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Horses and humans have a long history of working together. Horses have indisputably been integral to the development of modern society, and while their roles have changed over time, horses today remain indispensable to those humans known as "horse people". Horse people have existed throughout time as those who exhibit a psychological need for horses. Horses have always shown an interest in humans, and horse people mirror that fascination. What develops between the horse/human pair is an equal partnership that differs from the master/pet dynamic of other human/animal relationships. Shot from the eye of a horse person, “Equus” is an inside look at today's equestrian community. I am exceptionally proud to be apart of a sport that does not discriminate between athletes based on gender. The women featured in the video portion of "Equus" represent a hard working, strong, and determined group of female athletes and is a celebration of their unique stories and relationships. See more at: https://www.nicolairvin.com #emergingartists #canadianphotography #emergingcanadianartists #canadianphotography #photographycanada #equestrian #womeninphotography #internationalwomensday #femaleathletes #portraitphotography #novascotia

Martha Davis' project, ‘Dream Scenes!’ creates opportunities for senior citizens to do anything and go anywhere, through the magic of green screen photography. Martha reflects, “It’s great to watch the seniors cluster around the digital screen to view the photos, talking and laughing about what they’ve always wanted to do. My work creates a sense of community in the seniors’ home. I’ve now held 13 sessions at Christie Gardens and photographed more than 100 residents over the past year. This project has evolved from simple scenes that include the seniors, into active and complex images that tell a story directed by participants.” We featured Martha's project in our Spring / Summer 2018 issue, Manipulated Images, we thought we'd share a few more here- enjoy! “It’s so much fun going on the green screen. You can be as crazy as you want and go anywhere at all. I wanted to fly to heaven. I’m 95 and I’ve got nowhere to go but up!” -Trudy. In Marilyn’s 'Dream Scene', based on a dream, the steering wheel comes off her boat and she gets stuck on a rock at the edge of the falls. Margaret loves horses. When asked what would be her 'Dream Scene', she blurted out, “I’d like to ride a bucking bronco!” Wow! 92 years young! We added a dog running alongside to give it energy, and the dude watching adds a touch of humour. Barbara’s husband was quite a well-known golfer on the seniors circuit, and she’s very proud of him. She also golfs, and lamented that the putter she’s holding is too long for her. She feels disdain for Tiger Woods, here she’s portrayed shaking her fist at him. She calls him a “naughty boy” for his indiscretions. Edna wanted to have a toast with the Queen. Jennie says her grandkids think she’s an adventurer. “I have to prove it!" Pat wanted to go on safari. She wanted a cub in the photo, but was even more thrilled when we located six of them! We added the vulture to balance the composition, and to add a touch of suspense. Chamber trio rehearsing for their big debut Martha Davis is a Toronto based licensed teacher, children’s author, photographer and independent filmmaker. She has exhibited her photographs and screened her films nationally and internationally since 1978. Her children’s books have won awards and two of her films were nominated for Genie Awards. See more of her work on her website: greenscreenqueen.ca #digitalmanipulation #womeninphotography

In case ya missed our TORONTO 2018 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event- or wanna see it again, NPAC photojournalist Nick Iwanyshyn shares some of his favourite images and stories. In case you're not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really really fun... #documentaryphotography #travelphotography #canadianphotography

In case ya missed our TORONTO 2018 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event- or wanna see it again, The FILM STARS PROJECT's MATTHEW PLUMMER + Film Star NATALIE + photographer EMILY HILL talk about how photography plays an important role in connecting with youth and talking about ideas around perception, assumption, diversity and dreaming big. Warning: You might shed a tear watching this one... In case you're not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really really fun... To find out more about The Film Stars Project, find them online: www.filmstarsprojects.com/contact/ & https://www.instagram.com/fs_project/ #womeninphotography #emergingartists #fineartphotography

In case ya missed our TORONTO 2018 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event- or wanna see it again, Photographers Without Borders founder Danielle Da Silva talks about how the camera can do wonderful things, but also damaging things... questions about appropriation, gaze and questioning yourself - are you just taking? or giving back as a photographer? In case you're not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really really fun... #womeninphotography #emergingartists #fineartphotography #documentaryphotography #travelphotography #travel

