Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of photographing a CWILL BC panel discussion and Q&A session with six published authors, Gail Banning, Linda DeMeulemeester, Lee Edward Födi, Shula Klinger, Paola Opal, and Crystal Stranaghan, moderated by Ellen Schwartz. They shared their experiences, expertise and offered advice on getting published. If you’d like to know more about getting started in Children’s Books, Crystal is answering online questions on her blog.

There was a great turnout at Vancouver Central Library downtown. The room was spacious and although the lights were dimmed over the audience, the spotlights on the authors were sufficient for me to shoot without a flash, which would’ve been distracting for the speakers.

Luckily I arrived there early and snagged a seat in the front row. Even though I was sitting just a few feet away from the stage, with a 24-70mm lens on my full frame camera, shooting at 24mm allowed me to get all the speakers into one shot without having to move from my seat. It was such a quiet event, I didn’t feel it would be respectful to move around too much. Additionally, I carefully composed my shots, kept my finger on the shutter release and clicked sparingly.

Each of the authors shared their journey to getting published.

At the end of the discussion, the audience had a chance to meet the authors and ask specific questions. Even though technically the event was already over, I had my camera out and caught the interactions between speakers and audience. I love the challenge of capturing great candid photos.

Here is one of my friend Shula Klinger who invited me to the event. You may remember her from the Author Profile post I did a few days ago.

Every event is different and may require a different approach to getting those photos. I chose to go about it ninja style by not using a flash, taking only a few careful shots at a time, and minimizing movement around the room. Shooting events as a photojournalist can be challenging and at the same time lots of fun. What are your favourite events to photograph?

focal length: 105 mm
shutter speed: 1/500
aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 250
flash: not fired

Sorry this week’s WYP is a bit late. I have a feverish child sleeping on my lap as I type this. The last 4 days have been a bit crazy! Here’s a shot from healthier days for you to process. I can already imagine some crops will be happening! Click. Download. Play!

Remember to link to your version by leaving a comment below. You are welcome to add any specifics about what you did in your processing (software used, adjusted values, cropping etc) to help us learn. Click here to get the complete details for What’s Your Play. Remember, all readers are invited to submit their own photos for manipulation by emailing a high res photo (preferably SOOC) to play [at] dolcepics [dot] com.

I absolutely loved all the creative plays from last week. Each one equally beautiful and yet so unique!

I had the pleasure of doing some headshots for my dear friend Shula Klinger, published author and illustrator. A few years ago, she published a brilliant novel for young adults, “The Kingdom of Strange”. Check out her site, Shula Klinger, Young Adult Author, for details. I had done a few shots for her back then and wanted to give her some new photographs to promote her work.

A shot from a session we did a few years back.

Tonight, Shula will be giving a free talk in the company of a few other authors and illustrators at the Vancouver Public Library downtown.

Here’s the info about the talk:

Interested in writing or illustrating books for young readers? Join seven professional children’s authors and illustrators to find out how they broke into this exciting and competitive field and how they built their careers.

You can also listen to her read her essay entitled “Mother and Othering: or How to fail as an Academic”, which aired on The Sunday Edition for CBC Radio. Go to the very end of the page and click on “Listen to Hour Three” and she begins her essay 39:40 minutes into the segment.

For this shoot, we decided to do some simple head shots indoors that could easily be converted to black and white. With any shoot, I love to experiment with different poses, lighting, angles, expressions, hair placement and crops (in camera).

In this particular shoot, we used 2 lights and a reflector. Key light was behind a shoot-through umbrella on camera right. A background light at low power for a little separation and a reflector on camera left to lift up the shadows a bit.

A little boldness and confidence.

And don’t forget to have a little fun!

I’ll be heading out to the talk tonight downtown to take some promotional photos for Shula. Hope to see you there!

focal length: 58 mm
shutter speed: 1/125
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 1250
flash: not fired

I was working on some photos for a model shoot we did at the Ironworks studio a few weeks ago and decide to run a little extra photoshop work on this shot for kicks. I was going for dark with a bit of vintage. After converting to black and white in Lightroom, I ran PW’s vintage and heartland actions at about 30% opacity for each. It’s always nice to play around with processing to get a totally different image.

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/80
aperture: f/2.5
ISO: 640
flash: not fired

I enjoy photographing details on a wedding day because that’s where the bride and groom’s thoughtfulness shows.

Get creative and give yourself a chance to experiment with your processing and try something totally different from your norm.

Remember to link to your version by leaving a comment below. You are welcome to add any specifics about what you did in your processing (software used, adjusted values, cropping etc) to help us learn. Click here to get the complete details for What’s Your Play. Remember, all readers are invited to submit their own photos for manipulation by emailing a high res photo (preferably SOOC) to play [at] dolcepics [dot] com.

Totally different plays from last week’s WYP!

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/4.0
ISO: 400
flash: not fired

Last night, at OAC Photo Club, inspired by Strobist’s article about food photography, we decided to make a smaller version of the inside-out soft box (because we didn’t have a big enough box) and try our hand at photographing food.

Here’s our setup.

Instead of a strobe, we decided to try using a continuous light source, a lamp without the shade. One of us held it above the box so it would shine through the tissue paper acting as a diffuser. The tissue paper covered the opening at the top of the box.

The lamp wasn’t bright enough to allow the white pieces of paper to reflect any light onto the red peppers and the pieces of paper may have been too far away to be effective, which I was ok with since I intended to keep one side in the shadows for more drama.

Here are a couple more photos using the same setup.

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 400
flash: not fired

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f/4.0
ISO: 400
flash: not fired

The box was super easy to make and the lighting is something everyone has at home already. It was so nice to be able to instantly see how the light would fall on the subject because we were using a continuous light source. Give it a try. I’d love to see your results.

focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/160
aperture: f/2.2
ISO: 200
flash: not fired

A little bird’s eye view for this week’s WYP. Click. Download. Play!

Remember to link to your version by leaving a comment below. You are welcome to add any specifics about what you did in your processing (software used, adjusted values, cropping etc) to help us learn. Click here to get the complete details for What’s Your Play. Remember, all readers are invited to submit their own photos for manipulation by emailing a high res photo (preferably SOOC) to play [at] dolcepics [dot] com.

Here are your versions of last week’s WYP!

focal length: 24 mm
shutter speed: 1/80
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 640
flash: not fired

These days I’ve been experimenting with black and white conversions and have taken a liking to processing photos with and without colour. Removing the colour in an image can really bring attention to parts of the image that did not previously stand out. Don’t be afraid to play around with your processing to create another version of an image. It may just turn out to be your favourite!

focal length: 140 mm
shutter speed: 1/4000
aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 640
flash: not fired

We went downtown Vancouver today to see the Olympic Cauldron burning brightly. It was a good thing I brought my telephoto lens with me so I could photograph from a block away rather than brave the crowds who gathered closer to the base of the structure. It was worth the walk to see it!

focal length: 24 mm
shutter speed: 1/80
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 1600
flash: not fired

We took a little walk last week just before the Olympics started here in Vancouver. My husband took this photo of the Bay building downtown adorned with Olympic banners. There’s just something about night photography that is beautiful. Try it sometime!