Whistler Heli Wedding

Natalie and Steve, with the storm we flew through to get to the location in the background.
Helicopter weddings are a rare treat for me, and something I really enjoy doing. This one with Natalie and Steve from Kamloops almost didn't go because of the stormy weather we've been having over the last few days. Luckily, we got a small window of clear weather and Natalie decided she wanted to go for it. The original plan was to land on the Rainbow glacier, but the high winds flowing over the peak were throwing the little A-Star helicopter around like a toy boat in a storm tide, so the pilot took us to Sprout Mountain, a much lower peak, but much more sheltered.








Our window of good weather was very short, and after only two minutes of portrait shooting time, Andy the pilot was yelling at me "we gotta go NOW!" By the time we took off, the area had already started to sock in.






Since we had such a short time for portraits, we stopped off at the Green Lake board walk for some extra photos. The weather was much calmer.


Since they were staying at the Four Season's resort, and since it's such a beautiful location, I thought I'd do a few photos there to finish up.

Tech Stuff
During the helicopter ride, I put most of my equipment in the rear luggage compartment, except for a D700 with a 17-35mm lens. Sitting in the back of a helicopter is like having four people in the back seat of a Honda Civic, so you don't have a lot of room for shooting pictures. There isn't enough head room for a camera flash either, so you just have to let the outside blow out.

There's almost no flash used in any of the photos except the last on in the Four Seasons. For that, I used a SB-900 on a stand with a photo umbrella.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8 (inside helicopter, Green lake), Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 (all wedding and mountain portraits), Nikon 85mm f/1.8 (B&W portrait and Four Seasons).
Lighting: Nikon SB-900 fill flash, SB-900 with SU-800 controller for Four Seasons.

Sheri and Justin at Tantalus View Retreat

Sheri and Justin are a nice young couple from Grande Prairie Alberta who came down for a holiday by the mountains and oceans of BC. They booked a cabin in the Tantalus View Retreat, a really out of the way spot between Squamish and Whistler which is so low key that after 20 years of driving past the turnoff for it, I had no idea it was there.








The owner of the retreat makes beautiful wooden furniture, and has a big shed packed with interesting pieces of wood he's collected. I thought it would make a really cool photo. Getting the photo umbrella for the flash in there was a real chore, but the result was totally worth it.

Bungee Jumping Video
They decided to go bungee jumping as way to finish off the day. I go a few photos, but it's not my specialty. While I was putting the DVD slideshow together, I speeded up the sequence of them jumping, and I thought it turned out pretty well.

Tech Stuff:
One of the nice things about doing weddings with just the couple is that you can take a little extra time to try things that you wouldn't during a larger wedding with a a tight timeline. Nikon has just come out with a new 85mm f/1.4 lens that everyone is raving about. I've got an 85mm f/1.8 that I bought in the early 90's that's a pretty cool lens. Normally I just use it for working in the studio, but I decided to try some shots with it at this wedding, full open at f/1.8. I have to say that it's not as sharp as the big zooms I use, but the super shallow depth of field is a great look. The first two lenses in the blog are shot with the 85mm.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8, Nikon 85mm f/1.8

Jodie Emery and the BC Marijuana Party

These are from an Urban Pie story on Jodie Emery, the wife marijuana advocate Marc Emery who just started a five year Federal US prison term for selling mail order pot seeds.




We arrived at the BC Marijuana Party office, totally by accident, just before 4:20 that afternoon. 4:20 is the pot head tea time, and sure enough this guy pulled out a giant bong pipe, took a huge hit, and blew the smoke straight in my face. Apparently the pipe was packed with pure THC crystals (I guess they brought out the good stuff for the guests), and not being a smoker myself, I spent the rest of the afternoon wrecked out of my mind.

Tech Stuff:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lenses: Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8, Nikon AF-S 28-70 f/2.8, Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8

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.