In case ya missed our TORONTO 2018 PHOTO INSPIRATION Pecha Kucha Event - or wanna see it again - THIS IS WORLDTOWN tell us about how they work together to share and collaborate to tell their stories. In case you're not familiar - Pecha Kucha is a format where speakers only have 20 slides X 20 secs/ slide to share their story. It's TOUGH. But really, really fun... To find out more about THIS IS WORLDTOWN projects check them out online: thisisworldtown.com #womeninphotography #emergingartists #fineartphotography

Photographer Kerry Shaw is a story teller, who thinks of herself as an illustrator, failed painter, and pack rat — a fascinating combination that has resulted in the rich illusionary images she creates. As a painter Kerry Shaw strived to create surrealist images with a photorealistic quality. She worked by piecing together photographs to form collages that would then serve as prototypes for paintings. Somehow the process never engaged her fully and its results continuously fell short. Shaw's introduction to Photoshop and its endless possibilities instigated a shift in her medium and process. Shaw was captivated by the software that enabled her to cut out a step and go directly to the seamless stitching of images right from the source — the photographs. Now with a camera and new creative tools she creates the surrealist images she always envisioned by altering the source images themselves. This alteration (and its vast potential) has enthralled Shaw; the fact that she can take the real world and manipulate it into something wholly fantastic and still believable. The work itself is a seamless collage made up of the many pieces picked up by Shaw in the spaces she encounters. She describes an internal visual library in which she stores the images, hoping to find the ideal spot to put them someday. The Animal City series is layer upon layer of such images. Most of the background elements and extra lighting, however, has been computer generated. The element of illustration is strikingly evident in this regard and lends the work a cohesive, graphic look. Giving all due respect to purists, Shaw sees her work in a different category. While acknowledging all photography as a sort of alteration or take on reality, she works within the limitless boundaries of her memory and imagination to create something wholly new. What is remarkable is her use of images based in the real to masterfully create the surreal. Shaw herself sums it up best: “At the end of the day, I am a storyteller and alter images in the hopes of producing something that no one has seen rendered in this way before.” To see more of Kerry's work visit: www.kerryshaw.com #KerryShaw #womeninphotography #animals #photomanipulation #experimentation #collage #digitalmanipulation #photoshoptechnique #fineartphotography #photoart #visualstorytelling

