Abby and Ben's wedding at Steeps Restaurant, Whistler Mountain

Abby and Ben are a nice couple who got married this last weekend at the top of Whistler Mountain at Steeps Restaurant. It was a beautiful evening to be on the mountain, and it made for a beautiful wedding.


Abby getting ready in the Roundhouse. Whistler closed off one of the women's washrooms for them to get ready in. Being in there always makes me feel a bit weird.


Veteran Whistler wedding co-ordinator and old friend of mine Linda Marshal fixes the flowers in Abby's hair.


Ben walks down the aisle on the sun deck at Steeps Restaurant.














Sunset on the mountain is incredible, with bright red colours. The last two photos are straight out of the camera, no colour filters applied.

Tech Stuff
Pretty simple really. D700 camera, and my three main lenses, the 17-35mm, 28-70mm, and 70-200mm. With the evening shots, I try not to use flash.

Happy Logger's Day

Here's a photo from a few a few years ago that I pulled out for a Garibaldi Times issue on the up coming Logger's Sports weekend in Squamish.

Tech Stuff
I shot this with a D2x camera that has very poor wide angle coverage because of it's 1.5x sensor. Nikon produced a great fisheye lens dedicated to the DX format, the 10.5mm. It's coverage is close to 180 degrees, so you needed to get really close to the action to fill the frame. It doesn't look like it, but the nose of the chainsaw bar was less than 4 inches from the front element. After the shoot, I found that lubricating oil from the saw chain had sprayed all over the front element of the lens.

We shot in the heat of the day, so I put the logger in full silhouette, and had writer Alan Forsythe hold a Nikon SB-800 flash aimed at his face.

Camera: Nikon D2x
Lens: Nikon AF10.5mm f/2.8
Lighting: Nikon SB-800, controlled by a Nikon SU-800

Cheakamus Crossing Demonstration

Cheakamus Crossing is a new Whistler housing development on the site of the old Olympic athlete's village. It's looking like a great place to live, apart from a local paving company running their asphalt plant illegally next to the development. The Whistler Municipality has refused to force them to move the asphalt plant, and the new residents are, understandably, really pissed off. I have friends moving in, and they have formed a group to fight it, and had a demonstration on the highway Saturday.


Cheakamus Crossing residents Amanda Connor, and her mother, Angela Connor.


Cheakamus Crossing resident Tina Symko.

Sarah and Kris's Wedding at the Brew Creek Lodge

Sarah and Kris are a really nice and fun loving couple who currently live in the UK, although Sarah is from Vancouver. They had a great wedding at the Brew Creek Lodge, which is about half way between Squamish and Vancouver.


Sarah marshals her bride's maids


A beautiful day made for a great outdoor ceremony.




It's a really hokey photo, but sometimes it works pretty well.




I was doing some standard pics of the guests, and didn't notice this until I was reviewing the photos back in my office.


What's the secret? The bride's maid's were trying on Sarah's wedding ring.




The Brew Creek Lodge is one of the prettiest locations I work in.


The first dance.

Tech Stuff
Although I try not to let it show, almost all the photos have some degree to flash to either fill or light them. The portraits are shot with a SB-900 mounted in medium Photoflex softbox. All the interior photos are shot with on-camera flash, with the light bounced off either the ceiling or walls.

The main lens I use for weddings is the medium zoom 28-70mm. The couple portraits were shot with my 70-200mm, and the ceremony was the 17-35mm

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8, AF-S 28-70 f/2.8, AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8.
Lighting: Nikon SB-900. Off camera flash controlled with the SU-800.

Outstanding in the Field

I spent Sunday even photographing the Outstanding in the Field dinner at the North Arm Farm for Insight Photography. It was a fun job, despite the harsh sun and bugs at the farm.

Outstanding in the Field is a company that travels around North America and Europe staging dinners at farms, working with a local restaurant to cater the dinner, and using ingredients from the farm and surrounding area for the meal. The North Arm Farm in Pemberton is a premiere location on the tour.

The famous Whistler restaurant Araxi handled the catering and did a superb job.


Farmer Jordan Sturdy takes the guests for a tour around the farm before dinner.


