Design Work

As a freelancer who has a fairly open schedule I have used some my free time over the years to learn a range of creative platforms to gain experience and know-how in between my photo work – a change of pace of sorts. One of these creative platforms I have focussed on is design. I have worked with companies on logos and identity packages, I have designed banners, posters and decals for trucks and cars, and for the past 5 or 6 years I have been doing the annual brochure for Socially Responsible Safaris. This brochure has come a long way since the first one we put together and in now is an impressive 8×10, 14-page brochure that encompasses some great photos, a great logo, and a great visual experience – although I guess I am somewhat biased! It is always nice to see ideas that were floating around in your head on real paper – FSC approved paper of course!

So, if you ever want to go on a safari, make sure to ask me for a brochure, or check out srsafaris.com.

Front and Back covers:
 

Inside Pages:

Photo Galleries

JENIN:

If you click on the image above it will take you to an extended photo slideshow of my trip with World Vision to the West bank back in September/October. There are several different scenarios I photographed that are illustrated, but the image above (and the subsequent images that go along with this image in the gallery) are from one of the more interesting places I have had the chance to photograph. I would have loved to stay there for much more time or even had the chance to go back again, but it was not in the cards. The images illustrate a stretch of land, about 3 kilometres long, where men from the West Bank (usually men who cannot find work elsewhere) find employment producing charcoal from cut down trees they buy from Israelis at the border, they then sell this charcoal to the local population for cooking. The smell at this place was like 10,000 camp fires in a small room and the smoke was so think that it made my face black by just being in the area. Both my cameras and my camera bag still smell like charcoal smoke 8 months later! I have many more images from this place and hope I can use them somehow in the future. The men were fascinating, and the scenery was extremely interesting.

PHOTOS BY SARA:

Clicking on this image will take you to a photo gallery of images that were taken by a girl named Sara. In previous posts on the blog (here) you can see that I photographed a story of a family in the West Bank that was in the Spring issue of Childview, Sara is the middle sister of Madlen who the story was about. While I was busy photographing the family I showed Sara how to use my second camera and she played the role of photographer for some time. It is always interesting to see what is worthy of being photographed to a child from a different land and culture who is in their own surroundings. Much different than what I see.

Today, A Video

It does not come along often but you know those weeks (or days, or hours even) where you get an idea in your head and you can’t focus properly on anything that does not relate specifically to this idea? Well, that was me for the past week and a half, and I hope the final product was worth its time because now I have a lot to catch up on.

First, let me be up front: the ideas I am speaking of were not necessarily plans to  change the world, but more along the lines of creative ideas that pertained to making a good video – not as exciting as a New World Order. The ideas that I have that are world changing (or at least what I consider world changing) are usually ones that I keep to myself and don’t relay to you, the public, for fear of them not being world changing at all (I think a ‘sigh’ is in order at this point).

I realize that because of the nature of my work I have a certain luxury that allows thoughts and ideas to take up this amount of time. But beyond this luxury, I needed to learn more about video and video editing and this was my opportunity. Videography is not something that I do on a regular basis, actually, this is the first official promo video I have done from beginning to end and I quite enjoyed the process, although videography does not leave as much room for error as photography, and I have to worry about audio, and a different aspect ratio, and strange codecs, and audio, oh, did I mention audio? This video is a fairly simple documentary style promo for a small organization called Hippo Africa. I traveled with the director and a board member, both who are good friends of mine (and each other), to Uganda in January. We spent about a week and a half gathering footage, working at their school and other projects around Kampala, and travelling around the country enjoying everything that Uganda has to offer – which is a lot. I have travelled to Uganda quite extensively over the years and it was a good place to focus in on my videography skills to create this four-and-a-half minute spot.

The truth is, I like this video but I am biased so I don’t know if what I like is actually good. So, let me know what you think. Or don’t of course, either way I hope you enjoy it.

