Next to the new Roof,  this simple enclosure was one of the most expensive jobs i have taken on.  The City of Vancouver sure Sticks it to you with permits and shirking responsibility.  Apparently any wall over 6′ has to be engineered… And engineers aren’t cheap, even for the simple jobs ($1000) .  Then you have to get your building permit and construction permit ($860).   These permits used to include inspections, but on this job my engineer was the one who had to come and inspect the job on 2 occasions ($567).    $2367 and i had not even started the job… for filling in a hole in my wall!!!

Three loads of cinderblock in the truck, and three more loads for concrete and sand.   All these were loaded into the studio when i had a flash of intelligence… I picked up 8″ blocks instead of 12″ blocks.  I forgot my building had an oversized rear wall! -  oh well, i just write it off as needed exercise.

In a photography studio your great enemy is dust.  These are not exactly my favorite projects because of the mess, and that they take so long to complete.

I don’t know what was more painful,  seeing this huge mess,  or seeing this huge mess on my brand new driveway!  The wall had to be built with rebar and filled with concrete,  I think there were no less than 20 bags of concrete, and 40 of sand!

This made an amazing difference for soundproofing the building.  Once the doors were put in and closed,  all the outside noise was cut off… far superior to the garage door!

2010 is most definitely the ‘year of the reno’.  For my 20th anniversary the studio got a major facelift.   This has been a big project i was wanting to tackle for years.  I’m so fortunate to have friends like Gary and Ildyko from Concrete Concepts who did an amazing job for me.

This little beast worked for two days digging up the back lot and leveling the slope.

His crew worked fast, there was not a great deal of set up time as as the concrete had to be at an ideal firmness for stamping.  Fortunately it didn’t rain and wasn’t overly hot.

This is a pretty thick pad,  Probably at least 8-10″ thick in some spots.  I hope i never need to dig this lot up again.

Gary tried a new technique on my driveway,  he pre-coated all the stamps with a dye that colored the concrete.  Previously they used to powder the concrete directly.  This technique worked really well as the dye concentrated at the creases which really emphasized the natural stone look.

Studio 31 is popular as one of the quieter production spaces in Vancouver… I figured it was time to dive in head first and make it the number one sound stage.    This latest project was so daunting, I have been putting it off for years.  I had a faulty monoglass installation from 10 years ago that needed to be stripped out and resprayed.  The studio had to be emptied,  covered in poly and sprayed with fibreglass impregnated with glue and black paint.  You can only imagine how messy this endeavor was.  Not only is the sound quality improved, but this added R20 insulation to the new roof which now totals about R40… yet again reducing our carbon footprint.   Monoglass is also inert and guarantees a minimum of 37% recycled content which is good for the environment.The studio was completely enveloped with Poly

this was the first half of the process – pulling down the faulty insulation.

Although the spraying was messy, itchy, sticky and dripped black paint for a couple of days,  the sound quality of the shooting space is now perfect for my video rental clients.  This will be further perfected with the removal of the garage door and installation of  sound proof steel doors… more blogs to follow.

A total of 4.5″ was applied to the ceiling (over double the listed amount in the above chart)

Here is my latest water shoot.  I took about 65 shots in this series with two people throwing water from either side.  It takes some time to get the throws right and timed.   This is one of the images that immediately caught my eye and actually gave me a chill.

You can click on this image to see it bigger.  With the exception of some dodging/burning and   the ‘highlight /shadow’  filter,  this is a raw image with absolutely no digital manipulation.  I’m sure that you as everyone else sees the ominous skull forming in the middle of the image.  This was a random fluke of water hitting in the middle… wow!

‘Wet is hot!’  Of course Water in the studio is not always as appealing.  Fortunately I have a tapered floor and a big floor drain so it’s not that big a deal.  It looks like lots of water, but in reality each shot was probably less than one litre.  One assistant is on a ladder pouring and another throwing water from the left.  Coordinating two at a time is not as easy as it looks, especially when a model is involved. . .apprehensive of the coming splash.  The first time i tried this kind of shoot my butterfingers assistant ended up throwing the measuring cup with the water (twice!!!),  I would suggest plastic utensils!

I used  small soft boxes with 30˚grids on the main and accent lights, close enough to do the job and far enough to avoid the spray.  Most of these images were silhouettes,  but this image had an additional spot light with a 10˚ round grid lighting her face about 1ƒ stop under.  The Bowens lights sync at 1/750 which does not completely stop the water splashes.  I’ve since switched to profoto monoheads which are faster at 1/1500,   I’ll post an updated shoot  soon.

Here is the ‘Precious’ music video filmed at the studio.  Except for the obvious location shots,  everything was filmed ‘in house’ from the kitchen and office space to the shower and of course, the amazing wrap-around high key cove.

My friends a Jungle media did a great job producing this video on a very tight budget.  It was filmed entirely on Red cam and this compressed video does not begin to do it justice. . . keep your eyes open on Much Music for the real deal!

