Blog

23
May
2023
Wedding: Vanessa and Andrew 2023

Wedding: Vanessa and Andrew 2023

Deep Cove Wedding

I was honoured recently to be able to take the wedding photographs for a dear friend.  I’ve been photographing her a different times for going on twenty years.  Was eager to do these photos for her and Andrew for their wedding when asked. 

My wife and I were planning another road trip across Canada to visit with friends and family so we timed our trip to be in Vancouver for a week or so for the wedding.  Pretty much the furthest I’ve traveled to photograph a wedding. 

I’ve photographed lots of weddings; mostly for friends and family.  I much prefer to be doing something as opposed to sitting around.  That said, I do miss some of what is said in speeches and such due to the fact that my attention is focused on taking the photographs.  Ah well. 

There are a lot of photos!  Here are a some of the recently wedded couple, before, happily married and The Dance. 

It might be obvious that the newlyweds have had a bit of training in ballroom dance.  

I'll try, over the next little while, to post different parts of the wedding: Getting Ready, The Bride, The Children, The Men, Etc.

I’ll post more as I get them processed.  I'll try and break each post down to different parts of the wedding.  So much fun. So many pictures.  Enjoy

Posted by Martin in Blog, 3 comments
03
May
2023
Calgary Expo – Comic Cosplayers

Calgary Expo – Comic Cosplayers

Calgary Expo 2023

or Another Comic Con with Cosplay

On a road trip out west, I timed it so I could attend Calgary Expo.  I went on the Saturday, the day after I arrived in Calgary this trip.  The 29th of April, 2023.

Last time I attended something like this in Calgay was 2017.  Seemed like it was quite different.  Then realized that there are a couple of different shows now.  Pretty sure this happens the same in Toronto.  A couple a year.  They are getting popular.  I’ve got a couple that I will attend in Ontario when I get back. A smaller one in Niagara Falls (Comic Con Niagara) and one in August - Comic Con Toronto.

The lighting for the types of photos I like to do generally sucks.  And the backgrounds are worse.  Trees, buildings and a thousand distracting colours.  I like simple backgrounds, so I spend hours cutting out the backgrounds with Photoshop.  There are faster ways but I haven’t found a better technique on Photoshop yet that gets me the sharpness and exactness.   Just started learning Photoshop recently, so be patient with me.

Then the search to find an appropriate background for each character.  The few here are some that I’ve had a chance to edit over the last few days.  Spiderman (DC Comics), Deadpool (Marvel Comics) and Aloy (from Zero Horizon Dawn).

I’m not a gamer but do love learning about the characters and photographing them.

More to come when I get a chance to edit them.

Posted by Martin in Blog, 0 comments
07
Apr
2023
Comic Con, Cosplay with a touch of Photoshop

Comic Con, Cosplay with a touch of Photoshop

Comic Con Calgary 2017 Update

I’ll be there, in Calgary, again in 2023.  April.  And in Toronto 2023. August.

Calgary Comic Con 2017 was definitely a riot of fun taking photos.  I spent two days there photographing an unbelievable number of creative individuals with their costumes. 

I started recently to figure out some stuff with Photoshop.  I’m an old guy and didn’t grow up with digital workings so it never came to me naturally.  Not like with my kids. 

I had a vision of what I wanted with some of the photos that I was taking in Calgary at the ComicCon event.  I’ve been practicing and finally am able to use Photoshop to get what I want.  At least it is a beginning. 

For me the photos here are a big win.  Not terribly complicated with the steps I’m using. Just a lot of grunt work.  Which I don’t really mind.

With Photoshop, I’ve tried several different techniques.  The ‘Eraser’, ‘History’, ‘Clone’ and ‘Blur’ are my main tools.  Bizarre but I never really ‘understood’ layers until more recently.  Once I twigged that learning other techniques were not that complicated.

ComicCon is really a hoot for a photographer.  The folks in costume really want to be photographed.  So, as a photographer it is a real treat.  Your models know their characters and naturally go into appropriate poses. 

Now that I have a even better idea of what I want as an end product, I can photograph individuals from the angles and distances, with the poses that I need. 

Best advice that I could ever give photographer: You don’t need a reason to create!

I hope I find as many willing Cosplayers this year as years past.  As I said, I should be in Calgary - April 30th, 31st.  Toronto in August, and hopefully, will be back in time for the Niagara Falls Comic Con in June.  (I live in Niagara Falls, Ontario)

You can follow my escapades on Instagram

@martysroadtrip1

@portraits.by.martin

Hope you like the photos.  I’ll be editing more and add them here on in future on the blog.

Posted by Martin in Blog, 0 comments
12
Oct
2022
Steve Hanks Inspired Nudes

Steve Hanks Inspired Nudes

These three photos are from a series I did in the early 1990s.  In a make shift photography studio with construction lights. I recently scanned the negatives.  A lot of loss and damage to the negatives over the years.  I spent some time fixing them up.  They are not perfect but are still some of my most treasured photographs. 

Inspired by a favourite artist:  Steve Hanks.  You can see his work here: Steve Hanks Work  

Steve painted nudes but had much other material as well.  Amazing water colors. The detail in his painting is unbelievable but the emotion is what draws you in.  Unfortunately Steve passed away in 2015.   HIs work lives on, though.  Check it out.  There are dozens of websites out there displaying his work. 

I’ve also lost track of the model. Would love to shoot with her again even though more than 25 years have passed.  Julie is somewhere in Florida, I believe. 

I still have the quilt and now much better lights and modifiers, if anyone is interested mimicking more of Steve Hanks work... 

I’ve also put these three photographs through a ‘painterly’ filter.  You can see those on my Instagram Account: @portraits.by.martin  The only way these are acceptable to Instagram is to either block out the nipples or make the photo into a painting. 

I’ve converted a number of photos into paintings using various apps and Photoshop.  Photoshop has a feature where you can add brush strokes to an image.  It’s time consuming and sometimes doesn’t work but I’ve gotten some very cool ‘paintings’ this way. 

Posted by Martin in Blog, 0 comments
04
Oct
2022
Hollywood Glamour Portraits

Hollywood Glamour Portraits

Hollywood Glamour

These photos are from almost ten years ago.  I’ve always liked the Hollywood and Glamour photography from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.  My wife had purchased a dress for me, well, not for me specifically! 🙂

Knowing that I liked to shoot this style of black and white photography.  I’d done some photos for this young lady's business.  I liked her look and thought she'd look good in the dress. She allowed me to practice my skills on some of this Hollywood Glamor photography. 

At the time I had a very small space to shoot in.  These were done in a converted second bedroom that measured maybe ten feet by fifteen.  For half the photos that I shot in this room, I was standing out in the hall to get a decent perspective.  We make do. 

One of my favourite photographers from that earlier era is George Hurrell.  There is a link to a page below that displays his exceptional photographs.  The photographers of that era shot with very large negatives.  Often 8"x10".  Part of the benefit of these large negatives was the ability of the photographers or their assistants to edit the negatives before printing the photograph.  Some of these photo editors would spend hours on one negative, getting rid of blemishes on the movie star du jour.  So, if you hear of a photographer spending a bit of time editing, please don't fault him or her.

More George Hurrell Inspired Photography

Dramatic Portraits here

Posted by Martin in Blog, 0 comments