New Vetta Istock Photo – Happy dog in Golden Field

Stock Photograph - Happy dog in Golden Field

Boy, is it ever hard to get a shot through into Vetta these days! Which is why it is always worth a small celebration when one gets accepted into that collection. This one made it yesterday night, after a long process: it was initially rejected for overuse of noise reduction – after which I added a tiny bit of noise all over, and voilà, everyone is happy! Pirate certainly is. The puppy seen here is in his very first discovery of a wild field in June. He was 4 months old at the time. I remember attempting shooting this many times that evening. Autofocus on moving subjects is NOT my Camera’s forte. But it finally worked, and right at the best place with such lovely back lighting from the sunset. For those interested, I’m still going through my back ups to see if I’ve missed some great shots (such as this one) during my initial rounds of post production, and thus many new shots from old shoots will appear in my portfolio during the next few weeks.

Featured istock photograph – Sunset over the corn field

stock photograph - Sunset over the corn field

This was a magical evening in June when I visited my dad at his farm. I tried to capture the magic of that moment, the sweet, peaceful laziness that comes at those special early Summer moments where nature is full of great, positive energy. I kept this one hidden until I felt I could do it justice, and felt that now was the right time for it, so here it is.

Featured Stock Photograph – Rectangular Medieval Window

Stock Photograph - Rectangular Medieval Window

Well yes, it’s a … window. No big bells and whistles on that one. Except it’s one of the hardest shots I made in a while. But I like difficult shots: it usually means there are not a gazillion similar ones going against them. The light was tricky, and thus required several exposures and I couldn’t go the HDR route because of many issues such as chromatic aberrations which made the HDR image a god awful mess. So all the window details were tweaked by hand, painstakingly and exactly, to achieve the look I had in mind when I shot this in Tretower, Wales.

Featured Stock Photograph – Cayo Santa Maria

Stock Photograph - Cayo Santa Maria

I don’t know how it is where you live, but here, in Montreal, there was heavy snow yesterday and today is about -25 Celsius. So I’m having fun these days going through my films shot at the beach. This one is Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba, and it not only is a great background, but at the same time, by itself, is also really nice minimalistic shot that brings a wonderful sense of peace and warmth. It’s the kind of shot in which my overactive brain loves to get lost.

There are more beach photos in this Istock lightbox, or for larger view in this photoshelter gallery (links to purchase are below each photos, thank you).

Featured Stock Photograph – Down the well looking up

Stock Photograph - Down the well looking up

One thing that crossed my mind when I visited so many castle ruins last fall in the UK was to shoot this photo. So on and on we went from castle to castle looking for the perfect tower and none of them seem to make an interesting photograph – they were too smooth or too run down, or had stairs, roof or modern scaffolding along the sides, or you just plain couldn’t walk in… until we stopped at Tretower in the Powys county in Wales. The keep is really small but it had the exact tower I was looking for, with the added benefits of small ledges and growing vegetation which really adds something to the shot. So here it is… and no it isn’t HDR, although there are 3 exposures mixed in the final shot.

Featured Stock photograph – Hairy man shaving half of his body

Stock photograph - Hairy man shaving half of his body

Second half of January already! Time does fly fast. Anyhow, I’ve decided for the next 2 weeks to feature new shots that have shown promise in attracting attention and becoming good sellers if they can keep their momentum. Therefore, if you see something that might be useful to you, don’t hesitate to get it now: their appearance here means they’re in their pocket to get a huge boost from any immediate sale.

First off, a new shot from my recent shoot with Jonathan which got an initial rating at its release in December and a few early sales since. I had gotten a series of props for him to play with in the shots, but he was so good at making faces that I ended up spending more time on expressions than I did with interactions. Time will tell if that was wise. Still this one came towards the end when we were experimenting with shaving cream and a razor. His positioning is just great and so is the expression, just intense enough for someone who’s about to make such a big change in his life.

And no, he didn’t do it. Hairy chests are due for a comeback.. aren’t they?

You can view the initial batch of photographs with this model in this istockphoto lightbox. More will come in the next few weeks.

Featured Stock Photograph: Security Camera

Stock Photograph: Security Camera

Ok I admit that I’m under the charm of the Nik Software plugins. They’re addictive. It’s my new toy. They can make ordinary into extraordinary. I’ve been dabbling with them for a week now, mostly on beach photos I’ve shot years ago (you know, doing backups and coming across photos I’d ignored previously) and I’m very impressed. Once you’ve put together a sensible workflow you can get rid of almost any problem (I still wish there was something in there against chromatic aberrations) and give the shots that extra push into wowness. The above shot is quite eye-catching now, but was initially a gray mess and a noise fest (underexposed 2000 ISO) and look at it now… It even passed inspection. So I had fun all week adding colors and effects galore, all the time thinking I would get a ton of rejections for overfiltering – I’ve always been so careful to make the photos look as natural as possible – but out of 20 submits, I only got 2 rejections for artifacts and they were oversights from my part. So I’m gonna buy them today. Or maybe tomorrow. Maybe they’ll send me a rebate by email now that my trial is over…

New Stock Photo Gallery: Young clean-cut bearded man

Here’s the appearance of a brand new model in my port. As usual for the first shoot, I had him go through a series of facial expression and some body language in front of white and gray backgrounds. He’s studying acting so that was a lot of fun. I shot loads of stuff so you’ll see new ones appearing now and then over the next few months as hopefully some start to sell and I get a better idea of what to promote. The first series is up at Istockphoto and here is the link:

He also has his gallery on my photoshelter archival site.

Featured Stock Photograph: Old Quebec City on a Winter Night

Stock Photograph: Old Quebec City on a Winter Night

For those of you who liked the blizzard shot, here’s another shot at the very same place, but the night before. Now – I felt real bad about it, but I didn’t have my tripod and couldn’t find a stable point, so this was shot at 2000 ISO, hence the smaller maximum size available at Istock. I had to reduce the image to make the noise level acceptable for stock. Still, I really love this one. It really captures the mood of Christmas in Quebec city in all its colorful glory.

If you like looking at my landscapes, I’ve also put together a new lightbox called Sights of Quebec. It’s got new and old material, so yes, there’s a noticeable evolution, and a few shots are not landscapes but things typical of La Belle Province (Poutine and smoked meat, anyone?). Here’s the link:

Sights of Quebec Stock Photo Gallery on Istockphoto.com

Featured Stock Photograph: Sexy Latino Man with Ecstatic Smile

Stock Photograph: Sexy Latino Man with Ecstatic Smile

Victor, the model photographed here, is leaving Montreal much to soon to return to his native Chile and then LA and Toronto. He’s a wonderful spirit, unconventional and fun and he will be missed by many who stay behind. I’ve had the pleasure to work with him 5 times over the past year and a half and he gave it his all. The above shot is the purest smile I could find… And I’m putting it here just to send him off on a good note. All the best to you, Victor.