November Recap

November was kind of a crazy month. I accomplished less on the photography front than I normally do, but made it through running the sound department for two short films, so that's pretty cool.

And even though I didn't shoot a ton this month, the stuff I did go out for was super rad.

Elsie Binx at The Crofoot - November 6

You're probably getting sick of seeing photos of this band by now, considering I've shot them at least a half-dozen times this year, but they're great for getting in some practice, and exposure to new venues and shooting situations.

In this case that venue was The Crofoot, a place I had never visited before, and I loved it. They had some cool lighting, a large stage, and the use of the smoke machine was tasteful - added some texture to the shots without being overly dramatic.

With this set I also tired out some new things with the colour grading to better match the colour scheme the band tends to use in their advertising. I still kept with the vivid colours that I'm so attached to, just with a bit of a different palette than normal.

The Stanley Cup - November 16

This was a really cool opportunity that I got through WindsoriteDOTca - The Stanley cup was coming through Windsor for a weekend, thanks to Scotiabank, and for the kickoff they were surprising a local kid's hockey team with it. It was super cute to see how excited they all got, including their parents.

This was also my first chance to really test out a new Rokinon 35mm that I had just picked up. So far it seems to be a pretty nice lens, I just have to get used to the manual focus thing a bit more. Kind of sad that I hadn't done this before now, but better late than never!

You can check out the full story with all of the images here.

Indie Kitchen Behind The Scenes - November 22

In early November a local filmmaker got in touch with me about shooting some behind the scenes content for a new food documentary webseries that he's currently working on. I was absolutely thrilled and honoured to be asked to come out for something like that, and was happy that our schedules aligned.

Not only did I get a look at how another local production team runs, but I had the chance to shoot in and around The Canadian Club Brand Centre, a really cool and historical local landmark that is generally very expensive to get access to.

I also ended up using that opportunity to write a story on the project for The Windsor Independent, and I'm very happy with how that story turned out.

KIHON Karate Black Belt Testing - November 26

My brother Andrew has been practicing karate for something like twelve years now and this month he had the testing for his third degree black belt. As much as he's done this stuff forever I've only ever seen him participate in a kumite challenge once a few years back, so seeing what actually goes into the testing was super neat.

I was excited to get some shots at this event, but there were a lot of challenges involved with it.

I had probably 5 different colour temperatures going on between various types of bulbs plus some rapidly declining daylight through the large front windows (yay winter!), and the olive green mats cast a fantastic green hue onto everyone, making them look constantly seasick.

I also had to really crank the ISO as the daylight failed, so things did get a little grainy at the end. Unfortunately compensating with flash wasn't really an option as I didn't want to risk the light distracting anyone during a crucial moment in their testing.

Still, I think I got some neat shots out of this, and it was definitely some great practice with the new 35.