Photoshoot for the release of Carly Jean Campbell's first EP

It was cold that day, cold and raining. After some coffee with just the right amount of booze in it, I sat and watched the girls do their thing. We were at my friend Kerry's exquisitely wall papered apartment and the girls were getting Carly readied. Kerry Coombes Laurence is a partner in one of the largest fashion wholesalers in Canada, Laura Dowdell was the conceptualist, stylist, and a model in my last shoot at Southlands shown below, and Sara Rose was the very talented hair and makeup artist for the day.

Fresh out of hair and makeup  

We set up in a stable out at Southlands and started freezing, I mean shooting. After a few interruptions by Madonna the dog who wanted to be in the shot, a lighting and scene change, a pony eating the hay, and four pairs of erect nipples, we got what we came for. A look that was a little bohemian, a little country, a little low contrast, and a capture of Carly's personality.

She has decided she's going country for her first original project and taking it down to Nashville. Despite fielding criticism from myself and all the other cynics in her life, she's doing it. You've gotta respect it.

Carly and I play together in the Young Executives as well as an acoustic cover duo creatively named Charles in Charge. I know her well. Chucky, or Chainsaw, or Chuckles, or Chucky's Bucks, or Charles,  or whatever nickname you want to call her by, is a confounding mix; headstrong, soft, sensitive, beautiful, impetuous, jovial, jubilant, and compassionate. She also has a testicular fortitude, which would rival that of any man I know. Sum that up in a photo, bitch.

My first pick for final edit
MORE TO COME!

You can find demos of Carly Jean's new tunes on Myspace, or tweet her @CarlyJean on Twitter.

New look book shoot for Cutie Pie Wax Bar

Lindsay from Cutie Pie Wax Bar was so amped on the first Vajazzle shoot that she decided to put together a "look book" for her waiting area. We shot 10 looks over a 2 hour period and the entire shoot was pretty seamless. My girlfriend Melissa was again one of my amazing models and I had the pleasure of working with the model Rhi Yhee for the first time (Seen here on Model Mayhem).

The pics are up now on Cutie Pie's blog and site. I'm looking forward to doing more seasonal shoots for Lindsay, she's great to work with and her start-up company is poised to dominate the waxing market in Vancouver very soon!

Want to ride the learning curve? Just add equestrian!

A friend named Laura who's a stylist approached me with a concept for a shoot. It involved horses and hot girls... not that kind of shoot. She wanted to combine her love of fashion and horses so she came up with some cool concepts to capture. I started sweating immediately. Let's take a large animal that's afraid of things like mice, inanimate objects, and any sudden lights, sounds, or movements. Let's put this animal around some dainty women, and daintier camera equipment and ask it to pose. What can go wrong?

Actually, nothing. I did a LOT of research (1 google search) into equestrian photography and the experts all concurred (on 2 forums) that horses are good with flash photography. 

The shoot was amazing, the hair and makeup girls were amazing, and the horse, Riley, settled into having his picture taken after a few minor spaz outs. He even smiled in the first photo...

My lovely girlfriend was again modelling and I thought I'd take this opportunity to embarrass her a little since she made me promise I wouldn't put the pic up on facebook.

LIVE @ SQUAMISH MUSIC FESTIVAL

I was pretty stoked when I found out that FestThis.com was hired to be the official production crew for Live @ Squamish. The first festival we ever covered was last year's L@S, and it laid the groundwork for us to make this dream a reality. The crew at Brand Live loved what we did so much that they hired us for this year's festival. It was great to be back, to have all access, and most importantly, to have our own golf carts to ride. I was the official photographer for the festival which was a huge honour for me.

The weekend was a whirlwind, by the end of it I had well over 2000 photos... 4 days later I had the client asking when they could see them all! After scrapping my old pc and buying a new iMac I finally got them done.

The video is in the works so check back on our site soon!

 The Dudes

 Called out from stage by the Dudes for having a rad shirt

Rad costumes

Major Lazer

The Dudes

Metric

Weezer

Metric

Bend Sinister

Sweet Thing

Hey Ocean

Girl Talk

Girl Talk

My foray into product and advertising photography

I have a friend Lindsay whom I met at an entreprenurial program at BCIT. She recently opened her Wax Bar she had worked so hard on, just a few weeks ago. When she started talking about needing a promotional vajazzle photo for an upcoming Team Buy daily deal, I jumped right on it. Once again my lovely girlfriend was one of the willing models. Lindsay's site can be found HERE. If you're looking to catch up on the latest bikini bling or bare brazilian news, check out her blog HERE.

My lovely and patient girlfriend poses for me at the farm.

I recently bought a new set of studio lights... one of those cheap ebay all-in-one kits but I figure it's a great way for me to get shooting with lights and modifiers. I went up to Pemberton with my girlfriend and she was sweet enough to pose for me while she was getting eaten alive by mosquitos. We shot some outdoors at my family's farm and then I experimented indoors with only 2 lights acting as rim lights.

Tall Tree Festival

I am the photographer for FestThis.com. The site was started by two friends of mine, Quin and Mark. When Quin told me about the concept, I was standing in the Vancouver airport waiting for my luggage and I begged to be included as their still life photographer while they travelled around documenting music festivals. As a musician and photographer I couldn't ask for more. Things have snowballed pretty fast and we've found ourselves running around the province living the dream.

Tall Tree festival is our most recent festival. My good friend Adam is a part of the Tall Tree production team and he insisted we come check it out. It didn't look like we were going to be able to make it but at the 11th hour we made it happen. This small festival of maybe 1200 in the tiny town of Port Renfrew totally blew my mind.

We had the weekend of our lives. The people were so friendly, the vibe was very relaxed, the performers were partying and camping with the festival goers, and all proceeds went to protect an ethereal old growth forest named Avatar Grove. Check FESTTHIS.COM for full photos and videos.