Training: Practical On Location Lighting

April 22 found me in downtown Vancouver attending a whole day workshop held by Vancouver Photo Workshops. This is part of our efforts to continually improve ourselves in photography. It was great to get a chance to work with strobes, one of the best lighting tools in photography, as well as discover the best use of our camera flashes.

The afternoon session was spent with hands-on shooting exercises. Here are some of the shots I took using our own portable camera flashes (third was without):

It was great to try out the strobes. Here are some that I took with the strobe lighting the models.

Unfortunately, using strobes at weddings are not always practical. They have to be strategically placed at the location so as to get the best lighting effect. This requires intimate knowledge of the different locations and their ambient lighting at different times of the day. Setting them up and transporting them can be a problem, too as they are quite bulky and requires some time to set up which we don't have the luxury of having at weddings. Nonetheless, the workshop was well worth it.

-Rico

Keiko's Cake-o's

We went to our friend's daughter, Julia's 3rd birthday party yesterday and one of the highlights of the afternoon was the arrival of her birthday cake, homemade by another friend, Keiko. She has really outdone herself this time. Here are photos of some of her latest creations... yum:

e-shoot: Cory + Leanne

Buntzen Lake
April 15, 2007

Dealing with Vancouver spring weather is hard. I have been tuning in to The Weather Channel everyday in the week leading up to our scheduled engagement photoshoot with Cory and Leanne. I’ve re-scheduled the shoot from Saturday to Sunday to take advantage of the “Cloudy Periods” forecast for Sunday and avoid the “Rain” forecast for Saturday.

While Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, we still went ahead with the Sunday shoot as scheduled. Sunday wasn’t bad either but as soon as we hit the area near the local mountains, there was just no getting away from the clouds. We made the most out of the occasional sunlight peeping through the clouds. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough light to get good sunset shots.

The afternoon still turned up some good shots of our couple. Cory and Leanne was up for anything but the sweet poses were the best. Even Buddha, their dog, posed well for the camera. Here are some of our favorite shots.


In the middle of the shoot, Cory received a call to remind him of the Canucks game. Good thing we finished early enough to get home in time to catch part of the game on TV. Check out some more photos of our great couple here.

got video?

We've already had a couple of brides ask us if we know any wedding videographer from the Lower Mainland who we could recommend. Personally, there's one that we won't hesitate to recommend, the man, Jason Magbanua. Too bad he's not from here. You'd have to spend a little bit extra to fly him to Vancouver from the Philippines. He doesn't come cheap as well (around CAD$2500 for all day coverage). The quality of his internationally-acclaimed work speaks for itself and demands the cost. In fact, his team is considered One of the 25 Most Influential Videographers in the World.

We were fortunate that we were able to book him as our videographer for our wedding in 2004. At the time, he offered us a free "Onsite MTV" that we got as part of our package. Onsite MTV is a same-day editing (SDE) of video clips shot earlier in the day from the time we prepared for the day up to the end of the ceremony. During the time between the ceremony and the start of reception, Jason and his team will spend every second compiling video shots together to come up with a short MTV. The video was shown the same day during the reception. Our guests were treated with a view of how the day started and how the ceremony went. It also served as a teaser for how the final video will turn out which didn't come until after a few months later. At least we had something to show of our wedding when we returned to Vancouver while waiting for the final video.

I heard that he's now including clips from the reception as well. His video is then showed towards the end of the reception program. That's just wicked. Obviously, these guys don't get a moment's rest and we don't know how they do it. What are you waiting for? Check out his blog to know what we mean.

Zeeshan + Sadaf

The Crystal Banquet Centre
March 30, 2007

Zeeshan and Sadaf's wedding is Gracci's first gig since she was put on bedrest during her pregnancy. She didn't stay for the whole event since motherhood called early. Nevertheless, she was glad with the chance to capture such an elaborate preparation for such a beautiful bride. Rico, on the other hand, marched on and shot through the night until Zeeshan and Sadaf was sent off by their families to begin their new journey in life together. Congratulations!

View the highlights of the night here.

Stills for Twisting Fortunes

One of Rico's co-workers, Grace Chin, writer and producer of the play Twisting Fortunes asked us to take production stills during their dress rehearsal. Never mind that Gracci was already experiencing early labour pains, she still went ahead and did the shots anyway. Their first child, Mikkaela, was born the next day.





Check out the photos taken of the play here.

g-shoot: Sarah

We will be covering Sarah and Rick's wedding in July with Coal Harbour, the Burrard Inlet and the Northshore Mountains as the backdrop. Rico took pictures of her last January around Richmond. Stay tuned for pictures of her wedding in July.




You can see more of her pics here.

Sadaf's Mehndi Ceremony

The Crystal Banquet Centre
March 29, 2007

We're lucky to go into the wedding photography business in a place as culturally diverse as Vancouver. For our next gig, our couple are of East Indian descent. They were married in traditional Indian wedding celebration which started out with a Mehndi ceremony on the eve of the wedding day. The ceremony is supposed to be a gathering of the bride's female friends and relatives to apply henna on their hands and feet. For Sadaf's Mehndi ceremony, the women came with their hands already bearing henna tattoos. It was more of a celebration with food and Indian music. It was a happy and colorful occasion, nonetheless, and was very interesting for us to witness and document through pictures.






Click here for more pictures.