The Shooting Gallery

New Site Coming!

2009-06-26T14:53:00.002-04:00

We're working on a new site which is why I've been so quiet for a couple of months now. I've also been traveling a bit (to Peru and just recently to Washington DC).

Hope to have the new website up in a few weeks!

Life On The Click

2009-04-10T21:22:00.000-04:00

Learn some basic photography at: LifeOnTheClick

Rabia & Rovi's Wedding (Orlando, FL)

2009-04-08T01:00:00.004-04:00

I just got back from a friend's wedding in Orlando. Man, do Guyanese people know how to party! :)

It was a hindu ceremony and was thus extremely colourful and a great opportunity to shoot some interesting moments. I had to really restrain myself from shooting too much as I was also a guest and didn't want to come off as a bore to my friends/other guests by constantly clicking away!

It's hard to hold back, but sometimes stepping away from the camera is a good idea. A wedding is a once in a lifetime event (most times) and sometimes, it's worth enjoying it as a guest rather than shooting yet another picture.

Anyway, here's a few photo samples:

The bride

Dancing as the groom arrives

Reception party

And here's my first crack at a slideshow presentation of the photos using Sounds Slides Plus.

Nikon 90th Anniversary Video

2009-03-04T09:52:00.001-05:00

Nice promotional video to celebrate 90 years of Nikon (50 years of the 'F-mount'!)

Brought a tear to my eye LOL :)

Rotman Photo Assoc Studio Workshop

2009-02-12T18:32:00.003-05:00

I taught a studio workshop for the Rotman Photo Association (aka University of Toronto's Faculty of Management) last weekend and it went great and was loads of fun. The Alien Bee studio lights really hung in there and did well. Quite impressed with those lights so far.

I took along some black and white film to shoot some behind the scenes pictures (as the students would be using my DSLRs for the workshop itself). I used my some Kodak 400CN Pro film, which I'd never used before and was quite interested in trying out for a while. I really liked the results. The B&W tonality is just right, not too contrasty and not too muddy. I tried some Ilford XP2 a while back and ended up with some weird tones which I didn't find too attractive. I think at this point I'll stick with the Kodak 400CN for a while.

I'm off to Vegas tomorrow and hope to get some interesting shots. Will keep the blog updated.

Meanwhile, here's some of the pics from the workshop (the colour ones were from the Nikon D300 and black & white ones were from the Kodak 400CN film (with Nikon F5 + 20mm f2.8):

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009!

2008-12-25T13:27:00.003-05:00

Well Christmas is here, and we're almost into 2009.
My new years resolution? I've started a new blog called Life On The Click which I hope to make more popular next year.
I've gone one year without buying a new camera! I don't think I can keep that up for another year LOL.

With all the snow we've been getting I hope everyone hasn't sat at home bundled up and instead took the opportunity to grab some good snow shots!

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season!

Magnum photo essay

2008-10-23T16:58:00.002-04:00

Here's one of my favourite photo essays. ever.

American Colour by Constantine Manos. It's narrated as well which just takes it to another level.

Click below to check it out:

National Geographic International Photo Contest

2008-10-22T11:47:00.006-04:00

I thought I'd mention that I finally got something published on National Geographic! Well kinda... :)

If you take being on the National Geographic website as being 'published' LOL! OK, ok, I have to admit I love the magazine, its photography and its mission so much that even being mentioned on their site makes me excited enough to post a blog entry :)

I submitted a few pix for their International Photo Contest and got short listed for two photos (along with a lot of other people mind you) on their site... The final winners will be chosen from this list. Considering that it's open to the world, I was pretty stoked that I even got two short-listed. There's some incredible shots in the competition from some very talented photographers and it's worth to take your time and look through it. The site can be found here: NGM Competition.

Here's a couple of screen caps of my photos on the NGM site:

Category: 'Places'.

Category: 'People'.

By the way, I should point out I've added an RSS feed to the blog. You can find it on the right under 'Subscribe to' or just use this link. If you have a RSS feed reader copy the link on the right into it, or if you're running Mozilla Firefox, just click the link and subscribe to the feed.