Douglas Walker is not your typical travel photographer. In fact, Walker comes to the genre of travel photography by way of his long-time career as an advertising location photographer for such multi-million dollar clients as General Motors and Allegra, among many others. “I am not really a travel photographer. It is more that I travelled to locations to shoot big advertising productions,” Walker says. Walker, who comes from Oxbow, a small town in southern Saskatchewan, studied photography in high school before taking a train to Toronto to continue those studies at Ryerson University. However, in his third year at Ryerson, Walker had the opportunity to be an assistant to Peter Croydon, a photographer who shot large format images for advertising clients. Walker could not pass up the chance to work with a professional and acquire hands-on experience. “I like to say I got kicked out of Ryerson,” Walker says. “My instructor told me that I would learn 10 times the amount assisting Peter than I would learn from being in class. I was 21 years old and that’s what I wanted to do.” After three years as a photographer’s assistant, Walker got his big break: the chance to shoot for the revered Saturday Night magazine. “At the time that I was starting out, Saturday Night was the magazine to be in; there was no question about it,” Walker says. “Art directors usually don’t or won’t see you. They are too busy. But I begged my way in, knowing that if I could just crack the door open a little, I would do okay.” Walker’s strategy worked. His first assignment for Saturday Night was shooting John Neville, then artistic director of the Stratford Festival. Walker’s career took off from there, and he enjoyed solid success as a location photographer for major advertising clients, usually with a crew of eight to ten on shoots with him. After several decades of high-profile on-location shoots, Walker decided he had reached his goals and was taking a break. “I literally put my camera down for three years,” Walker says. “Now I just go out and shoot with my buddies and it’s like a beginner’s mind. For my Mexico series, it was purely personal; it became a state of mind. It was a feeling of, ‘I’m getting out of Dodge and I’m going to Mexico for four months.’ I was energized and just felt like taking photographs. I did a lot of portrait shots and hired locals to meet people I could photograph, like windsurfers. On location shoots, I went back and back until I got the shots I wanted.” Recently Walker’s focus has been on having fun with his photography, working on projects that are personal to him. “And as it turns out, I’m travelling,” he says. Walker’s passion is shooting endless horizons, which he credits to being from the Prairies. “There’s an irony in the expression ‘Prairie boys make great sailors,’ because in fact we are landlocked. But if you put us on a ship we get it, because of the endless horizon. Generally speaking, being deep in the mountains is not something that appeals to me. I love shooting people in the context of the landscape: portraits in the environment. I call it environmental portraiture. I am also comfortable around the ocean as it represents the endless horizon to me.” Walker believes that no matter what you are shooting, it is all about the light. “You have to understand light. It drives everything,” Walker says. “When I was in the advertising business we would use whatever it took — a full truck of lighting if we needed it. What I have found is that pre-planning is key and patience is important. You see a lot of photographers who run out trying to get 10 good shots in a day. I go out, see where the good light is, then go back for days until I capture the light that I am looking for. Five percent of what I shoot happens spontaneously. But then I go back to the location that I want and I just wait; I just keep going back until I get the image that I want. That’s the discipline; that’s how I was taught.” Walker, who has a contract for his travel images with Corbis Images, advises photographers who want to shoot travel to just get out there and shoot. Work as an assistant with as many top pros as you can. Preparation is also crucial. The most important thing is to edit your images. Only show the best of the best of your images. To see more images from Douglas Walkers adventures, check out his website: www.douglaswalker.com This article originally appeared in our Winter Issue in 2013. Get it HERE. #travel #DouglasWalker #travelphotography

