Aaron proposed to Lisa in a movie theatre so I thought it was fitting to create an interesting illustration photo of the two of them together in the same theatre.
My friend Jimmy Jeong made this same image years ago and I’ve been wanting an excuse to copy the idea ever since! (p.s. his is much better!)
For lighting it was simply an Alienbees Einstein with a 48-inch Octobox on the couple and a second Einstein with a honeycomb grid modifier to give them a rim light. I shot dozens of images and then layered them all together in photoshop to create the montage. I used the new Alienbees Lithium battery packs for power which are amazing!
When my friends Kelly and Tracey told me they wanted to do trash the dress photos after their wedding I was super excited. Kelly is a microbiologist PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan so we decided to do something that was fun in his lab. This photo isn't photoshopped yet. Just straight out of camera.
Kelly's brother mixing up food colouring in water.
Tracey with the coloured beakers. We used dry ice to make them seem to be boiling.
Here you can see my light setup. A large Octobox to the top left, a softbox to the back right, a ringflash on the camera and there is another flash behind the shelf on the left.
I used an Eye-Fi card tethered to my iPad with the ShutterSnitch App so I could see my images on a bigger screen. This comes in very handy when setting up photos like this as it involves moving a lot of little elements in the frame here and there.
Well Tracey's dress is ruined.... mission accomplished!
After the lab we went down to the South Saskatchewan River and did some cool photos. For light I just had an Alienbees Einstein with a 48-inch Octobox. I used the new Lithium Vegabond battery pack for power.
I used Pocketwizard Flex5's with the AC3 Zone controller so that I could dial the power of the Alienbees Einstein up and down. This is a 1.5 second exposure, F2.8. ISO2500 on a Canon 1D Mark-IV.
It was 32-degrees Celsius that day so the water was still pretty warm.
6-seconds, F2.8, ISO640 to get the stars. Alienbees Einstein turned all the way down to 2.5 w/s.
With beautiful time lapses and scenery, Journal photographer Ryan Jackson has captured the different ways we commute from Edmonton’s suburbs. Learn how Canadian’s commute and follow our three commuting challengers to work in a fun way.
I spent about a week and a half on this project to wrap-up Elise Stolte’s living on the edge series about Edmonton’s new growing suburbs. I followed three commuters who get to work in different ways. Since they leave for work at 6:00 AM I had to get up at 4:00 AM each day so I could commute down to the south-end and then video them going to work. I then shot tons of footage of cars, bikes, trains and walkers getting to work.
I wanted all the images to have a certain mood so I shot everything in the morning with my white balance on Tungsten to give that cool early morning feel.
David Pritchard took part in our commuting challenge. He lives in Summerside area and typically drives the Century Park LRT station and then takes the train to work downtown. Pritchard poses for a photo before heading to work on August 24, 2011. I simply used two Canon 580EX flashes zoomed into 80mm placed to the sides of the car and pointed at his windows. I rolled the windows down to reduce reflections. I had orange gels on the flashes and the Camera white balance was set to Tungsten to make the image blue.
Kim Halmilton took part in the Journal’s commuting challenge. Hamilton usually rides her motorcycle to work downtown from her home in north Edmonton. She poses for a photo in front of her home in Edmonton on August 25, 2011. I used two speed lights placed behind her with orange gels on them. Camera white balance set to Tungsten.
Kevin Wirtanen took part in our commuting challenge. He typically bikes to work downtown from his Terwillegar home in south Edmonton. Wirtanen poses for a photo before heading to work in Edmonton on August 23, 2011.
Pritchard poses for a photo at the LRT station before heading to work.
Here are some behind the scenes images. I build an 8-foot long slider and motion controller that I used for a couple of the scenes.
Thanks to my friend Kevin Hill for helping with this time lapse scene.
Most of the time lapse footage was shot on my Canon XH-A1 video camera and then sped up 20X in Final Cut Pro X.
Here I am all setup and ready to shoot David Pritchard at 6:00 AM. This project involved a lot of preparation as I only had about 15 minutes with him before he headed to work.
This video was also my first time using Final Cut Pro X. I must say the program is pretty powerful and amazing. It makes use of all of your CPUs and has background rendering so you can just keep editing without waiting for anything. Do I like it better than Final Cut Pro 7? For some things yes… for others no. It takes a lot of time to get used to. The speed and added features are AMAZING but the complete change in interface and way of editing is frustrating. Hopefully it will get better with time.
Instead of watching 30 minutes of video in hopes of getting the information you want, you can jump right to the questions and issues that matter to you and compare.
I lit all of the candidates the same with our three 500 LED video lights and white background. I asked them each to look into the corners so I could have them looking at the candidates that is currently talking in the video.
Here is my setup. Just a big white sheet for a background. I pointed two 500 LED video lights at the background and then had a third 500 LED light above them on a boom. I used a Canon 5D Mark-II with a 50mm f1.2 lens for video and a Sennheiser G2 wireless mic and a BeachTek DXA-5DA mixer for audio.
The great thing about this setup was that after the video interview I could do portraits.
Here are a couple of my favorite photos of Gary Mar and Ted Morton.
Posted by ryanjackson on Sep 18, 2011 in lighting, photos
Jeff Senger, left, and Paul Cabaj, founding members of SPARK, a new green energy power co-operative that offers members lower cost electricity than competitors. They pose for a photo behind a net zero home in Edmonton on August 7, 2011. (Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal)
Here is an example of when simple props can really add to a picture. I wanted to illustrate “power” so I grabbed as many extension cords as I could find.
I usually shoot at low apertures to blur out the background but here I wanted Jeff, Paul and the solar panels in the background to be sharp so I shot at F9 with a wide lens to get lots of Depth of Field.
I lit this picture one Canon 580EX speed lights to the right.
1/160sec, F9, ISO100. 16-35L @ 32mm. Read the story: Alberta’s first energy co-op eyes green power
Here’s me setting up our GigaPan Epic Pro at Folk Fest. Photo by Jack Bawden. I used a 1D Mark-IV and a 24-105mm F4L lens to make the panorama. I would have rather used a longer lens like a 200 or 300mm to get more detail but I only had the first three songs to shoot.
I was lucky enough to be sent up to do aerials of southern Edmonton for a story about urban sprawl. Here are a few of my favorites. You can view more here. I must say I didn’t realize how much Edmonton had grown until I saw all the new houses from the air.
It’s amazing that I’ve only lived in Edmonton five years and I can say “I remember when this was all farm land”.
Posted by ryanjackson on Sep 18, 2011 in lighting, photos
Thirteen-year-old sprinter Tyree Harriott won four gold metals for Alberta last week at the tri-provincials in Regina. He poses for a photo at Strathcona high school in Edmonton on July 30, 2011. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal Read the Story.
Here is how I lit the picture. Three 580EX’s with Pocketwizard Flex5’s. 1/200, F8, ISO50. Canon 24mm f1.4L. A Honl grid on the back flash. Oh and his Mom holding a reflector to shine catchlights into his eyes.
Here is my setup. Just a big white sheet for a background. I pointed two 500 LED video lights at the background and then had a third 500 LED light above them on a boom. I used a Canon 5D Mark-II with a 50mm f1.2 lens for video and a Sennheiser G2 wireless mic and a 
Here is how I lit the picture. Three 580EX’s with Pocketwizard Flex5’s. 1/200, F8, ISO50. Canon 24mm f1.4L. A Honl grid on the back flash. Oh and his Mom holding a reflector to shine catchlights into his eyes.