Fall Colours

2008-10-22T11:21:00.002-04:00

Every Fall (Autumn to the rest of world) in North America, photographers flock to conservation parks, trails, and other outdoorsy places to try and capture the changing leaves. Photographers who never stepped outside their studios or cities all summer, suddenly grab their wide-angle lens, filters and tripods and run out into the wild to join the rest in this annual migration to the outdoors! :)

This year, I actually made an effort to go out and grab some shots, but I didn't have the time to leave the city. I had to search within the Toronto limits for some Fall colours, but fortunately the one thing Canada has plenty of is land - and where there's land there's trees! I was also lucky enough to have a friend show me a little secluded spot above the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto, with a spectacular view over Lake Ontario and the Scarborough marina.

Scarborough Bluffs. Toronto.

Scarborough Marina, Toronto

Vivre La France!

2008-09-22T07:29:00.006-04:00

I just got back from a week long vacation in Paris. What a wonderful city!
I must say it lived up to the hype - the atmosphere was great, romantic and surreal at the same time, and the history held in that city was stunning. Parisians are also a charming bunch, quite helpful and friendly.
We stayed in La Defense, which is a 5 min train ride from the city center which turned out to be a great choice as it was much much less touristy and you could thus get a nice feel for what the natives did :)

I was able to shoot a lot of photos and i was quite satisfied with my collection at the end. I tried to focus my photos on the people and events of Paris rather than monuments. I always find that to make the much more interesting photo. Paris is probably one of the most photographed cities in the world and I doubt another monument shot from me is going to really add anything.

I learned a lot, not just about the culture and history of Europe, but how to shoot better travel photos. My biggest lesson? Look away from the main attractions to see stories unfolding everywhere.
For example, there were a lot of pigeons in the city and I noticed you'd always find kids enjoying themselves running through the flocks disturbing them and I tried to catch this:

Tourists were everywhere! We all did the same thing too, photographing everything in sight :) Standing in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, I felt like a paparazzi photographer! And that's when I thought, well that would be a great story by itself!

And finally, people were out late every night in Paris. It truly lives up to its name of "City of Lights", so I wanted to convey that somehow, and I didnt want to use the typical 'lit-up eiffel tower' shot to do so. So I did the typical "cafes at night" shot instead :)

I had my 17-55 F2.8 on my camera the whole time for the trip, something I've never done before. The main reason was that I was shooting much more in street/candid style and this lens was the best choice to get the angles one needed to capture enough of the picture to tell a story. It truly is a fantastic lens - very sharp and fast.

The travel bug has definitely hit me so now i'm off to plan my next trip :)

A Violinist in the Montmartre area

Skate boarders near the Place de Concorde

A lone person walking through the Hotel d'Invalides courtyard

Stairways to the Musee De L'Armee

Niagara on the Lake

2008-08-06T00:24:00.002-04:00

I took a little trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake last weekend. It's a small little town near the Niagara Falls area, and it actually is home to an old historic fort, Fort George. The fort is fully rebuilt and also has people in costumes carrying out some of the battles of the War of 1812. I didn't get to shoot any of the reenactments, but I was lucky enough to catch a little parade by the 'soldiers' at the end of the day :)

Definitely a nice little day trip for anyone in the Ontario region.

Ultimate Fashion Shoot Workshop

2008-06-16T16:42:00.003-04:00

I did a fashion photoshoot workshop at Pikto a few weeks ago and It turned out to be a great learning experience and a lot of fun. The workshop is called 'Ultimate Fashion Shoot' and is targetted towards pros and advanced amateurs. You don't learn to use a camera or lighting equipment in this workshop, it's all about shooting creatively and learning the finer points of shooting fashion from an expert. It was taught by Toronto-based photographer Struan, a well accomplished fashion photographer who's worked around the world with vogue/allure/etc.

The workshop was 3 days in total, the first day was pretty much an intro and a demo of how to one might shoot fashion, the second was an actual shoot with professional models and make-up artists, and the third day was a critique and review of everyone's results. We worked with some great models from Ford and Elite, and some very talented make-up artists as well.

Biggest lesson of the day for me? Stick with the concept till you nail it. I get easily distracted and I know I often shoot frames and get tired of the shot, and then move on to the next scene I have in my head. This can usually confuse the model who doesn't have any idea what the photographer is thinking obviously. I learnt to slow it down and to keep shooting it till I nailed it and then only move on to the next concept.