Elite sports photography is an action-packed exemplification of energy, stamina, character, courage, and determination. Athletic performance at its highest level is recorded as a visual history, capturing results and defining both the pain and glory of an event. As a genre, sports photography requires skill and a thorough understanding of how to capture speed and action in camera with tack-sharp proficiency. It also helps to know the basics of the sport you are shooting and what the performance expectations are around the athletes competing. “I am naturally drawn to sports, particularly elite amateur sports,” says Dave Holland, photographer for the Canadian Sport Institute in Calgary. “The three key things I look for when I am assessing photo positions are where the best light is, where the best background is, and where the peak action will be. All three go hand in hand. If you have great action and a great background, but the action is terrible, it won’t work. Another key consideration for location is the finish line, if the finish is critical. Often there will be a group of photographers in a certain area. This will give you an idea of where some of the best shots will be, but you will also get the same shots as they do, so I usually go elsewhere.” Holland, who is self-taught, started shooting sports for his high school yearbook, but then didn’t pick up a camera again until 2008, when he was on a five-month trip around the world. In 2009, Holland began shooting at the bobsleigh track in Calgary, eventually expanding to photograph other World Cup events. “The first thing to shooting an event is knowing what kind of credentials or access you need,” Holland says. “For bigger events you will need a media or photographer’s credential to bring your camera in. Once you are in, introduce yourself to the media representative to see where you can and cannot go.” Being completely comfortable with the manual settings in your camera, along with an intuitive know-how of setting shutter speeds, inversions, exposure, and aperture, all within a second’s reaction time, are paramount to capturing winning images. “In most of the elite sports I shoot, faster is better,” Holland says. “A very fast shutter speed for me is 1/4000 to 1/8000 of a second. Speeds in this range will freeze motion. I prefer to shoot almost entirely in manual mode so I can control exposure settings. Some sports photographers shoot in shutterpriority modes (TV for Canon, S for Nikon). I prefer to control my aperture, which controls my depth of field. I usually shoot wide open, (f/2.0, f/2.8, or f/4.0), so that my background blurs the most. My process for setting exposure is to set my aperture (usually wide open) and my desired shutter speed (for indoor fast events, usually at 1/640 or higher). Then I increase my ISO until I get the desired exposure.” While most of us wonder how photographers such as Holland consistently produce such exceptional work, Holland shares some secrets and tips of the trade: “I end up with lots of blurry images, but I never publish them. If 10 percent of the photos I take are keepers, I am usually happy. This 10 percent represents images that are tack sharp, show peak action and perfect form, and have clean backgrounds.” “One mistake I commonly see is people using the wrong focus mode when shooting sports,” Holland says. “AI Servo AF (Canon) and AF-C (Nikon) are continuous modes for shooting action. One-shot modes are designed for subjects that don’t move. Many cameras will have various, and sometimes customizable, autofocus modes. Some modes are better for tracking subjects (ski or bicycle racers), and some are better for subjects that move erratically (such as in gymnastics or soccer). Another tip is to use a centre focus or a small group of focus points. I aim my focus points on an athlete’s face as I want the eyes in focus. Next, understand how autofocus works. Most autofocus systems look for contrast to help them focus. Sometimes you may need to look for points of higher contrast if your camera has trouble autofocusing. Sometimes the best way to get the shot when the subject is moving fast is to trap focus. Pre-focus on a selected point and then take a few shots when subjects move through this point. You can pre-focus using autofocus mode, but you will need to use the back button to focus, and the shutter button to shoot.” With longer lenses, a monopod is a necessity (tripods are rarely allowed) to stabilize the lens. Holland believes that the key to being successful at whatever genre you want to shoot is to develop your own style and then to get out there and shoot — a lot. Accomplished photographers learn from the best photographers in their field and understand what makes their photos stand out among all the other images. Tack-sharp quality images — especially those shot under extreme or high velocity conditions, invariably without a tripod — tend to be exceptional rather than average. “Look at photos and bookmark the photos you really like,” says Holland. “Then every once in a while go through them and decide what you like and dislike about these images and then try to work that into your photography. Have an awesome website and link it to social media. The final piece of advice is to have fun. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, don’t do it. It will show in your photos.” See more of Dave Hollands work at: WWW.DAVEHOLLAND.CA #sportsphotography #DaveHolland #hockey #canadianphotographer #wintersportphotography #actionphotography #motionphotography #AlbertaPhotographer

A DIY beanbag for photography is an easy project that can be whipped up with a bit of sewing know-how for under $10. Besides using the beanbag as a ballast in the studio, it can be handy to steady a camera in an endless variety of outdoor situations; a car door, a rock, a fence, a tree branch, etc. You can customize the bag to whatever colour, size and shape you want. All you need is: • Scissors, needle and thread, (or a sewing machine, if you have one) • Some sturdy fabric (e.g., denim or twill) • A zipper to fit along a side of the beanbag • Some filling (e.g., small beans or lentils) • An extra bit of fabric or ribbon to sew a hook at one end of the beanbag, for attaching it to the centre column of a tripod STEP 1 Measure and cut. For the sample shown I used a piece of fabric 40cm x 30cm. The final size of the bag is 20cm x 30cm. To make the loop use a piece of fabric 6cm x12cm folded lengthwise. STEP 2 Sew the zipper so that the two long ends come together. Place the loop on the short side near the top of the zipper. Turn the bag inside-out and sew the top and bottom of the bag. STEP 3 Reverse the bag and add the beans. Test it out for proper support of your camera and lens, adding or taking away beans to suit. *TIPS: Recycle and save $ Grab an old pair of jeans to re-use the denim and the zipper for this project. Cut the legs off, turn inside-out, and sew the three open sides closed to the size required. Turn outside-in and fill with beans — voila! A travel bonus A bonus of the beanbag is that it’s super easy to pack for travel. Simply empty the bag and fill it with beans when you arrive at your destination. #DIY #HowTo #photographygoodpractice