And the building was air conditioned!!

I did contrasty black and white images for two reasons – to represent the fact he’s a ‘blank canvas’ and not set in one particular musical style, and to pay homage to Michael Bloom, a photographer who ended up influencing me more than I could possibly understand at the time. Years ago, when I played drums, I’d see his images in Modern Drummer magazine and thought they were spectacular. I just didn’t realize he did all of my favourites until I was researching ideas for Andrew.

My favourite image of his is that of Ed Thigpen, which is what I based this shoot on.

It’s an amazing dichotomy, my neighbourhood. If you head north by mere feet, it’s a quiet, middle class residential area with beautiful houses. Cross the road, and it’s co-op housing and low income apartments. So guess where the skate park is?

Across from said skate park is a series of paths that split up apartment buildings, a strip mall, a cemetary, and a high school. And this is one of those paths.

Now what you don’t see is the reems of garbage in the trees and loads of dog crap that people seem to refuse to clean up, but unless you’re looking really close, it’s easy to miss – and easier to hide with the right camera angle.

A few days ago, Canoe.ca published an information slideshow with text by Dahlia Kurtz, to round out their content. about how to have a wedding that’s “deceivingly expensive-looking – and secretly cheap” (her words).

Her suggestion for photography and videography is to hire a student who wants “your recommendation,” and to ask for the rights to the photographs to print them out yourself.

Now, I know what you might be thinking – that a professional photographer is about to go off on a rant about why you should pay thousands of dollars and be happy about it. Well, relax. I understand about budgets, the economy, and how not every couple can pay a lot of money for everything and need to cut corners where they can. Photography, videography, professional DJs, decorations – sometimes corners have to be cut.

However, there aren’t that many photography programs in the country, so if you contact a college, you might be getting a Continuing Education student who’s just a hobbyist, or a journalism grad who just happens to have a camera. If you do contact a college with a full photography program, the student might want to be an advertising or editorial photographer. Either way, you may end up with someone who may not care to shoot weddings, and may not care about the quality of the photos.

Barring that, a couple might go to Craigslist or Kijiji, or somewhere else online that advertises a wedding shot for $500 and give the couple all of the photos on disc. These people are either starting out in weddings or just want a quick $500. For those photographers starting out, they do have to start somewhere, and probably shouldn’t be charging a ton of money with little to no experience, but those “shoot ‘n’ burn” weekend warriors don’t care about your memories, and don’t care about improving their skills.

And herein lies my problem. It’s not that people are turning to cheaper outlets for their wedding photography, we live in a free country and it’s a buyer’s market with plenty of choice out there. It’s that they are given the mistaken idea that you can pay less for wedding photography and receive the same quality. Again, Ms. Kurtz’s words are “deceivingly expensive-looking – and secretly cheap.”

While I consider this “article” little more than infotainment and filler for the Canoe website, I am not criticizing or blaming Ms. Kurtz, her writing, or work. I am not familiar with it, and only looked her up after finding this slideshow. I don’t even blame Quebecor and QMI, the parent corporation that employs Ms. Kurtz and sells their information to Canoe.ca. Sadly, I blame our modern culture that wants everything cheap and immediate, as well as my industry for not educating the public about what really goes into professional photography and the products it produces.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting articles on what goes into the cost and quality of wedding and portrait photography, what to look for in a photographer and their work, and how to get the best “bang for your photo buck.”

As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. And when it comes to photography, you really do get what you pay for.

I constantly go through my past and current work to see where I’ve improved, where I can still improve, and generally see the direction my work is going. It helps me improve.

Anyways, take a look at what I mean. In the pictures, I included Andrea, for some time perspective, except when she wasn’t in the play, and different guys (just for some variety).

This year, the TCDSB Staff Arts group put on “The Drowsy Chaperone,” a musical by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison that won numerous Tony awards, as well as critical (and audience) acclaim the world over.

If you live in the Durham Region, maybe you can – there are LOTS of independent wrestling shows here.

Just a note, not ALL of the images on these flyers are mine, but I don’t know who took the others so I can’t give them credit.

I was invited to shoot TEDxUOIT by Greg Rozdeba about a week and a half before. I was planning to attend anyways…

The topic was “Ideas for a Sustainable Future.” It was a great night with lots of thought provoking speakers (and some shaming into buying a bike). All the organizers should be proud for throwing together such a spectacular event in such a small amount of time, and pats on the back for everyone who attended since they had to brave a huge snowfall to be there.

Also, shouts out to Jon Butler – not only for the av work, but also because he follows me on Twitter.

If you’re interested, you can view the different speakers on the TED website, or the recording of the live feed at the TEDxUOIT site.

And yes, I could have included more links.

On the Facebook Fan Page, I mentioned a few new projects, and I don’t want to give away any details until they’re ready, but I would like to say I’m working on developing two new brands. One is an expanded ‘senior’ style package – for those who don’t know, Senior (High School) Photography has been big in the States but never really took off in the same cultural manner in Canada – expanded in the sense that I’m taking the style and expanding it to younger kids. The other is a women’s beauty package including pinup, boudoir and glamourous portraits.

A new blog will be starting soon (as soon as I can find a name for it) that will showcase interesting businesses and people in Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax, Pickering and the surrounding area. Email me if you have a good idea for a name…

I’m also developing a project geared towards my fellow photographers. That’s all I can say about that so far, we’ll see how the survey goes…

Finally, by summertime, there should be some workshops in the Durham Region, available to residents in Oshawa, Whitby, Pickering-Ajax, and the whole GTA, for hobby photographers, scrapbookers and families with a desire to take stunning pictures of their kids and friends.

And now, back to editing… Thanks for reading my ramblings thus far, and I hope to entertain you in a bigger and better way in the years to come.

Chris…

Not to say it’s bad, but I don’t think it’s worth shelling out hundreds of dollars a month to be at the top of Google’s results so someone can click on my link, and spend two or three seconds on my site before they’re off to the next site. I’d rather build up a reputation in the community. I do, however, like to know about the type of people that come to my website, so I use Google’s Analytics and Site Stats for WordPress to see who’s coming to the site, how long, and by what methods. And the methods, specifically search terms, are the best.

Here are some that have been used to find my site this year:

• cjsphoto.com – this was popular, I have a hard time believing that many people typed this into a search engine and not the url bar.
• trinity high school pron – if you don’t know what pr0n is, look it up on Urban Dictionary. Just don’t google it.
• christofer shiller – and other misspellings of my name – just watch where you put those rogue Ts.
• Rangefinder Magazine – I KNEW that would come in handy!
• nice portraits for christmas – Awww…
• derogatory name for wedding photographer – No comment.
• Basketball Engagement Session – WHAT A COOL IDEA!!
• melissa patrick baby shower gainesville – Lots of Melissas have contacted me, I’ve shot my share of Melissas, and I shot a Melissa and Patrick, but still, what are the odds?
• My personal fave, although the prom misspelling was funny, “What’s the point of celebrating a First Communion?”

Unfortunately, unlike Ronin and Connor last weekend, who were just wound up and excited, my nephew Matthew was REALLY grumpy and it’s surprising there were any usable shots in the lot. Perseverence won the day, however!

And while on the way there, why not visit friends and shoot their Christmas cards, too? Such friends as the Zacharjewiczs, and the Garreffas? Tom and Char Garreffa had their second daughter two weeks after Hannah!