It's been too long!

Hello friends!

So, I haven't updated this in quite a while. Eesh! I've been super busy. I've picked up a job at Blacks so I've been constantly busy this last month or two. I'm finding it challenging balancing my photography with work but I'm getting used to it as time passes. I'm actually starting to enjoy being so busy. More accomplished, I believe. The way I see it is that if I'm this busy for long enough I'll start seeing some good results. I can't wait to form more of a client base so I won't have to work another job - so that I can focus entirely on my photography.

Anyways, what have I been up to other than Blacks? I've done a few shoots with the people of the Canadian Electricity Association. It was interesting to do because it was some what different from what I normally shoot. First shoot was a posed photo of 14 business men/woman and the second shoot was of their safety award ceremony. It was interesting to get a glimpse in the business world. I found it hard to picture myself working in an environment like theirs. I'm so have chosen photography as a profession.

You now may have to stretch your browser because some of these may be a little wide.

In the world of my studio photography I've shot a few friends. First was my friend Paige, it was a last minute shoot but it went well!

Here's a photo from that shoot...



And another...



I also did a shoot with two good friends Sarah and Shaun. The shoot went awesome! We even had some flying guests!





So yeah, I hope you guys like them! It's bed time for me.

- Dylan.

P.s. Please don't steal them. All © Dylan Leeder. Thanks.

Quinton one year later.

So I recently did another shoot of little Quinton! I took his photo's about a year ago. The shoot went awesome! He's such a funny kid and seemed to dig the whole photo thing hah.

Here's a photo of him from the first shoot like a year ago...



And here are a few from the most recent shoot







Yep, that's it for now.

Ohhhh... I've really been into Amos The Transparent lately... check them out!

Mooorreee pppeeeopppleeee.

Hey! I edited some more photos.

They were both from the same day as the shot of Shamus and Danielle in my other posts.

Another one of Jaden.



Here's another of Danielle from the shoot. It's so genuine! ahah awesome.



Also, I was looking through my Deviant Art (a website that I love) and noticed my progression since I joined the website 3 years ago.

This is around when I started first becoming really interested in photography.

http://itsdylan.deviantart.com/gallery/#_featured--7

And this is todays page.

http://http://itsdylan.deviantart.com/gallery/

You can see the way I went almost 100% portraits. Kind of funny. I think my interest in people drives my loving for portraiture. I still feel that I should venture into some other areas. Possibly some still life and more environmental shots.

Hey, I haven't really posted any of my still life on here. Want to see one?



K, cool.

Bye!

Adventures.

Nature adventures!

Okay. So me and one of my best pals Justin have a tendency of heading into the forest after a good night with friends. We wake up, chug some water, do our classic "recaps", than decide where we're going to "poke around" that day. Once we get there we usually start openly proclaiming how good of a day we're having and how it's "THE BEST WEEKEND EVER!".

Something about being out in nature and having no goals but well... walking farther in. Exploring! Feels great.

Basically i'll just tell about these adventures with pictures.

One of our first adventures was after a big night partying with friends. We woke up and decided that our destination for the day would be Gatineau Hills. I first found out about Gatineau Hills when I went on a field trip during first year of college. Such a beautiful place.



In this is my roomate Jaden, Beav, and Justin. Notice Justin's pose... you'll see it again hahahah.

Next adventure we went on was to camp fortune north of Ottawa to take mountain biking photos (See last blog update for photos). It was SO awesome! We ended up tailgating for a while here and there and just climbing the mountain watching the bikers rip down like it's their job. It was cool to be opened up to a whole new sports scene.

Here's a photo from on top of the mountain.



There's his pose again. Also in the image is two friends Harry and Beach. Beach is "pretending to chainsaw Harry".

Another popular place we like to go is Mac Johnson which is north of Brockville. Recently we woke up one morning and one of our first conversations was about how were were going to head to the beaver pond. I don't know why we chose that specific place that day but well... I like to think it was fate. When we arrived we found this little sign right beside the beaver pond.