Levitation

Looking back on my past few blog entries I realize that it may look like I don’t work for anyone but World Vision. I agree with you that this is not a bad thing because I do work for them on a fairly regular basis, and I am more than happy that I can say that. However, I feel I should highlight some of the work I do for other clients, and maybe even show some of my personal work – as will be the case today.

Back before it was 2013 I assisted a friend who was supposed to photograph for a hair salon. The idea was that he would rent a space and the model would come with her hair all done up and we would take some photos and that would be it. Pretty simple. Well, the hair salon cancelled – so, we had a rented space that was paid for, a whole bunch of lights and cameras and nothing to shoot. So, we shot ourselves (so to speak).

I will move back into the history and my thoughts preceding this photo shoot. Although I learned how to use flash equipment in school, I rarely used it in the years after I finished at Humber College. Most of my work was, and is, centred around photojournalism and I stick to this because it is what I enjoy. This is not to say flash equipment is not used in photojournalism, but I just never chose to do so on a regular basis. There came a moment a few years ago when I came across a photographer from Toronto that was doing some great stuff with lights and I thought “man, this is cool stuff” and was instantly worried that I had forgotten how to use them. The truth is that I had not forgotten; the basics of lighting are somewhat hard to forget. But, I was definitely out of practice. Without being too simplistic, it is all about balancing light and figuring out what you want lit and what you don’t.

Because of this photographer that made me feel somewhat inadequate (as it were) I started to re-research lighting; I bought some lighting equipment, I started to follow some blogs and study photos by photographers I thought were doing some interesting work with lights. Basically, I began to relearn flash and lighting, and conceptualize photos that needed, required, or would be made better with lights.

The photo you see here is the culmination of a few months of intermittent research and study. I will leave it up to you to decide whether it is a good photo or not, or whether it is a photo that should have taken a few months of relearning lighting to capture. But, what this image has done is given me a boost in confidence, and allowed me to realize that I actually still know what I am doing when it comes to lighting. Furthermore, I was also was able to do it in a cool space because a hair salon decided to cancel a photo shoot. Awesome!

Spring Childview Issue

The new spring issue of World Vision’s magazine, Childview, has been mailed out and if you are one of the people who get it in the mail you will see a whole host of images I took.

Some of you may know that I went to the West Bank a few months ago, beyond it being an area of the world I have always wanted to experience, it was also very eye-opening to see the situation in the Middle East, from the Middle East. I will not pretend that because I have been there I am now an expert in Middle Eastern politics, because there is no way I can understand the situation between Israel and the West Bank/Gaza strip and the rest of the region unless I am a resident of any, or either, of those countries. However, I will say this; it is easy to judge the situation over there from over here when there is an ocean in-between you and them, it is easy to judge who is the good guy and who is the bad guy when each side seems to be representative of the global conflicts of religion and empire. I quickly figured out that there is no easy answer and to condemn one side and praise the other, or come up with reasons why one side can defend and the other cannot, is bypassing the real issues. Really, I don’t believe it is impossible for people of opposition to live together, but I also don’t believe it is easy. In this case, deep-seeded political divisions and thousands of years of history get in the way of the ability to make decisions toward a solution that doesn’t involve launching missiles at each other.

Anyway, enough of my attempts to solve a huge problem with political correctness, and lack of knowledge. The family we met and spent time with on our trip was truly amazing. They graciously allowed us to delve into their lives to see where they work, where they go to school, how they spend their mornings and evenings, what they cook, where they do their homework, and just generally see how they live – which was a fascinating experience. As a photographer, this excites me because the more time I spend with a person, a family, or within a situation, the better photos get. People get comfortable with me being there and forget I am there taking photos. I become somewhat invisible and this allows me to see the real life of a person. Check out the photos and take some time to read the article, I am sure you will learn something.

