A little poker game...Action

Just a basic video for practice. I shot these video's on saturday while we were moving my friend into his new home. We decided to play a little poker game so I decided to shoot 2 angles to make a little movie of the fun we had.

I have no knowledge of video editing or the rules about this art.

I know some basic mistakes have been made since some editing looks like jump cuts but I only shot images in 2 angles for the purpose. This is real life action, no planning, no rehearsal.

Enjoy:

http://vimeo.com/3931615

Sébastien D'Amour - wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

Dynamic lighting with one flash

I wanted to share how I have achieve this image with only one single Canon 580EXII.

Here is the story:

We are moving my friend into his new house in Aylmer. The house is unbelievably gorgeous. The windows are perfectly place to achieve some remarkable natural lighting shots. So we setup the appliances and the furniture around their home. We place the dining table and I see the father of my friend sitting at the end of the table.  I just had a flash of the godfather movie (except he was not dressed for the shot). I saw that the "sandwich lighting" was just at a perfect intensity that I just needed to had fill flash to properly exposed the face and front of the subject.

I decided to mount my Canon 580EXII on my Canon 5D MarkII and bounce the flash of the ceiling to achieve the desired look. All this took a big 15 seconds to plan, react and fire my test shot.

I then proceeded to ask the subject to stand in this position to achieve the desired look.

Here is the image:

Canon 5D MarkII

Canon 70-200mm f2.8L

Canon 580 EXII

1/640s, ISO 2500, 70mm, flash E-TTL.

Here are some more images from this awesome day:

Thank you and I hoped you have enjoyed, 

A video of the poker game will follow once I am properly trained on video editing.

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist.

Mounting possibilities with Canon 5DMKII and a succion cup

Hi, 

I just wanted to show you a little video made in bad light to demonstrate the possibilities of mounting such a small HD Camera.

I used a Suction cup car mount for attaching the camera to the rear window of the car.

Sorry the clip is not edited since I have yet to purchased a software for editing. I am still in the early learning stages. The decision is not firm on investing in video equipment.

http://www.vimeo.com/3864511

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

A little walk around the city with my friend...

Hi everyone, 

I just wanted to show you images that I have taken while walking and talking with Sébastien Lavallée.

Here are some Teachers on strike from L'UQAM.

Some people in the Metro.

La grande bibliothèque

Thank you for looking and please feel free to discuss...

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist.

My first little video

I everyone, 

Here is a link the a first little clip that I shot straight out of the Canon 5D MarkII.

http://www.vimeo.com/3760437

There is lots of digital noise since the lighting was horrible. I only had 1/100s at ISO 25600 at f1.8

I just wanted to show the quality of the video even in low low light.

More to come...

Sébastien D'Amour- Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

Stéphane and Mélanie

I had the immense pleasure of living a photoshoot with my good friends Stéphane and Mélanie that are expecting a little boy in about 7-8 weeks.

They are so lively, so happy, honest and good people. These photoshoots remind me why I am in this business. The joy of creating images for people. The respect that people give us.

I also love how you can simply show the image to them and they go: "WOW that is better then I imagined."

Here are some shots from that sunday afternoon that was supposed to be 2 hours that turned into 5 hours with friends and fun!

Thank you once again for allowing me to live such happy and special moments.

Stéphane just goofing off!

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist.

Finaly...

I am all setup in my apartment in Montreal.

I now have a great looking office for my photography work.

I have now my setup to start my stock photography.

I want to have at least 2500 shots in my portfolio on Istock by the end of the year.

I will be working with various people in various subjects.

Keep looking for some sample images and tutorials on lighting!

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

Lock-out at Journal de Montréal still on going...

Early Saturday morning January 24th 2009, management at the Journal de Montréal locked out 253 of its employees, mere minutes after an agreement with the union not to launch a labour dispute had ended. The lockout apparently came during the night, late enough that workers would still contribute work to the paper, but early enough that management could sneak in a note to readers about the labour disruption.

Both sides, naturally, blame the other for failing to negotiate. In reality, both sides have held firm on their demands since the contract expired on Dec. 31, and a lockout has been all but inevitable.

Journal management plan to continue publishing during the lockout. The union is also planning a publication called Rue Frontenac.

In what has become the norm for journalist labour disruptions ever since the Journal de Québec’s incredibly successful MédiaMatinQuébec, the union built ruefrontenac.com, a website which they will use to continue working as journalists. Unlike MMQ, there are no plans for a print version of the paper. Right now the website contains a video with black-and-white pictures of locked-out employees. 

