DIY Backdrops - “The Do’s and the Don’ts”

I painted my first DIY backdrop! Did you ever wonder how these were made? Well, you are in luck! I filmed my entire process from Paint to shoot.

First portrait taken with my backdrop!

Do you want to do yours?

I highly recommend following these 2 blogs for more details on how to do yours;

I Love Hate Photography.

Vukelich.

Those two blogs shared in a written form the entire process and tips on how to get your perfect backdrop. This is what I followed to get mine done. 

What an experience it was. The likes of Sarah Oliphant or the Schmidli backdrops have now earned my utmost respect. Painting those backdrop is an art of itself. This was a whole lotta fun and will likely do it again. I highly recommend trying if you have been curious.


If you don’t have the patience to do one yourself: I recommend checking out: 

https://www.instagram.com/franklinbackdrops/

https://www.instagram.com/ethanalexphotography/


If you have any questions, please ask! 



Secret Work

I have posed this question to other professionals in the industry, “Do you create any work that does not fit your book?”

I received a few answers: 

- “Yes for SEO

- “Yes for creativity”

- “No, I am currently focused on shooting my book and nothing else”

- “I already shoot what I love”

These are generally very personal answers as most creatives are generally in different places in their lives. I for one am on the - let’s call it- ‘building steam’ phase as I tried most of it but tends to gravitate onto certain areas.  As you may have noticed by browsing my main page, I mainly do sports and portraits. This is where my main focus is. Building a portfolio that I can be proud of plus showing range while remaining focused. I take the word from Jay P Mogan; “Be a specialist to the market and a generalist to your clients”.

More and more, the message that remains on any ‘social media’ guidelines or your own website is: show consistent work. Your work, has to remain the same vein and same feel to every image so we can know it’s yours. 

That’s cool and all but….where do we explore ideas and how do we share them? I just finished the book ’Show Your Work’ by Austin Kleon who preaches to avoid hoarding any work you produce. I tend to agree with Kleon but I am teared apart with keeping consistency and simply exploring an idea.

Show you work!

Photo by Austin Kleon - get it here https://amzn.to/2HpI25k

So what to do?

1) Solution 1 - Create an entire new website where you can throw as much stuff as you want.

An ok idea but that another thing to manage with as little time as I have.

2) Solution 2 - Keep it hidden

Meh, it’s art, show it, you never know what it will yield.

3) Solution 3 - Blog it / Keep a section of your portfolio for personal projects

To me, that doesn’t deter from your original message (caveat: make your original message REALLY strong) and shows range into your skills. From what I heard from other professionals, personal work is what gets them the most work other than their regular portfolio. 


With that in mind, I’ll share my most recent personal shoot! 

It started as an idea but now it is a full set!

With that said, I’ll be posting later how I got the shot on Instagram. Make sure to follow me to daily updates about what floats in my head!

Instagram

Cheers!


Signature Ballet Lighting with Sasha O.

I am super excited to share this with you guys! 

May 19th 2018, Sasha (the official photographer for Les Grand Ballets de Montréal - www.sashaonyshchenko.com ) and I will be hosting a photography masterclass in Montreal.

The even will be packed with information and is built for intermediate to advanced photographers. In this class we will: 

+ Sasha’s background and how he learned photography

+ What makes a good photographer

+ The gear used behind some of the best ‘Les Grands Ballets’ campaigns

+ A live demonstration of the technique with a live model

+ Photoshop and Capture 1 post-processing

+ Q&A

+ And more!


To book your ticket - click here! Early-bird discounts are available until April 23rd - don’t miss your chance to save 50$ on your seat!

More information will be added to the event. Follow this blog and the Facebook event to stay up to date.

See you there!