After reading it Justin asks "What's the date today?". Yep, it was October 10th, 2009. That means the pond was made that exact day 93 years before. SO cool.

Here's a photo of the walkway over the beaver dam.



Yeah, cool.

The next day we decided to hit up Lyn Falls. Woo for waterfalls. At one point Justin and my other friend Mike decided they wanted to get to the other side of the waterfall. I thought this was a bad idea (especially with my bag and equipment) so I decided to stay on the safe sidel. Here's a little series of them getting over it. They could have been really hurt hahah.

Getting down to it...



Mike jumps and almost goes off the other side of the landing...



Justin jumps...



They make it... (notice the pose)



Yeah... their idiots.

So, here are just a few random other shots from Lyn Falls...



Yeah, we like to take some brews with us when we go.

The pose in the woods...



And I edited a version of that... his beard makes him look right at home in the woods...



And climbing falls...



Oh, waterfalls? Here's a nice picture of a waterfall..



Apparently I have a good time too...





Okay, that's all.

I encourage you all to go take a walk in the woods ASAP. It's getting winter! Go enjoy the weather before it gets too cold!

Bicycle sports.

So, what's new?

I finished re-reading the last harry potter book? It was better the second time I read it. I'm SOOO amped for the movie to come out.

Okay, well I recently went to Camp Fortune with a few good friends to photograph some mountain biking. Saying that I bet you can guess what I'm about to post.

PHOTOS FROM THE DAY!










Big thanks to my friend JD for letting me borrow his camera for the day!!

If you like those photos you can go to my website www.dylanleeder.com than go to the people > Sports section and check out some more from the day! There's equally as awesome photos - some of other people and sports too!

I also changed the background photo of my website to the photo of Danielle. I think it may be the best background yet.

uhm... the video of the guys playing through the school was a big hit! Everyone seems to enjoy it. It makes me want to do more video. Hopefully expect another one in the next month. Probably something else that has to do with music.

Okay. Check this out. It's one of my favorite videos ever...



So yeah! Don't forget to check out the changes on my website! The new background and even more awesome biking photos under the sports section. www.dylanleeder.com

BYE!

So... what's new?

I'm working at Blacks photography part-time now. It's interesting teaching old people about cameras. I met a really nice lady the other day and sat with her for an hour showing her the Nikon D5000. She was so excited about the "Macro setting".

I don't have too much to say.

This is a quick portrait I did of our friend Shamus. It was done right before I shot Danielle. He recently moved to Toronto - another reason I want to take a trip to Toronto.

Here he is.

[
By DylanLeeder

There should be an Image of Jaden with the same feel up soon.

Also, I did a video of him, Jaden and Thomas playing some music walking through Algonquin College. I've been getting more and more interested in video making. It isss moving pictures. hah

Check it out...



Uhmm... maybe i'll update again soon. ENJOY!

Photo-graphs?

So, thanks for the feedback on the abs! The more I've looked at it the more I've noticed how the abs are very over done in that image of Adam. I've fixed the shot now. I must have been very tired when I posted that.

So, what's new? We recently got two new photographers in the studio! I'm excited to have them in the studio! I think with their addition the studio is going to head in a more professional manner. So yeah, welcome Alex (http://www.alexlukey.com/) and Christine!

I edited a few more photo's of Christine from our last shoot. I like the way they're similar.





Also, I recently shot a good friend Danielle in the studio. I was able to use Andrews newly purchased umbrella - it's super big so was able to produce a nice soft light! Also, Christine provided us with some nice black roll paper. I think shooting on black roll paper is my favorite.

Check the first edited shot... it's wide so you may have to stretch your browser. Or click it.



So, who want's to buy me a new camera?

Eh?

Okay, quick update.

I recently edited a photo of Adam from our shoot a while back.

I edited more than I usually do but I think I like it. There's some things I don't know if i'm happy with it yet, tho. So... I thought I would set up a Before and After and show a few people to see what they think. I'm concerned about it.

