First of all, I would like to apologize to anyone who came looking for my site and saw nothing but a ‘page does not exist’ error. I was having issues with my domain renewal as well as some transfer problems, and since I’ve been so busy with other things, it is only now that I have managed to get my site back up and running. Hopefully that will never happen again. Fingers crossed.

As I stated in my last Santa Monica post, I have some more images from the trip ready for viewing. The first two are some long exposures I did one night while taking in the beautiful Pacific sunset. I had never tried taking a photo of a highway at night before. I think the image I got turned out really well. The second two are of myself and Jen Trenchard (TriggerPhoto). Its actually pretty difficult to take a self-portrait while lying on the beach, but I managed. Jen and I also had fun shooting each other while we rode the ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier.

With Alberta Fashion Week wrapping up last night, I now have time to catch up on some long awaited blogging, so watch for more images that I created this birthday month.

I have finally completed my studio session images that I took during the day for PARKSHOW a few weeks ago. As I stated in Part 1, my goal for these portraits was to focus on the hair and make-up that was so intimately applied to the models of the show. The models were stunning and thanks to the wonderful people who made it happen (listed below), I think that the portraits I produced that day are my best so far. These are three of my favourites from the event. Let me know what you think or have a look at all of my photos from the event including the runway designs.

Oh and, my good friends over at Calgary Fashion wrote a nice little article about the event as well, so go and give it a read.

Check out PARK online at www.ourparkonline.com

Make Up Artists
Olga Onulov
Lisa Dawson
Sandra Cross-Bussoli
Douglas Cressman

Hair Stylists
Theresa Jalotjot
Kimberely Seibel
Brae-Lea Hickey
Leslie Alonzo

This is just a quick selection of some of my favourite images from my weekend in beautiful Santa Monica. I am back in Calgary now where everything is brown, grey, and looks like death (except for my friends of course). I’ll be happy when things turn green here again. I have more images to sort from this trip and still need to get my second round of PARKSHOW images up, which will be this week, since I need to prep for Alberta Fashion Week which starts this weekend.

Note: Photograph taken by: Guy from Wisconsin. Post processing: Jennifer Trenchard.

Went for my morning run along the Marvin Braude pathway in Santa Monica again this morning. Gorgeous blue bird day, but one with a very different atmosphere compared to yesterday. The weekend is here and with it comes athletics on the beach. I saw people doing tai chi, yoga, boxing, and various other morning exercises. And when I wasn’t being passed by runners in groups of 40 to 100 people, I was busy trying to keep on the path while watching women’s beach volleyball teams warm up. On top of all that, there was a massive youth soccer tournament setting up. In a nutshell, the beach was alive with people playing sports. But the one thing that stood out to me the most, mainly because I have always wanted to try it, was the surfing crowd. VW vans, trucks, and Jeeps were all pulling up with surfboards on their roofs. This is my kind of world.

I made a quick stop at an on-beach exercise “gym” to see how many pull-ups I could do (why not?), then grabbed some breakfast, found a nice spot in the sand, and just laid there, listening to the waves from the ocean break against the shore.

The above photo is myself and Jennifer Trenchard. It was taken yesterday by a guy from Wisconsin who was also enjoying the view.

My busy month of March is well underway and I couldn’t be enjoying it more.

After having completed PARKSHOW and my Sexy Business Christmas Handshake shoot last weekend back in Calgary, I’m now in Santa Monica/Los Angeles, visiting the angels. Ok, no real angels, just fellow iStockers… including TriggerPhoto, GreenPimp, Andipantz, Brentman, and P_Wei. Such wonderful people.

I went for a jog this morning by the beach on the Marvin Braude Bike Path, from the Santa Monica Pier up to Will Rogers State Beach, with the largest smile on my face. The sun, the smell of the ocean, the palms trees, the beautiful people. All good.

TriggerPhoto and I plan to hit the beach and do some shoots today. Gotta work on my tan. I’ll make sure to keep you up to date on my time here. For now… back outside I go.

The more images I create, the more I want to create new images and the more I am willing to invest in creating those images.

Twelve days ago a shoot concept came to mind. Why the idea came about is currently a secret, but in summary I had a deadline of six days to round up absolutely everything required for it. Lighting equipment, a boardroom, three models dressed in business attire, and one very sexy Santa. Needless to say, I am quite proud of myself for pulling it off. Everyone was very helpful and I think the final images turned out very well. The image above was the very last shot of the day. Big thanks to powerofforever and to everyone else who came out and helped. I really appreciate it.

Head on over to iStockphoto to see the rest of the images in the series.

If you live in Calgary and like fashion, then you’ve heard of PARK. PARK stands for “Promoting Artists, Redefining Kulture” and PARKSHOW Spring 2010 took place this past Saturday, March 6 at the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre. I love photographing fashion shows and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in this amazing event.

With so many wonderful designers and models featured in PARKSHOW, a team of photographers were assigned to capture the day. Each was assigned specific models, but we all had the pleasure of shooting a few others as well. The first half of the day (for the photographers) was dedicated to capturing the models. With my time, I really wanted to capture the artistry of the hair and make-up that was so artistically styled. I set up three lights near the whitest wall I could find and as each model came by, I did my best to produce images that best suited their look (stay tuned for Part 2 featuring some of those images).

Later that night I took a few photos of the building before the doors were opened. When Atu Bedroc Kumi announced start of the show, the whole place was packed with great looking people eager to see the new the designs. I felt a little awestruck when I took my seat at the head of the runway. Whenever I shoot a fashion show, consistency of the images I produce is my top priority because I really want my images to look like a complete series. The show was capped off with an amazing performance by House of Dangerkat and then an awesome after party.

Check out PARK online at www.ourparkonline.com

Every year, something happens on March 2nd. Today is March 2nd. Today is my birthday.

When I first moved to Calgary five and a half years ago, I knew one person who had a birthday on March 2nd… me. Only a few weeks after moving to Alberta, I found two other people who shared the exact same birth date as myself (the story in which we all found out at the exact same time in the exact same room is a good one, so if you’re ever having a beer with me, ask me to tell it). One of them, David Gluzman, has since become one of my best friends here in Cowtown. But believe it or not, I have since found others with the same birth date as us. People I know personally too, including iStock’s famous Brentman. Pretty awesome.

Beside the fact that I know a lot of March 2nd birthdays, I also know at least one person who has a birthday for every day of the first week of March, 1st through 7th. I won’t list them all, but yesterday was the birthday of my friend Mikael who is an Information Architect. Tomorrow is Troy, a designer at iStockphoto, and in a couple of days I have two more friends sharing yet another similar birth date. One of them is my very good friend Adrian Bryksa, who is more knowledgeable about wine than I am about my own shoe size. The other is my friend Marisha, who is more commonly referred to as The Lotus Queen, due to her being the host of Calgary’s longest running drum n’ bass show called Remote Emissions.

Marisha loves to model, and since I love taking photos, it was only a matter of time before we got together to create some awesome images. I don’t want to show them all, but I have posted one of my favourites from a shoot we did together recently to prove to people that the stereotype we’ve all heard is in fact true… female DJs are always hot. Be sure to listen in to Marisha’s show which can be heard every Friday from 10:30p – 12:00a (MST) on CJSW Radio 90.9 fm in Calgary, or check out her MySpace page for more info.

Aside from all of the friends who have March birthdays, I even share the month with my entire family… my mom, my dad, and even my younger brother. Happy birthday to us all and to all of the other Pisces out there.

PS – I might continue to play around with image sizes/placement a bit more, but for now, I’m liking the large format as seen in this post.