Shooting Assignment - Fluevog/@streetvogs:
A Wrap-Up Review
About a month ago I was asked if I wanted to be a part of a project put together by Fluevog. Naturally interested and always skeptical, I figured I’d see what the catch was. Turns out they were starting a new instagram account called @Streetvogs to showcase street photography from each city their stores were located in. With the theme of “Unique Soles for Unique Souls” one representative of each of the 16 cities would have to post daily to the black and white feed as well as the main colour feed.
If you shoot street, you’ll know that having a daily deadline is super stressful. There’s no telling if you’ll get any shots that day, especially when you’re shooting candids. It’s not like you can say, “hey man can you do that thing again where you look ominous and menacing, but do it naturally, it’s for Fluevog” Yeah, doesn’t quite work that way.
On top of me subscribing to the practice of letting my images ‘marinate’ (as spoken about in my last post) I also caption most of my images because, entertainment. Seeing that I had enough on my plate as it was, I figured I’d add to my workload and limit myself further by choosing to feature 1 of the 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto daily to give a balanced overview of the city. Clearly balancing everything else going on in my life wasn’t enough..
So I said yes. Whatev, challenge accepted. fml.
I was actually the 2nd photographer in line with the project, as this idea was brought to life by Take @bigheadtaco and Stephen of Fluevog while in Gastown, Vancouver. Since Take was still shooting at the time of contacting me, I had a bit of a head start to organize what neighbourhoods I wanted to do and what kind of shots I needed to get. I “#latergram” everything anyways so I don’t feel bad for not sharing the images the day I take them. Besides, the more time I have to edit my images, the better the quality of my postings.
Not gonna lie, I had a few images in my archives that worked with some neighbourhoods I wanted to feature so I used them. They would’ve collected virtual dust anyways had I not posted them because they were just sitting there waiting to see the light of day. This project actually brought life to some images that I couldn’t have fit into my feed because they either looked meh, as colour or they just didn’t fit aesthetically with the rest of the stuff on my feed. I’m that picky folks. My OCD mixed with indecisiveness knows no bounds when it comes to image selection. Honestly, they actually looked better in the streetvogs feed considering how Take was shooting his stuff so it kinda worked out.
"Sometimes you go out to shoot street and have nothing to show for it”The first week was brutal. So was the second. It was a lot tougher to come up with 3 posts daily (2 BW + 1 colour) when I normally just post once a day on both my accounts @phraction and @phraction_street. 4 accounts to manage!? Sleep?! I got this. Also trying to post at certain times of days to stagger each post from all accounts was super nuts.
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On top of doing the candid street stuff, I actually got out of my comfort zone and met a few people who were willing to pose for me. Prior to this project I wouldn’t have called myself a Fluevog connoisseur so spotting their shoes was a huge challenge. Luckily… luck. I met food/lifestyle/travel blogger Annie (Chu On This) and Karyn @karyndejong who actually found me and made my life a bit easier with their great looks and style. I’m no portrait photographer and my art direction was rusty to say the least but I got the shots. I’ll probably have a separate post showcasing the images that didn’t get featured because I think there’s tons of images in each set and I can only post 10 photos here. Besides, I like to mix things up a bit and variety is key to keep everyone interested I guess.
*Karyn DeJong in front of Guu restaurant’s cube wall*What was also neat was that my shots were fed straight from the @fluevog and @streetvogs instagram feed and right onto the official fluevog website. That’s right folks, big leagues ;)
*Screencap of the Fluevog site featuring my posts on their IG feed*When it was all done, it was obviously bittersweet. The challenge was completed, the ‘deadlines’ to have something up was over, and the ‘need’ to go out and shoot had changed to a ‘want’ once again. It’s not every day that you have full creative control over photo assignments. In the industry with art directors, clients, client’s clients calling the shots, it was an opportunity that I would be stupid to pass up and in the end I actually picked up my first pair of Fluevog shoes:
*My fluevogs are called “Down To Earth - Hadfield”*Gotta say thanks to everyone who brought me into this and supported me throughout the project, so it’s my time to show support to the next @streetvogs photographer who is currently shooting now and representing Ottawa: Mink Williams @minkwilliams. It was conceived during the time of shooting that the current photographer would have to suggest a suitable candidate for the next city and his quirky style and awesome eye for spotting fluevogs on the street clearly made him a top choice. If you’ve got some time (and I know you do, if you’ve read up this far) why not check out to see what they’re up to over there but be sure to come back ‘cause I’ll miss you guys if you’re gone for too long :)If you feel like sticking around for a bit, feel free to hang up your coat and stay a while - I’ve got some black and white images at the top of the page that you can click onto for a larger view showcasing some stuff that didn’t make the streetvogs feed because I had too many shots from one neighbourhood or couldn’t find a way to fit it in without being fair to the other ‘hoods. Equality and all that stuff right?