I've put up some pics of Jenna Gaye (the model) with make-up by Nicole Howe.

And here's some behind the scenes pix at the shoot itself:

Jenna does the hop skip for Gabby. She did this one step for 20 minutes!

Natasha Khan sits patiently as we all run around her setting up

The MUA, Nicole Howe, working on Jenna

Jenna was willing to try anything!

Let It Snow!

2008-03-11T10:27:00.004-04:00

It's March and we're still getting piles of snow here in Ontario! Though I'm not a big of the cold I still enjoy going out and taking a few pics right after it snows!
There's a pathway in my neighbourhood which I've gone past hundreds of times and I've always wanted to take a photo of. I finally got a chance last weekend when I thought the snow and light was interesting enough to make a good shot. Photographers often make a distinction between 'taking' a photograph and 'making' one. Making a photo is where a photographer portrays the environment the way HE/SHE wants to show it rather than just letting IT show. It's hard to explain, but maybe you can imagine some of the most amazing National Geographic photos (not that I compare to NG!). The drama, the light, the positioning of elements are all taken by the photographer in a way to make the most impact to the viewer the way the photographer wants. It's not a happy accident that the light hits the puma (for example) to create the perfect tension. Those photographers sit and wait for that light to hit and then make the shot. Snapshooters in contrast usually just take a photo. It's a small but distinct difference.

That's my .02 cents for the day :)

...Aaaaand we're back on air!

2008-03-03T09:57:00.001-05:00

The new website design has finally gone up! It's been in the works for a few months now and has gone through a few re-designs. The final result is the product of a lot of great feedback, so thanks to everyone who helped me (especially Ry) - I couldn't have done it without y'all! :)

Lot of fun changes on my end this year. Got a hold of the new Nikon D300 which is awesome, and just got some new studio lights (Alien Bees) which I haven't really put into full use yet. Have a few ideas for shoots in the back of my head and I hope to make time for them in the coming weeks.

I also got back from a little roadtrip to Washington DC and I hope to post some pix from that in my next blog report.

The new website design is bound to have a bug or two embedded in it somewhere so if you do come across one, feel free to let me know.

ciao for now!

Season's Greetings!

2007-12-06T01:20:00.001-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again! Two new Nikon releases and Santa's coming to town! At the time of this post, the Nikon D300 and D3 are shipping and already there's a long queue for both. The D3 is in such demand, that apparently Nikon has asked dealers to ensure that the early shipments reach working Pro's first. I don't know how fair that is - though I kinda see their point. But if I'm paying $5K for a product, I wouldn't be too happy being treated as second-class citizen by the product's manufacturer. My money should be as good as anyone else's, whether I make a living off photography or not. My $0.02 for the day.

The D300 is also selling very well. So well in fact, that the value of Nikon's previous flagship camera, the D2X has plummeted faster than a sub-prime mortgage! Rumours are that the D300 rivals the D2X in quality and features. The D2X still has the D300 beat on build quality though.

Here are a few reviews of the two cameras:
Link (D3 vs D300 vs D200 vs D2X vs 5D)

Link2(D300 Review)

The professional reviews are still on going, but we should see some any minute now! I for one am looking to see whether the D300 would be a good purchase at this time. My D200 still meets all my needs, but as I've said for a while, I need a good backup camera.

So that's all for now. I wish you all Happy Holidays!

Remembrance

2007-11-10T00:27:00.000-05:00

November 11th - Remembrance Day is almost here and I hope everyone takes a minute to remember the fallen that day. Whichever side you're on - it's the least we can do.

Reference from Wikipedia.com:
The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare

If Wishes were Fishes....

2007-10-16T13:26:00.000-04:00

Unless you've been living under a rock (or aren't into photography :) ), the photography universe was rocked a couple of weeks ago when Nikon recently announced
the unveiling of two new high-end DSLRs - the D300 and the D3. The biggest and most exciting surprise is that the D3 will have a full-frame sensor (Nikon calls it the 'FX' sensor)! This is a big deal as it will be the first Nikon DSLR with a full-frame sensor - something many people have been asking from Nikon for since Canon released its 5D.

