Portrait Posing With Phraction: (that’s a terrible title..)

There’s a common misconception that because I shoot people on the street, that taking portraits would be a piece of cake. If by cake you mean something like making an 18 layer Baumkuchen (look it up, it’s super hard you guys), then yes, it’s exactly like that. When push comes to shove though you do what you gotta do. Luckily Karyn is very patient actor/model that I had the pleasure of shooting for the streetvogs project about a month ago

Wanting to mix things up a bit from the usual candid street stuff, I figured shooting a portrait of someone who owned a pair of fluevogs would be the key. Going outside of my comfort zone and challenging myself to make mistakes is something that people do sometimes do for fun for growth and stuff. Seeing that I’m pretty much done physically growing, I might as well you know, do it for creativity. Because skillz.

I suppose that when your primary objective is to feature the shoes, one should probably do that. I decided to unintentionally be a rebel and… not. Because I forgot.. SO that happened and my only saving grace was to see if I had a full-length shot that I could crop into to get a decent shot. In this day and age where “megapixels don’t matter” has found it’s way into the average conversation, I found one time when it actually does. Albeit 16MP is somewhat low apparently, for web, it’s perfectly fine. Grainy and unsharp? You bet. But what I’ve come to realize is that the details we see in our own images (or lack thereof) are sometimes illusions compared to what the majority of people actual see - the big picture.

So here’s to refining some skills, silly mistakes, and shooting enough material to save yourself when your brain suddenly decides to exit stage right.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention… after all the effort in working on that shoe shot - I never ended up using it. I was reminded that the project was about the ‘unique souls’ more than the 'unique soles’ so all that work retouching it, kinda went out the window. But for anyone curious, here’s what the original shot, the cropped shot, and the retouched version ultimately looked like…

(click here to see it larger)

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.

I was am bitching a lot but I actually enjoyed myself. It’s been a while since I’ve been ‘on assignment’ and going out to shoot something specific in mind gave me some much needed direction and focus when out shooting on the street. It made me pick the location properly knowing that not only did I have to get a good street shot, I also had to make sure that it was visible that I was in that part of the neighbourhood I was wanting to feature. So basically no more looming in dark alleys and creepily stalking people without their knowledge… oh wait. I totally did all of that. Like all the time. *no I didn’t…well.. only some of the time..*

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?

#Latergram: Shoot 1st Post l8r

The concept of posting an instagram image way later than when it was taken is a #latergram. I do this. Like all the time. Everything on my feed has been posted days if not weeks from when it was taken. Contrary to instagram being something that’s supposed to display what’s going on currently in the user’s life, I fail to believe that people are all that interested in what I’m doing at this very second. Nor would anyone probably really want to know. flushes toi  uh.. *washes hands*.

I think that being able to post something when I please gives me better control over what I want to share with the world and gives me the time to think whether this is something that people would actually enjoy or if it serves as something that’s shared for the sake of sharing.

I prefer my images to have a flow, to tell a story and to work well from one to the next so I carefully select which shot I want to post to reflect a certain continuity in my feed and make it coincide with whatever it is that I may be feeling at the time. If there’s anything ‘insta’ about my feed, it’s the captions that usually go with the images.

What this also allows me to do is actually enjoy the time I’m out doing something. I can’t be fully experiencing the moment if I’m constantly on my phone posting throughout the day. I like to fully experience the moment and worry about the images later.

By letting my images ‘marinate’ (something I learned from Garry Winogrand in lesson number 6 of Eric Kim’s article) I create an emotional disconnect with my images and this allows me to go back and look at them more objectively to see whether or not it was actually a good shot or if I just thought it was because of how I was feeling at the time of taking it. But of course it’s good… ‘cause I took it pfff… *not really*.

Obviously all this requires more work than needed. Some people can snap a photo, edit it if needed, apply a filter, write something (or not), hasthtag, and post within minutes if not seconds. I’m sure there’s a joke about finishing quickly but I’ll keep this PG-13 (for now). This is great if you don’t want to spend too much time in front of a screen. I however, obviously like making extra work for myself, but clearly it’s for the purpose of making a quality contribution to the world of the internets.

What I’ve noticed is that the more you post, especially of the same angle/subject matter, the less people start to care. What separates you from another person posting pretty pictures? Frankly I find it funny when feeds start to look exactly like one another. Especially from people in the same city shooting the same stuff but that’s another topic in itself. The underlining message here I guess is quality over quantity. *NBC’s “The More You Know” PSA banner suddenly files by*

I do all this because it’s a hobby for me, an outlet to share my images and to an extent, my words. I’m not being paid to do this so the only deadlines I have are the ones I give myself. It’s better this way (at least for me) and perhaps for you as a viewer who can hopefully appreciate that there’s a bit of thought put into each pixel on the screen. Also might renew faith in humanity that we’re not all consumed by the rules of social media - but who am I kidding, we all are, in a way, sucked into it. Maybe by doing things my way, it serves as a method to stick it to the man. What can I say, I’m a rebel that’s bad to the bone and tomorrow, I’m gonna remove all the ‘do not remove’ tags from my couch cushions… *no I’m not..*

I figured some shots of the CNE (Canadian National Exhibiton - for those not from Toronto) would be a perfect pairing for this post given that it ended two weeks ago - Enjoy! 

I got pretty excited to receive an order from www.artisanobscura.com  (or instagram) to outfit my cameras with these wooden hotshoe covers and soft shutter releases that I’ve always been curious about. And who doesn’t like to get stuff in the mail?

Now far be it for me to post any “camera pron” because I’m a firm advocate that it doesn’t really matter what camera you shoot with. In fact when anyone ever asks, ‘mirrorless digital’ is my response so you know I’m not walking around with a huge DSLR or camera phone to shoot street. Everyone’s needs are different and I say don’t trust anyone who tells you what camera to buy without knowing what you shoot… and don’t take candy from strangers because, reasons.

What is important to me is how responsive my cameras are. This means more to me when capturing the moment than anything else. I got these because they’re supposed to modulate your finger pressure, thus improving your timing and it also makes you really cool (as if I wasn’t already…pff - well at least that’s what my mom tells me;)

Anyways, I’ll be shooting with these on both cameras to see if the rumours are true, and let you guys know what I find sometime next couple weeks.