For Sale

Gorge Rd. Church

Been a while since I last posted on this blog, but yesterday was a good day for my photography, so I thought I should mention it. I had my first Gallery opening, of sorts. The store that I work in does consignments, and the boss has been accepting lots of art lately, to get the store ready for what we hope will be a busy tourist season.

Portal to Fan Tan Alley

Last week I got a paycheque from Google for ad content on a few different sites I have. Took a few years to build up to the minimum for them to send me a cheque, but it was worth it. I used to money to get some prints done at Black's Photography, an adventure in its self. I had just enough left to go across the street from work to Opus and get one frame and mat board.

2 signed & numbered

Yesterday I helped a fellow employee find and buy a car real cheap. He sold it today for nearly four times what he paid for it, and threw me a finders few. That was enough to get three more frames and mat boards for the pictures.

So now there are three prints signed and hanging at Barclay's Exchange, with the prospect of more to come.

Up Above

 Sometimes you need to get above it all to really see what is at street level. The building to the left is the Bishops House, here in Victoria. It sits right behind St. Andrews Cathedral and on Sundays seems to attract quite a few panhandlers.

To the right we have a great angle on the Susex Building. A November morning sun to the left and behind with reflected light enhancing the blue glass windows.

The Staples building, or more precisely the building at 747 Fort, with the Staples store on the ground floor, reflects the CIBC building in the next block.

The buildings to the right are over on Yates, but this views the back of the structures. While it may look like I used my tilt shift lens with a short depth of field, it was in fact an hour of time using multiple blur layers in Photoshop. I am really liking the way this effect gives the illusion of a miniatures or diorama set.

Looking down on the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia, an older building on Fort St. sandwiched between much more modern ones.

All these shots were taken the same November Sunday morning from the top floor of the View St. Parkade.

The Hudson

Another Thursday night going to the VIMP coffee meet and spotting a great picture to take. This time it was The Hudson building on Douglas St.. Devoid of traffic I was able to capture an unobstructed view of the building at about 10:30PM.

The Hudson was the home to the Hudson Bay department store from 1921 -2002 when it moved to the former premises of its competitor Eaton's in the 1100 Block of Douglas.

Vancouver Island ArtistFest

August 20th, I went Downtown with my camera. Not something I usually do on a Saturday, but today I'm glad I did. As I walked past the Pandora side of Centennial Square I spotted Niche Unique, who modeled in the 6th Annual Victoria Goth Shoot two weeks prior (see last post). Turns out she was participating in the Vancouver Island ArtistFest.
Niche and her fellow model DEVA were being bodypainted by Kristin Grant as Sexy Zombies. Having worked just recently with Niche, I expected great things in her poses, which she delivered. I wasn't expecting as great from DEVA, but I got it. Both girls were great to work with especially given the nature of the very impromptu shoot.

There were other body-painters and models there too. I never caught the name of the girl on the right in the image below, she was painted by David Lloyd and the girl next to her is first time model Audra Jones, who's painter I missed the name of.

Annual Goth Shot

Models: Niche Unique & Betty Kate

Every August I gather a few models and a few photographers for a Goth themed shot. At first it was just called Goth Shoot, but now that I've been doing it for over 5 years we call it the 6th Annual Victoria Goth Shoot. This year I managed to get us access to a local metal foundry, with cool machinery and yards.

Model: Niche Unique

Other than myself, photographers Jason Tice and Steve Luckinuk showed up to photograph models

Model: Betty Kate

Betty Kate and Niche Unique. Niche's Mom even helped out as camera assistant for all of us. We enjoyed the use of the space and got three-and-a-half hours of shoot time. I don't know about the other two, but I shot 656 frames.

Model: Niche Unique
Model: Betty Kate
Corsets: Athanasia Fashions

The girls were both fantastic to work with, and while they had never met before, they worked well off each other when we had them together. Individually they posed great and were very much aware of their angles and light.


Thanks again to everyone that made it a great afternoon. Jason Tice of Geoectomy Photography and Steve Luckinuk of Steve Luckinuk Photography, models Niche Unique and Betty Kate and of course Smith Bros. Foundry. The assistance of Karren and corsets supplied by Sue McCaskill of Athanasia Fashions.

Today's Shoot

I was supposed to shoot Sun-Dresses and Swimsuits today. Facebook failed to pass me the message that one was sick, and the other had said she wasn't sure she could. So after waiting downtown for 45 minutes, I got there early, I went for a walk and ended up on top of the old Eaton's Parkade on Gordon St.

So far I've edited two images. The first image was a look south between buildings at the Olympic Mountains. To the right is the Magnolia Hotel. The green domes in the lower right are the east side of the BC Legislative Building. I believe the Peak above the Legislative Building is Mt. Pleasant, about 45 miles away.

The second image is from the opposite side of the parkade. I looked out on to Broad St, towards the Bay Centre and realized the perfect opportunity for a tilt-shift image.

A tilt-shift image uses depth-of-field focus to causes a scene to look like a miniatures diorama. See how the cars appear to be toys, and the buildings look like models.

Andrew Old Fashioned

Decided to do some editing and give the latest Andrew Merpaw images an old fashioned look.

The Sepia was achieved in photoshop by creating a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and selecting the Colorize box. I then set Hue = 25 and Saturation = 25. I added my own texture layer over-top and set the Layer Blend to Overlay and Opacity to 40%.

Andrew Merpaw

Made the realization that I hadn't posted my images of Andrew Merpaw, the model I was shooting with when we came across the alley cat.

Andrew and I became friends after a group shot he was in, five years ago. Since then we have done about six shoots, He always has a great sense of fashion, and I have never been disappointed by what he shows-up in for attire.

For this shoot we started in Victoria's Bastion Square and walked through the alley to Fort St. Croossed over to Waddington Alley where we discovered an amazing textured wall mural, made out of icing sugar. From there we walked to Johnson St. to discover that the street was close to cars for the TC 10K race, perfect opportunity to stand on the road and take pictures. Then it was into Market Square and over to Fan Tan Alley.

Alley Cat

Last Sunday Andrew Merpaw and I walked around downtown and shot everywhere from Bastion Square to Chinatown's Fan Tan Alley. In the process we found this friendly Alley Cat in Fan Tan.

I spend a good chunk of teen life in this very alley. My next-door neighbor was a sculptor who shared a studio in #3 Fan Tan Alley, just to the right in this picture. Then the building was fixed up and shops were put in on the ground level and a few guys I know opened a Comic Book store in the space that I'd hang out at for hours. After they moved the store to an alley between Yates and Johnson, a friend opened a metaphysical shop in the alley.

In a lot of ways I felt like I lived in the alley for about five years. I still have friends and acquaintances that work and/or live in or very near the alley, and I always enjoy visiting.

Johnson St. Bridge

Took a little walk before meeting a couple of models downtown last Sunday, and managed to get a nice angle on the Blue Bridge.

For those reading this from outside the area, the Johnson Street Bridge, or the tourist called Blue Bridge, connects Vic West and Esquimalt Rd. with downtown Victoria and Johnson Street and Pandora Avenue. Pandora runs one-way to the bridge and Johnson one-way from the bridge.

Outdoors

So a nice Saturday off work and Easter Weekend. Sue and I decided to walk down to James Bay with the cameras and see what we could get some pictures of. For me it was a couple of birds. The Crow was first, he hooped into the grass near us, before being chased onto this rock by anouther crow. The final resting spot was perfect, as I managed to get a perfect amount of feather detail. Too bad I couldn't get a bit of eye.

The Heron was a good 300 feet away, hence the grain in the image. The incoming seagull just added the perfect amount of motion to balance the picture.