When over a year ago Chad Hartin, my friend and ex co-worker, asked me to shoot his wedding this year, I was very nervous, but couldn’t say no to a very good friend of mine.

As special date was coming closer and closer, I was getting more and more nervous about the shoot. Preparation was very stressful

~What if I won’t be able to deliver quality they want?

~ What if my equipment fails and their wedding memories will be ruined?

I had all those thoughts on my mind.

Finally came the day of the shoot… deodorant all over body, as I was so nervous…here is the place where bride is getting ready…and off we go…

I must admit, first hour was very stressful for me: I wasn’t happy with lighting, I wasn’t happy with my Sigma 70-200 f2.8, and that made me even more nervous…

But at some point, something clicked… I became connected with the crowd, and started enjoying that special day… And all of the sudden, photos became much much better… At some point I checked last photo I took and I was impressed, happy and relieved at the same time – it goes OK…

By the end of 12hours day, I had just a bit over 3,500 photos on both cameras, offloaded them on my laptop, made 3 copies for backup and went home…

After much clean-ups, touch-ups and finish-ups, couple got their photos and were very happy with them. Below are some of the photos I’ve shot. Please leave your comments.

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Tags: Commercial, Outdoors, Wedding

My brother, Kirill, is working on some exctiting project and asked me to take some HDR shots of Coquitlam, BC area.

First we went to Mundy Park to take a shot of Lost Lake, then Lake Lafarge, City Hall, New Port Village at Port Moody, and finally Rocky Point park.

Here are some shots. More coming in his product very soon.

Tags: Buildings, Cityscapes, Commercial, Coquitlam, HDR, Outdoors, Panorama, Port Moody, Rediscover BC, Rocky Point park

Alpro Aluminum asked me to shoot their projects which include over 20 different buildings around Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey area of Greater Vancouver.

Here is the first shot of Athletes Village. There are HDR, Panoramic and regular shots.

Tags: 2010 Olympic, Athletes Village, Buildings, Cityscapes, Commercial, HDR, Millennium, Outdoors, Panorama, Vancouver

When Coreena, co-owner of Loeka – women’s mountain biking clothing manufacturer asked me if I will be interested in doing a shoot for their 2009 catalog, how could I say ‘No’?

I mean in addition to being good friends with Coreena, passion to photography and opportunity for more practice – it’s girls clothing we are talking about. What could be hotter than hot girls riding mountain bikes?

So I accepted invitation and showed up sharp on Sunday morning. Once coffee and Bailey’s was finished we head to the forest. It was pretty nice day, for outdoors, but not so great for photoshoot. Bright sun promised harsh shadows, pressure from 5 girls and expectations – it is product catalog we are shooting.

5 hours later, I’ve had just over 900 photos, all batteries in Nikon flash died, and cold Corona was waiting in the cooler. It took me a while to get those photos processed, as how they always say – “Don’t quit your full time job” But at the end I think there were a photo or two worth going on one of the pages of that catalog, and possibly on Loeka’s website, as well as newly opened online store which sells Loeka’s clothing at promotional prices GirlsGoneMTB Read »

Tags: Commercial, Loeka, Nature, Outdoors

We needed some shots of the New Met Pub (Metropole which is now owned by Donnelly Group freshly renovated) for one of the proposal we are working on.

We would have been nice to get some shots of the pub at nighttime, but it is never empty. We’ve done shoot at 11am with large aperture, lowest ISO and 2-4 seconds shutter speed to imitate night aura. We then added some blurred shadows from 4 people at the pub. I think it worked very well.

Mike, Met’s manager, liked photos so much that he asked me for non-watermarked ones for their promotional materials. Happy to do so! Read »

Tags: Indoors, Long exposure, Restaurants

Back in early April 2009, president of www.DiningReview.ca asked me to participate in promo shoot of New Westminster Restaurant La Rustica.

Shoot was fun, we came in on Saturday, after huge wedding party. The place was a mess at 11am. In just under an hour, staff cleaned it up, set up some tables and prepared food. Little catch – it’s not wine in those glasses – guess what it is… Read »

Tags: Dining Review, Food, Indoors, Restaurants