Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

For those of you who may have actually checked in on my Blog when I was writing on a more regular basis you’ll realize that I’ve been on Hiatus for about seven and a half months, and it’s not like this post really triggers my return to regular blogging , nor am I following the sort of guidelines that I set up at the very beginning for trying to spew out certain content on certain days… That’s all the disclaimer part… Now for the meat of the post…

A week ago I went back into the studio for a photo shoot with the specific goal in mind of capturing some more images to promote the Street Show and Festival work I do. The photo above is an example of the sort of stuff that came out of the shoot and for the most part I’m really super pleased with the shots we got! Kevin Clark, the photographer I worked with is awesome and is willing to put himself in almost harms way to get great shots! Also in attendance was my Manager, Corwin Heibert, who’s awesomeness is hard to describe. Corwin brought treats when he arrived, made sure props where where they needed to be, created a shot list to make sure we covered all of the ground we were hoping to cover, he generally oversaw things so that Kevin and I could play and worry more about capturing the fun nature of what I do than the pesky details that make any endeavour run smoothly.

Yesterday I swung by the studio to pick up a couple of discs worth of raw materials… In the two and a half hours (give or take) that I was at the studio last week we had nineteen set-ups, four costume changes with minor tweaks along the way, multiple props and a whole lot of fun capturing just over four hundred images.

While the experience is still reasonably fresh in my head and as I pour over the images on my screen, I wanted to make some notes (as much for myself as anyone else) about the things that worked and the things that I maybe could have improved upon so that the next time I go into the studio I’m more prepared and get an even higher percentage of awesome shots. Here then, in no particular order is a list of observations and self reminders for ‘the next time.’

• Having Corwin at the shoot was awesome. Having someone to assist with props, keep the shoot moving forward and make sure all of the things that need to be in place are in place made the shoot go really really smoothly. This was great!
• I occasionally use my yellow jacket when I’m doing street work, but I think I probably featured it more in the photo shoot than I should have. I don’t think I really got as many ‘non-jacket’ shots as I might have liked.
• There’s a difference between doing what I do and getting a good studio shot… I like the shots of me posing with my ladder far more than the shots where I’m actually climbing the ladder… In future, remember to capitalize on being able to set up ‘posed’ shots in the studio and worry about capturing action shots when I’m in performance.
• Check Check Check my hair each and every time that I put on a hat. Trust those around you, but don’t rely on other people in the studio to tell you your hair’s OK… I know how I like my hair to look much more than anyone else and many shots were compromised because I neglected to run a comb or brush through the haystack on my head after I’d had a hat on.
• Interesting studio shots can involve the use of props in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with how those props are used in my show. This was true in the case of the ladder example above, but was true at other times during the shoot as well. Don’t pass over props that don’t seem as dynamic because you can make anything interesting if posed correctly and sometimes these possibly skipped over props can create some of the most interesting images.
• Many things can be cleaned up in Post… I did a shoot wearing my stage outfit and forgot to wear my bow tie. I actually went in and did a second shoot with the bow tie, but some of the shots from the first shoot were so good that I ended up having the bow tie cut out from some of the shots in the second shoot and put into the shots from the first shoot. Photoshop can fix a world of pain!