This lockout dispute are the result of management demands for changes to the existing contract that the union has refused to consider. They include:

• Increasing the work week from 30 hours (4 days) to 37.5 hours (5 days), with no extra pay
• Laying off 75 employees
• 25% pay cut for classified employees
• 20% reduction in benefits for all
• Clauses that would give new hires fewer rights than existing employees
• Flexibility to reassign workers to do multimedia work for the website

Workers that are in lockout declare outright that anyone who does their work (24 Heures employees, Journal de Québec employees, or those of mysterious fly-by-night news agencies) are scabs, and they call on advertisers and readers to boycott the paper.

This last issue is creating a big problem in the world of press photography. 24h as since lost an employee. My friend got hired to become the spare photographer. Since, I have seen a lot of people talking bad about him. His only trying to feed is 2 kids and pay for is apartment.

What would you do?

Source: Fagstein blog

Sébastien D'Amour - wedding and lifestyle photography artist.

It's official...

I am moving to Montreal, Qc.

I am leaving the Ottawa area to pursue the market in Montreal and also to pursue a little lady that I cherish.

I will still offer my services in Ottawa-Gatineau area at no extra cost.

I will miss all my friends from this amazing area.

Best of luck, 

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and Lifestyle photographic artist

Snowboarding at Massif, Qc

Hi everyone, 

I just wanted to give you some news. I went snowboarding with 3 friends this week-end.

We went to the Massif near Quebec city, Qc, Canada. We had a blast. 

We stayed at the cousin's place of my friends. We got there late friday but then relaxed with some Wii and beer. Saturday, we went skiing all afternoon. I suggest that if you go to the Massif, that you get there early to spend the full day. The chairlift ride is about 10 minutes but you can go down for about 20-30 minutes.

The view from the slopes is amazing. I can only imagine if we would have gotten so better weather!

Here are some images of the day.

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist.

If you love african animals...WOW

I found this website about African animals photography.

I did not know this guy and I can tell you that he provoke a lot of emotions with his photography.

http://www.nickbrandt.com/

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

tiltshiftmaker.com

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to share a cool find on the web. With the craze of tiltshifting lens going on right now. I was thinking about purchasing a TSE-90mm f2.8 for my Canon 5D MarkII. I was doing some research about the lens when I found this on a photography forum.

http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

Here are some results that I have done with some of my pictures. It's not perfectly the look I am going for but I could get use to using this tool instead of purchasing a 1600$ can lens.

Of course, you cannot use this effect for every shot. You need a shot looking down on the subject to properly create the effect. Photos that capture details of an overall scene usually work better than those of a single subject. 

Cheers, 

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

Original

Processed

I will not post the original images of the other trials since you can see them on this blog in other section.

Classy girl post

Michelle

Cynthia

Sometimes we just have fun!

How is everyone?

I am great. I have been reading up on marketing and other business related subject!

I will let you know about my findings pretty soon.

I just wanted to share a little moment that I lived before my trip to Mexico. This is the last shoot that I did for stock before leaving for Riviera Maya.

We had done about 90 minutes of business and lawyer related images since the model is a law student at Ottawa U. We finished the shoot with some great fun images.

I just wanted to share some of those while reminding everyone to shoot for fun and enjoy what they shoot. This way your passion will shine through even more.

I always find a way to get the fun out of every wedding or photosession that I have.

Sébastien D'Amour - wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

A little course on lighting with Marie Claude Hamel and Patrick Cormier.

Hi everyone, 

I just wanted to share some quick images from the day that I spent with Marie CLaude Hamel and Patrick Cormier on various studio lighting possibilities. 

We made 6-7 different lighting situation in studio from some reference images.

Patrick and Marie Claude are very knowledgeable about studio lighting.

I have learned various basic lighting and more advanced lighting techniques during this day!

This is a basic 2 light setup. It's the "sandwhich" technique as I like to call it. One light to camera left and One light to camera right!

This is a more complexe litghing setup. You need at least 5 lights for this setup. 2 lights behind the model at 45 degree angle, 2 lights in front of model at 45 degree angle and 1 ring flash in front. You can add a 6th light behind the subject to create a light halo on the background.

Enjoy and Have a great day, 

Sébastien D'Amour - wedding and lifestyle photographic artist.

I present: Cynthia

Hi everyone, 

In my trip to Mexico, I took the time to do a 60 minutes photoshoot with a friend that was at a nearby resort.

They are all taken with a Canon 5D MarkII and a Canon 70-200mm f2.8L.

Here are some results:

Thank you, 

Sébastien D'Amour - Wedding and lifestyle photographer.