Dimitri
PORTRAIT SERIES: Dimitri Petkov - Ottawa, Ontario.
This was photographed as part of a portrait demo a year or two back.
Shooting Dimitri "badass" or "epic" seemed a little to easy....Dimitri is both of those things, naturally. I wanted to shoot something a little more vulnerable; something with a little more feeling. I learned over a couple days of being around Dimitri that he's a fascinated, multi-faceted guy. He's got a look that stops traffic, but he's a person, first and foremost.
Living The Quiet Irish Life
So, this is pretty exciting....
Erin and I have worked really hard these past couple years to be able to be in a position to allow ourselves to do something we've wanted to do for years, now. Which is to take our children out of school (with their teacher's support and blessing) for an extended trip and homeschool them and travel together as a family.
We left on New Year’s Eve and will be gone to Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and the Azores for over two months, living and working and exploring together as a family.
Excited is an understatement!
The kids are going to do schoolwork, daily, as Erin and I do our own “stuff” abroad (we’re co-writing a book along with a friend; the kids will also keep daily journals), and we'll hike and explore and enjoy Irish and Spanish and Portuguese life as we go!
So....this. I'm very proud that we've worked hard to allow this to happen, and I have to say I'm ending 2018 feeling happy, healthy, and feeling a lot of love.
If you want to follow along on our journey I’ll be positing to my behind-the-scenes Instagram account ( @DaveBroshaBTS) and Erin to her account “@ebrosha”
A Faroe Island sheep - because it’s as Irish-looking as I have without actually having started my Irish photography yet.
100 Images From 2018
It’s the time of year when many photographers look back on the year that’s been and to a certain degree reflect on what they’ve done, where they’re going, what themes and storylines emerged in their work.
I, as throughout my whole career, spent my 365 days shooting a mixed bag of passion projects, travel, commercial, editorial, portrait, and wildlife work. I thought about presenting a small series of collections, each on the theme….but my theme, for better or worse, is “photography”, not genres within photography, so I’m just going to stay on point and present my mixed bag.
I have no clue if these are my “best”. They’re just images that I like, from across time, place, and subject. They are memories and feelings and experiences. They are me, and they are my year.
I hope something within resonates.
Dave
PS - a huge shout-out to two of my incredible sponsors, Sigma Canada and Strobepro Lighting. Every single one of these images was taken on a Sigma lens, and I can’t say enough about their line-up of lenses and what a great company they are. All of the portraits that used introduced lighting were all taken with Strobepro goodness - their products have transformed my work.
On Perfectionism
This is my barn.
My barn is old. It’s dusty. In places, it’s broken. Parts of the foundation are cracked and crumbling. Some of the siding has come off in places and the paint is peeling. Inside there’s darkness where I wish there was light and the space—as many who have sat inside the barn and listened and learned while various speakers and educators have shared their stories can attest—could use some fresh, cold air whereas currently it’s often hot and sweaty and dank.
It’s got its flaws, undoubtedly. But I love it. Hard. So much. As do most everyone who passes through its doors.
They love the fact that something so old (it’s anywhere from a 100-150 years old) is still proudly standing. They love the old wood. The colour tones. The atmosphere inside and the sense of history and pride that obviously went into building it. The place has an unmistakable vibe—the same vibe that first struck Erin and I when we walked through its old wood doors when we were looking around Prince Edward Island for a house to buy—a home to call our own and raise our family. Walking through those doors we just looked at each other and knew, this was it.
In short, the place has character of the most unmistakeable kind. It’s flawed, but it’s pretty much perfect.
As I walked around my barn the other day looking at the old beams and wooden pegs (parts of the barn were built so long ago it was built entirely with wood, and not steel) and parts hodgepodged together and the crumbling stones of the foundation it got me thinking about what we consider “good”. What we consider “perfect”. It got me thinking about the nature of “perfectionism”.