The D300 is an upgrade of the D200 with slightly higher megapixels (12MP), faster shutter speeds, a self-cleaning sensor and (supposedly) a little tougher build. Both cameras should sell great... and should give Canon a real run for their money. As for me a much as I'd love to get one, I'm happy with my D200 and don't see a need to upgrade to a D300, and can't afford a D3, but I am thinking I could use a D2X now that the price is dropping to use as a second body.

You can find the Nikon site describing the D300 here, and there are some unofficial sample images here.
The D3 news can be found here and a little hands on review can be seen here.

Other than that, I did some engagement photos at Toronto's Center Island which was a lot of fun:

Summer in full swing!

2007-08-10T11:43:00.000-04:00

Hopefully the summer is going well for everyone! I myself have had a pretty busy July and only now found the time to update the blog. I also have a number of photos to add into the photos section which I hope to get around to doing soon.
The biggest photo event I had the chance to shoot was Toronto's 2007 Caribana parade on August 4th. It's a spectacular week-long celebration of Caribbean culture in the city topped off with a colourful parade through the lakeshore area in Toronto. It's really just an excuse to party for a week :)
This year I was positioned near the beginning of the parade and was dissapointed to find the route was bordered by 10 foot high fences! Shooting through the holes was challenging, but I managed to catch some satisfying moments nonetheless. I really should have made my way further down the route, but I really wasn't in the mood to walk down in the blazing sun and just made do with what I had.

Here's a few of my faves from that day (click to open larger in new window):

In other news, Lightroom 1.1 is out and has some nifty new features I've found pretty useful. It's now my main tool for handling photos along with Photoshop. Capture One 4.0 is targeted for release in Q2 2007, which I'm also looking forward to seeing in action. If it can give LightRoom a run for its money I'd be happy, as I do think Capture One is a better RAW image processor than LightRoom. but is just lacking in many other features.

Next week I'll be off on a week-long trip to Vancouver, BC and possibly Edmonton, AB. I hope to do a bit of hiking in BC and get some decent landscape shots. I'm already stocking up on a couple of 4GB flash cards (TigerDirect's prices are great for these) and also thinking about grabbing an extra portable drive to store images on. I also need to get myself a backup camera for these trips... the F5 is just too bulky to be practical nowadays.

So that's all for now, hopefully I'll be back with some decent shots in a couple of weeks, take care!

History 101

2007-06-27T23:47:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder how PhotoShop became the #1 digital graphics software in the world? Here's a great article on the history of this intricate piece of software that changed the imaging world overnight: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/the_history_of_photoshop

An Idle Shutter

2007-05-28T17:47:00.000-04:00

I havent had too many opportunities to do some photography in the last month due to school, but I hope to do some shooting in the coming weekends. I've done some personal photos but nothing I'd care to post here.

Of course, I've still kept up with the Photography news, and I came across the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism 2007 site: take a look here (opens in new window) - it's well worth it.

I've also joined Flickr so add me on if you're on there (u: sasishan).

Till next time...

2007-05-03T16:30:00.000-04:00

Boy... you'd think 5 Grand could buy you an indestructible camera... Guess again... here's a story of this photographer who tripped with his Canon MKII, a very well known tank of a camera used by plenty of pros. The results speak for themselves. RIP!

Sportshooter Story & Pix (opens in new window)

James Nachtwey and 2007 TED Award

2007-04-09T00:25:00.000-04:00

Nothing much this post, except this video of James Nachtwey winning a 2007 TED award for having shown they can "positively impact life on this planet". James Nachtwey is a legendary war photographer with an incredible collection of photos that shows the brutality of war. This is a quick video where he talks about and presents his photos. Though they can be extremely graphic, I think it's something that needs to be seen and I highly recommend that you spare 20 mins to sit down and watch this through.

Thanks to Liz from OPC for forwarding this link around.

Till next time...

Hockey 'Shoot-out'

2007-03-21T00:28:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy few weeks for me... I've done a lot of shooting in that time, so much that I'm thinking I need to get a backup Digital SLR. Right now, I use my F5 as backup, but it shoots film and that is just becoming impractical now. The F5 is a legendary film camera so I'm very unenthusiastic to sell it, but I could use the money on a brand spanking new Nikon D40x - a cheap and small 10MP Digital SLR which would be a perfect to keep in the photo bag for when things go bad :( Electronic items tend to breakdown after heavy use and as well built as my main camera, the D200 is, I've seen it act oddly at the end of the day after a heavy shoot. It hasn't failed on me yet, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing that if it dies during the middle of an event, I can still keep shooting. Especially now, since I'm doing a lot more shooting, and investing time to go on day trips just to shoot some new pix.

