In addition to the RAIC and green building awards, the Richmond Olympic Oval was recently the recipient of the Sustainability Star award. Given by the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Organizing Committee (VANOC), which recognizes the innovative efforts Games partners and sponsors are taking to be sustainable.

The 2010 Olympic Oval is a spectacular building, and a marvel of modern construction  that blends function and aesthetics. If you can, get yourself to Richmond and take a look for yourself.

Hopefully we will see the Richmond Oval walk away with the World Building of the Year Award. (with an ever so little help from my photos )

I bought this filter to experiment with, and to use for personal work, photos that might end up as art, or shots that might be just for me.  I had fun experementing, and was pretty happy with the results.  I left the filter in my most used gear bag, and forgot about it for a while.

When my brother asked me for a ride to the Vancouver Airport a few weeks ago, I grabbed my gear, remembering that the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Speed Skating Oval had recently been completed near the airport, and was supposed to be a unique and spectacular building.  I thought I'd take a look at it after dropping my bro at YVR.  Great Architecture always intrigues me, that's why I became an Architectural Photographer.  Sometimes I just go out and look at buildings, sometimes I photograph them for fun, even if it's not a work assignment.  When I arrived at the Olympic Oval, the conditions could not have been better.  The light was in just the right place, still quite low in the sky, but with a bright daytime look.  The blue sky and clouds mirrored the brilliant colours of the ice blue architecture, accented with orange wooden beams for a dash of contrast.

In a case like this, I have to take photos, I don't have a choice.  It's like an addiction, looks.....soooo.....goood,........must.....take......photos....!  It's the same feeling that would compel a tourist to take 2 dozen shots of a beautiful sunset, even though each one looks just like the one before.  It just looks so good.

I took about 150 frames, wandering around, exploring angles, different lenses, from far and near, low and high.  I was just about to pack up and move on, when I remembered the 10 stop ND filter in my gear bag ( I use a Lowe Pro Photo Trekker in case you were wondering - Free plug for Lowe Pro cause their stuff is so good, and has a lifetime warranty)  It was a pretty windy day, so the clouds and trees were moving quickly, if I made a long exposure I would probably get a unique look to the architecture image. And did I?  Yes. 

Now, I'm not the first to take a daylight long exposure of a building, and I won't be the last.  But, what I did was add a technique to my photography style quiver.  I learned something new by experimenting, and applied it to my personal style.  I really love the results, they add an bit of artistic flair to a standard assignment result.  I will experiment more with the technique, and refine it, learn how to use it as a tool to provide my architectural clients with a better, more unique product.  I will definitely use it on assignments in the future, for the right clients.

The take away here? No matter what your discipline, your style is not static, it grows and evolves.  If you try something new, and it feels right, then go with it.  Experiment, learn, apply, repeat.

Well, it happens that  a few days ago I was in a real funk.  I couldn't get motivated to slog through the pile of office work I had stacked in my in-box, or the editing waiting for me in the depths of the hard drive.  I find that times like these, when I ' not being very productive anyway are perfect times to get out an revive the creative juice flow by trying to shoot something new.  My subject of choice is usually some type of abstract nature.  The weather was lousy,  gray and overcast with a little bit of rain.  Not perfect landscape shoot weather, but then again, is there ever such a thing as perfect landscape weather?  Suddenly I remembered the B+W 110 3.0 (10 stop Neutral Density filter) I bought months ago.  I have been meaning to try it out for ages, it's still in the box. It's just the type of thing that would lend itself to shooting on a less than perfect day.  The filter would allow me to to take quite long exposures (2 minutes I discovered) which would blur the clouds, and water, while stationary objects remained sharp. All of a sudden, the funk was gone, replaced by creative excitement.

here are a couple of the results...

This is the Squamish Estuary, looking south towards the ocean

The same estuary area, looking east towards the Stawamus Chief, the second largest granite monolith in the world (Gibraltar is 1st)

I had planned to go to the old docks by the ocean too, but I got so into it at the estuary that I ran out of daylight.  The sky even co-operated a bit, and opened some late in the day blue patches, providing me with some interesting cloud movement.  Exposures were f22 @ 2 min.

No matter what your creative outlet is, taking some time to do something just for yourself always energizes. Write a poem, or a song, design you ultimate kitchen, paint, take some photos, whatever gets your mind going.  After this little selfish outing, I came back to the office refreshed, and was able to tackle my work with enthusiasm.  I also have a couple of new pieces that will likely end up on my wall.

Get out there and do something for yourself!

The time lapse sequence was photographed the Sasquatch Music Festival, this year on May 24th.  It's a shot of the Main Stage at The Gorge Amphitheater, in Washington State.  Probably the best place in the entire world to see an outdoor concert. 

They were pretty particular at the festival about what you can take in, no tripods.  So, my camera (10mp Canon A640 point and shoot) was rested in the crook of tree for about 45 minutes to shoot the series of photos.  The Canon is running the CHDK firmware hack which allows it to run user programmable scripts like an interval timer.  The camera was shooting 1 frame about every 4 seconds using the script.

The tree was moving a bit due to fairly significant winds that blow up the gorge which is why the footage is a bit shakey, the frames didn't line up perfectly.  A tripod whould have been much better.  I added the "Tilt Shift" effect to each frame using Photoshop batch processing, and assembled the sequence and added the pan and zoom in Adobe After Effects.

One of the benefits of of shooting time lapse photos with the A640 is the the 10mp resolution allows me to shoot each frame large enough to assemble the final video in HD, and it's compact, so I can take it anywhere.

I'll be experementing more with time lapse photography, so stay tuned for more clips in the future!

I wanted to do a little strobist thing in the trees, to reduce the ambient, and light Paul comming off a little rock drop on the trail.  I was reminiscing a bit about shooting film, as I realized that the D40x I brought, combined with the strobes would only be fast enough to shoot one frame.  For about 4 min set up, I think I got a decent one.

Shot with 2 SB-80DX units on slave mode both behind the action, pointing 45° towards the camera at full power.  one on the rock, camera left, and one balanced on a tree branch camera right (you can see the flare on the right side of the frame).  The remote strobes were triggered by a SB-28 at 1/2 power on the hot-shoe from about 10m (30 feet) away.  exposure was 5.6 @ 1/200th for a bit of motion blur shot at about 170mm.  A bit of high pass filter for added drama.

Probably not mag cover material, but really fun for a quick little 5 min shoot.  I can't say how good it feels just to get out and shoot something different for a change.  It really is important to go out a do something creative just for fun.  We had a blast biking yesterday, and I have inspired myself to dream up a couple of more produced bike shots to try and pull off before the end of the summer. 

Grab your camera, and go shoot something new, just for fun!

With the same approach, Susan also designed the living space surrounding the kitchen for an up to date cozy ski town feel.  The interior is accented by a brilliant custom stairway designed by Architect Dennis Maguire.

Modern mountain style interior design is one of my favourite things to shoot, clean but warm and inviting.