Personally, I think the word “perfectionist” is one of those words that I avoid using at all costs. Why? I’m not afraid to say it….I think when you say “I’m a perfectionist” it sort of means that you think your work or that thing you do is, well, perfect…when you “put it out there”.
First, who wants to be perfect? Perfect, to me, would be a boring place. Imagine a place where you think what you’ve done is perfect. If it’s perfect, why move on? Why learn more, soak up more inspiration, continue down the long and probably very gruelling path of trial-and-error. Why listen to others? Why pick up books and watch and study and observe? I mean, what you’ve put out there is….perfect.
I’m being a little sarcastic, but I do think I have a point (such is the nature of writing….you tend to always think you have a point….even if everyone else disagrees).
The nature of being “perfect” aside I’ve been thinking long and hard lately about some of my favourite images of all time. Some of my favourite artists. My barn. The funny thing is…a lot of what I love about all of them is the imperfections, rather than the perfections.
I have Annie Leibovitz’s great (and massive) book “Portraits”. I love sitting down to it and flipping through her often-brilliant work. It completely surprised me, however, during my first deep dive to how many of her classic portraits are a little bit soft: a little missed focused. Light not at all where I would put it the way I’ve been “trained”. Some of the lighting I would consider “wrong”. But the portraits…still have a feeling. A vibe. A mood that’s unmistakable. The same with Steve McCurry’s large coffee table book: many were shot on film and represent magic moments and there’s a lot of technical issues that we could spend days nitpicking. But man oh man….what a brilliant collection! I also have a book that’s a collection of what the editors think to be the “100 Greatest Photographs In History”. This collection? I think it’s at about 100% consistency for each and every photo being “imperfect” in some major way. But the collection as a whole is brilliant, built up with a group of photographs whose power comes from the emotion, heart and soul of the photographer—and moments they’ve captured as a result.
My barn is far from perfect. Lots of crooked angles in it that would make a master carpenter cringe. Lots of “let’s throw this together with that and see what happens!” It’s evident, throughout. It’s far from perfect….and it’s perfect as a result. And guess what? It’s stood the test of time…probably the most important consideration with something created out of heart, soul, and hard work.
So worry less about being “perfect”. Worry more about putting yourself into the images you take. To conveying emotion and capturing soul. Ten years from now you won’t give two shits about the fact that your image was perfectly sharp. You will care immensely about if the image made you feel enough, be proud enough, compel you enough…to keep looking at it.
Slow Motion + Freeze Action.... Together?
Dougie Rain, Alberta.
Slow Motion + Freeze Action....Together?
Often we're taught that we have to have our portrait subjects 100% sharp, and admittedly as a photographer, I tend to strive for either great overall sharpness (unless I'm going for a complete abstract motion blur image, like a person walking down the subject and appearing somewhat "ghosted").
However, there are times when you can not only add a cool creative effect to your portraits but also convey a sense of movement or environmental condition by combining sharpness and motion in the same image.
In this portrait of powwow dancer Dougie Rain, I set my shutter speed to a somewhat slower shutter speed (1/60-seconds) so that I would capture movement in his feathers, which were being blown around quite strongly but some pretty heavy duty wind gusts. However, Dougie himself is sharp because (A) he's not moving and (B) my flash, which is directly primarily towards his face, helps "freeze" him in place, even if he's ever-so-slightly moving with the 1/60-sec shutter speed.
There's no magic formula to achieving this effect, and your exact shutter speed depends on how fast the motion component of your image is (i.e. 1/60-second might show motion blur with something moving really fast but not with something that's moving only slightly), and you may run into limitations with how slow you set your shutter speed to capture motion depending on how much ambient light is in your scene. On a bright sunny day, for example, trying to set your shutter speed for 1/10th of a second may be impossible unless you're using dark ND filters.
Depending on how slow your shutter speed is, too, you may find yourself in tripod range to keep your overall image sharp.
I use this technique quite a bit, because I love the dynamic feeling it gives.