Other than that, the last big photo event I had was on Sunday at the Ricoh Centre in Toronto. Jake's House a charitable institute providing support for families with autistic children organized a charity hockey tournament. The tournament culminated in one final exhibition game featuring NHL alumni players as well like ex-Toronto Maple Leafers Wilf Pieament and Mark Laforest. Jake's House needed volunteer photographers to cover this special event and a bunch of us from the OPC signed up.

It was a great opportunity to not only help out a great charity but to also gain some excellent experience in shooting some tough events. It was a long and tough day but very rewarding. The photographers were given unrestricted access to everywhere in the Centre - the actual ice, locker rooms, crowds etc. We pretty much had to coordinate ourselves and make sure we covered the whole venue including the the fans, the players, the special guests and of course the kids. I found I had to keep a watchful eye to where other photographers were, and what they were shooting, so that I could make sure I was shooting in the opposite direction and not getting the same shots.
The only problem was, though I knew I was next to some great ex-NHL players, but not being very knowledgable on the sport, I had no idea who they were!

Anyways, we all ended up with some good shots and hopefully Jake's House will find them useful for their advertising and website and it'll help bring about more awareness for their program.

And here's a sampling of my shots from that day:

Light, Rooms and Canons

2007-02-22T16:28:00.000-05:00

February has been a busy month for photography. Adobe Lightroom V1 was just released on Monday and is available as a 30 day download. It's a great tool for managing and handling large volumes of digital photos. It's Adobe's direct answer to Apple's Aperture software which is aimed at professional to advanced photographers. I've been using the Beta for a few months now and I've upgraded to the full production version. I have to say I've found it to be very useful and streamlined for my workflow and I think its great in heling organize and catalog my CDs of photographs. Once I get more used to it I'll try and get into some specifics on what I like and dislike about the software. In the meantime you can find more info on Lightroom as well as the 30-day trial download here.

Canon has also just announced its new flagship D-SLR - the EOS 1 Mark III. It's 10 MP and looks a worthy successor to the Mark II. The biggest surprise about the camera is its 'live' LCD which shows a real-time preview of a scene on the display. If you know SLRs, then you should know that the mirror mechanism that makes an SLR an SLR doesn't allow for live-previews (which is why, as I tell everyone who i give my camera to when I need a snap of myself, you need to look through the viewfinder to see what you're shooting). Don't ask me how Canon did it, or whether it's a useful feature for professional photographers or just a gimmick. Time wil have to tell I guess. You can check out the Mark III features here.

Winter is here!

2007-02-08T17:45:00.000-05:00

And boy is it cold! What possible fun can there be in weather like this? Well how about a photo competition... The Toronto Photo Marathon is having their 4th Annual Photography Marathon this month (Feb 17th). Click herefor details. It's pretty cool, they give everyone a can of film and a list of 12 categories (not known till the competition start), and 24 hours to take ONE shot within each category. Once done, they take all the film and develop it without showing the competitors. Judges and competitiors then vote for the favourites in each category and the winners are displayed in an exhibition a little later. It's really an interesting competition that forces you to think before you shoot. They reward creativity as much as good photography. $30-$40 for sign up and worth it IMHO.

Last wekeend, I took a gander at the Ansel Adam's exhibit at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) and was really impressed. It was the first time I've really gone to a significant exhibition and I really enjoyed seeing the actual prints Ansel Adam's made. It's a huge difference seeing a photo on print as a photographer intended it to be seen and seeing just a pale copy of it on the net or someplace else. Unfortunately the exhibit has moved on now.

Other than that, I did a photo shoot recently with some friends from the Ontario Photo Collective. Some of the results have been added into the Beauty portfolio. I've also updated the Travel category with some shots of Miami which I visited in January.

I'll leave you all with one thought for the month: why do people have the need to make money off something they enjoy and are good at - be it a hobby like photography or even sports. Why not just do something and not care about recognition or glory or money because you plain enjoy it? Just wondering.... :)