The first course dinner menu.


An Araxi cook stirs a pot of beets and carrots.


Beef tenderloin on the grill.


Araxi Executive Chef James Walt plates the main course. Despite the stereotypical image of the volcanic Gordon Ramsay-ish chef, I never heard Chef Walt even raise his voice, although he kept complete control of his kitchen and cooks, despite the whole thing being moved into a farmer's field. The kitchen and wait staff also showed great patience with the big photographer generally getting in the way of everything. A really classy show all the way around.


Pemberton raised beef tenderloin with horseradish, beets, and carrots from the farm.


A waiter tops up the wine


A toast between courses


Fruit dessert.

Tech Stuff
It was a fairly straight forward shoot. The big issues where colour correction, especially as I was moving from the shaded kitchen area, where the light has a strong bluish cast, so the full sun of the dinning area. Rather than do custom colour balances, I have preset balances programmed into my copy of Apple Aperture that I can easily apply in post production.

I tried to avoid using flash, as it generally ruins the really nice evening light you get in Pemberton.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8 (Scenics), Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 (Food and Kitchen), Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 (Waiter)

In the studio

My buddy Paul "Fabio" Fournier just go back from a month spent crewing on a yacht from Vancouver to Puerto Vallarta. He looked really rugged after that, with a big beard when I ran into him yesterday, so I asked him to stop by the studio and we'd get a few snaps of him before he shaved it off.


Lesley-Anne is a really old friend of mine from way back in the day who spent the Canada Day weekend with Joyce and I here in Whistler. I grabbed her for a couple of quick portraits before she went home.

Tech Stuff
Very simple lighting, a 22" beauty dish on a single Alien Bee head. The wall of the studio is painted 18% grey, so it has a nice dark tone to it when you don't light it, not quite black, but dark enough to get the subject to pop out. Perfect for B&W.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8 (Paul), AF-S Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 (Lesley-Anne)
Lighting: Alien Bee B1600 with a 22" beauty dish reflector.

Family Portraits

Tech Stuff
These are a few shots from a family reunion photo shoot this week for Greg at Insight Photography. This was a fun shoot, but because there were some younger kids, we had to shoot at 5:30 in the afternoon, about two hours earlier than I would have liked. As the light was still really bright, and we had some larger group photos to do, I brought in an Alien Bee B1600 studio strobe head with a 48"x36" softbox to use as a huge fill flash. Once I finished the group photos, I did a few individual family photos (the top and bottom photos) with the big softbox, which worked really wonderfully. After I was done with the posed photos, I spent a few minutes in the back yard with the kids and came out with this (middle) nice portrait. For this I didn't use any lighting, but as the yard by this time was in deep shade, I had to use a high ISO (800), and had to to do custom white balance because of the deep blue colour cast in the shade.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 (top, bottom), Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 (middle)
Lighting: Alien Bee B1600 strobe with Photoflex 48"x36" softbox (top, bottom), available ISO 800 (middle)

Bard on the Beach

Actors Alessandro Juliani and Dean Paul Gibson from the Bard on the Beach production of Falstaff in the cast dressing room.
This week we're doing a story on Bard on the Beach, the classic Vancouver Shakespearian theatre that runs through the summer at Kits Beach. The actors are the best the city has to offer, Alessandro Juliani is a veteran of the Vancouver filmed Battlestar Galactica, many of the others are well known from local TV and film production, and the productions are lush and well staged. Definitely a must see for the summer in Vancouver.


Actor Dean Paul Gibson looking pensive.


Bard on the Beach Artistic Director Christopher Gaze.


Assistant stage manager Samara Van Nostrand checks the prop swords back stage.

Tech Stuff
This was a difficult shoot, as the subjects are busy guys who aren't, in my experience, tolerant of having their time wasted. As they were being interviewed by Urban Pie editor Alan Forsythe, I scouted the locations and set up the lighting so it would be ready for them to step in. The session with Alessandro Juliani and Dean Paul Gibson lasted less than 5 minutes, and I was able to get three usable photos from the session. A well timed dirty joke from one of the actors got a great expressions from everyone.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8
Lighting: Alien Bee B1600 strobe with a 22" beauty dish.