I don’t shoot Engagements or Weddings anymore, but my friends asked and i couldn’t say no.  Ildy has been one of my longtime and loyal models . . . if she looks familiar, maybe you’ve seen her in ‘Paycheck’ or a number of movies and tv shows.  Gary i’ve know for a dozen years and he’s been a great friend.  Considering I introduced these two together,  i was honored to do their shoot.

I don’t really do the traditional engagement photography,   but after the ‘Bond’ shots, I pulled out handcuffs and then things got interesting . . . this also gave them a preliminary taste of married life!

I like to break the images into ‘formal’ and ‘casual’ . . . some people are more comfortable with one look over the other so it’s nice to have the variety.  These two work well in whatever i throw at em, and lucky for Gary,  it’s hard to look bad when you have such a beauty drawing your eye. . .notice how i have Ildiko upstage Gary in every pic!

After the studio pics, we went on location.  I have a few favorite locations from my wedding days.  We had limited shooting time in this location which simply involved a fill flash just left of camera angle and my portable mirror giving some accent to Garys back.  I would of loved a 2nd accent on the left, but i was trying to keep low key as we were shooting ‘gorilla’style.

Here is a small excerpt of some of the fun pics. . . and there were many!  I love the spontaneous and ‘in the moment’ shots. . .they are usually the memories of the day!

Gary and Ildy are the founders of Concrete Concepts.  Their projects around the city are too big to list, but they are notable.   If you ever need anything from a heated concrete floor to a supersize retaining wall,  Check out their work!

It was not the work with The Bank of Montreal and Elvis Stoyko,  It wasn’t even the Dussault campaign with Gene Simmons. . . I think i can finally say that i’ve made it to the big time now that i have officially been targeted by an extremist muslim group!  If you happened to log in to my blog last week you may have seen the following page:

It’s great to get validation from the far dark corners of the world.  I just never thought I was big enough to be a threat to those poor sequestered souls so far away.    You can see the magnificent work of this group of and their dancing goats and wonderful music on youtube. . . say hi from me!

It’s going to be pretty funny when upon getting to heaven,  the 72 virgins these guys are expecting turn out to be male computer nerds. . . think about it!

This was one of those days where i felt energetic!  This was all created ‘in studio’ and she was kneeling in a whole lot of water!  At any time i have on hand a few 2″X6″X12′ studs and a roll of black construction plastic to build a water table.  A frame is screwed together and the plastic is simply laid across it and clamped to the wood.  I used to have a hot water tank which was easily drained twice to fill this up,  but the new ‘on demand’ water heater keeps an unlimited supply of hot water which the models definitely like.   The rippling effect is created by a couple fans aimed at the water. . . without the surface texture you would see the plastic underneath.  I used to lay this out right over my concrete floor, but the water quickly went from warm to bone chilling under 10 minutes.  Now i’m laying pink styrofoam sheets underneath which makes a huge difference on maintaining the temperature.

The image in the background  if i remember right relates to the creation of the universe.  I was originally planning an image of mars in the background, so I rolled down a deep red paper  to reflect in the water,  when i came across this hubble telescope image it felt like a nicer fit.  The original image was quite a bit more colorful with blues and yellows so i overlaid the tone reflected in the water to match.   I downloaded this from http://www.nasaimages.org/ which is a great site where Nasa lets you download amazing © free  images from shuttle missions, the hubble telescope and misc. orbiters.

You know those movies where the toaster in thrown in the bathtub and someone gets electrocuted,  well it doesn’t really work like that.  I always give my liability speech and talk about the possibility of a light falling in.  As scary as it may be,  its best to just stay in the water if the worst happens. . .and NOT make contact with the light.  The only time you will get a shock is when you ground yourself,  that would be grabbing a c-stand to climb out of the water for example. . . so it’s always good to discuss the rules before the shoot.

P.S.  Check for a floor drain in your place before you build this one!

A friend of mine is back in the bike game.  Our last shoot was of an amazing demon chopper with a devil tail that got me my first cover of biker magazine.   He’s now taking the more stock approach and adding stylizing touches to existing new Harleys with custom paint, pegs, handle bar ends, etc.   After doing our magazine shoot,  i was fortunate to have it in my studio for a few more days which happened to overlap Selena’s photoshoot.

It’s always a challenge shooting a big reflective bike with a model,  the bike wants soft large light sources which can flatten the models proportions.  I managed to get some small softbox lights with grids to accent her bum and legs without affecting the bike.  I consider these shoots ‘compromised ligting’. . .  you favour the girl or the bike, the question being ‘who is your client’.   I went with a hard overhead light to bring out specularity in her skin, fortunately this worked well with the bike as the paint was reflective and the spot lighting added to it’s depth .   The fire border was an afterthought,  now i’m wishing i had put a fan in her hair which would have tightened the concept with all the movement around her.