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FAITH IN ACTION
Apart from the main story we did on Madlen and her family. We did a small segment called Faith in Action. In this case the story is about Jack, a World Vision employee who was also our guide and translator (he knew everyone everywhere we went. On a weekend in 2002 while Jack was attending the University of Bethlehem he went home to visit his family and while there was apprehended by Israeli authorities and thrown in jail for two years. His charge was participating in political activities that could threaten the state of Israel. Take some time to read about Jack, he is an interesting individual with an interesting story.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the photos, and the stories.

Excuses and Another Timelapse

This past weekend I was at a friend’s home for a ‘Pub Night’. They have a fancy space in their basement that resembles a pub minus the television screens, the worn out wood/tiled floors, and the small, usually gross, bathrooms. Not that these things are necessarily bad because they are the things that make a good pub, but somehow plush, white carpet and no bartender worked for this specific evening. Plus, I played poker and won couple hands (neither of which are a regular occurrence).

This is all to say that while I was there I was asked by one of my basement pub comrades who is an old friend, why I had not blogged in a while. I guess I have several good answers, but none that are overly convincing. So, for this blog post I will proceed to explain them.

I recently returned from a trip to Africa, I spent the first week-and-a-day in Uganda for some personal travel, and then I made my way down to South Africa to do some work with World Vision. Uganda has been a country that I have travelled quite regularly over the past few years for school, work and travel. It is a place that I love going to and houses several of the places on my “favourite places I have been in my lifetime thus far” list. This, plus the fact that I was able to go with two close friends, one of whom had never been to Africa before but has been entrenched in the issues of Africa for years, made my week in Uganda exceptional. The second leg of my trip to South Africa was for an article that will be in World Vision’s summer issue of Childview. The trip started with me missing my flight out of Uganda (I will blame Kenya Airways), but a well-timed South African Airways flight allowed me to make it to Joburg in time to catch my connection to Pietermaritzburg with the World Vision team.

Now for the reason I have not blogged; both trips consisted of photos and videos I cannot show at this moment. The footage I got in Uganda is still being edited into a complete video, and the photos I got in South Africa will be in an article that won’t come out until June – so you have to wait. So, for now, this time lapse is all I got! It is an example of the scenery we were working within – I took a moment while the rest of the team was finishing up a project to sit on the side of a mountain and put this together. It was windy, so there is a bit of camera shake, but it is more for the idea and what I was seeing, than the quality.

It is in moments like the one while I was taking the photos for this time lapse, that I realize our world is an amazing place and I am glad I can experience it in ways I never imagined I would have. The hard part is remembering that when it is February in Toronto and the grey skies never seem to disappear (which is where the basement pub comes in handy).

Childview

2013 is now a week old and my first post of the year will start with something from last year. I apologize for this, but, in amongst the Christmas and New Year marathon, and working hard to put together a new website (which is coming soon), I have not had too much time to sit and write a blog post.

It is not everyday that a photo of mine lands on the cover of a magazine. When it does happen it is usually on the cover of Childview, which is a magazine that World Vision puts out a couple times a year. This magazine has recently had an overhaul that makes it an impressive magazine to look at.  Last year I went with World Vision to Tanzania and spent almost three weeks travelling around the country gathering photos and stories to use in future World Vision publications. At the end of a long trip it is nice to see my photos displayed and being used to illustrate a story. As a photographer, you get attached to images you take not necessarily because of it is a good photo, but because you remember the feeling of being there when the photo was taken. I will speak for myself here; when I am selecting images for a contest or for my website, sometimes I am asked “why did you choose this one?” and my only good answer is that it was a great evening with that family, or I developed a great connection with that kid, or that it was just one of those evenings with great light. Sometimes, I think my mind tells me an image is good because I can put myself tin the spot where the image was taken. The problem is that my feelings for a photo, or the people in it, do not make it a good photo – although I wish it did. I did not choose the images that accompanied this article, which is probably a good thing. I don’t know how well I would do in selecting down a whole three weeks of images into 3 pages. World Vision did a great job with this story, give it a read!

You can read a bit more about my trip to Tanzania in a previous post that you can find here.