New Year, New Gear. Digital Medium Format Phase One P30+ kit.

Photography, like any other craft, is a constant pursuit of perfection. I reached a point in my career where I WANT more from my photography, I WANT to keep growing and developing my style, I WANT best for my clients, and I WANT more clients who won't settle for anything but best.

There are no compromises for me when it comes to quality. With that in mind I added a digital medium format (DMF) camera system to my gear list.


Winter is that time of year when we are busy shooting in our studio and in-doors, and booking and preparing for summer. It's a great time to test out new toys.


I wanted to write something about this system, sort of introduction to DMF for my past, current and future clients, who could benefit from this information.  This isn't a review or comparison of medium format vs 35mm,  so if you are a professional photographer and in the market for medium format, I apologize, as you won't find this post helpful.


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Behind the Portraits.

There is a lot of retouching involved in creating every single portrait. This process takes very big part in my portrait photography. By "a lot of retouching"I mean many tiny adjustments almost on pixel level with one goal - to smooth out and diminish skin's imperfections and flows, while preserving its original texture. I want to make it look healthy with a touch of glow.

Retouching has always been important to me, and I've been developing and perfecting my process since I picked up a camera.

I created this video to show my retouching process from start to finish. And because web compression can sometimes completely ruin the image, it's important to remember one thing - how it will look on a print!  Image can look plenty great on an iPhone, for example, and pretty terrible on a print!




Model: Robyn Esson
Make-up and Hair: Sarah-Jane Bastarache


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Developing Creativity and Consistency.

Every once in a while I do personal shoots. I come up with an idea and a look I want to create, and only then I start to search for a model, who will complete my vision.  

I find that in photography, like in every other form of art,  it's extremely hard to be creative at all times.  But in business of photography we (photographers) can compensate it by being CONSISTENT.  We can train our selfs to deliver highest quality imagery and exceed client's expectations even when we are having an OFF day. 
Shoots like this help me keep my skills sharp. Preparing for shoots like this - develops my vision. Shooting and postproduction - develops my style. 

I was contacted by make-up artist Sylvie Mazerolle, who recently moved back to Moncton from Toronto. After checking out her work, I was thrilled and really looked forward to working with her. 
After bouncing off few ideas of each other, one thing was clear - it had to be a portfolio moneymaking beauty image.  We started with very clean and super natural make-up and spiced it up a bit towards the second half of the shoot by adding "smokey eyes" make-up and messy hair. 

Finding the right model for the look I have in mind takes me sometime too. After few cancelations from other models I found the one I was looking for, and she was perfect.  


Continue reading and see a video of how this image was created in postproduction.  




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