I'm mostly concerned about two things:

- I don't know if I dodge and burned his abs too much or not.

- I don't know if I like the vignetting in the background. I feel it gives the image more edge - which I like. Buttt I don't know if I want to get into the habit of doing that to all my images.

I still don't know if i'll change it or not but i'm interested if there's any feedback? Maybe something else I could do with the background?

Here is the before and after.



Cooooool.

Guy And Girl Fashion.

Blog.

It seems like it has been a busy last while.

I did a shoot with Adam recently. He's a model from Barrett Palmer (http://www.barrettpalmermodels.com/). It went really well! I don't usually shoot male models so it was cool to switch it up. He brought everything and did his hair himself so that was easy, and we enjoy the same music so we rocked out to breakdowns the whole time.

Here are his shots:




If you want to see before and after just ask me.

I also shot Chrissi. She contacted me over modelmayhem.com and asked to do a shoot with a local clothing artist. Everything ran smoothly and we were able to get a few outfits done in a minimal amount of time Although the shoot went well - it made me realize I need to practice more lighting schematics at the studio. Here are some photo's from that shoot. I didn't put my signature on the one with the yellow shirt because I felt it'd throw off the symmetry of the photo too much, just don't take it hah.




What else?

I updated my website! There's a photo from the shoot with sarah a while back as the background now. You guys can check that one out there.

http://www.dylanleeder.com

I also did a shoot with two of my good friends. They wanted to get some photo's for their myspace. We decided to just head over to the Algonquin garden area. Such a beautiful place. It'd be such a cool program to take.

Here is a shot from the shoot... but again, all the colors are off and it looks really dark. Full view the image at this link to see it correctly

http://itsdylan.deviantart.com/art/Jaden-and-Shamus-135708693.



Gah. I need a new camera. Damn money.

I also finished my first album for Baz. It was frustrating at times but I feel that after doing it more it'll become more of a second nature. I think it will be good practice for the design aspect of photography.

I wanted to mention a website. Ted.com. It's a website full of amazing speech's that cover a large variety of topics. I recently watched one on motivation - it was really interesting. There's also some speech's by photographers as well.

http://www.ted.com

Also here is the link to the speech on motivation:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

A few other photographers that are going to the same college I went to are putting on an exhibition called Face and Film. It should be interesting. The images are all shot on film so it'll be nice to be reintroduced to the beauty of film. So, if you're in the Ottawa area you should go check it out!



Okay, I think that's good for now.

You guys should check out the song Candy by Paolo Nutini and if you're into heavier stuff check out August Burns Red's new CD.

Have a good day!

It's late.

Hello.

So, I am very tired so I don't know how much i'm going to put on this.
I
I recently started working for a photography named Baz. I am building digital photo albums of his wedding photo's and I'm pretty excited about this - I feel like it'll improve my wedding photo's as I will see a lot of wonderful examples. I'm happy to be working with such a talented photographer. You can check his stuff out at http://www.fiveriversstudio.com/.

Also, I recently uploaded my website. I'm really excited to have it finally up. I designed and built it myself. Took a long time and is not completely done yet - I feel like I'll be constantly working on it. But, that's okay with me. It will only get better. You can check it out at www.dylanleeder.com. I built the whole thing with Adobe Flash and tried to maintain a simple easy flowing design. Before I finished it I forgot how to use masks... which is frustrating because it would have made it a lot easier/smoother. Oh well. For anyone interested I decided to do a print screen of the building process.



And you can see the "after" at the actual link.

What else is new...

I shot a wedding on Saturday for Diane and Dustin. It went really well! The weather was perfect and the location was amazing. The ceremony was held at a beautiful home on the top of a hill overlooking the water. It was my first wedding I had an assistant for and everything ran very smoothly. I huge thanks to Jaden for sticking through the day with me - with no previous camera training or experience shooting such a large event he pulled it off very well! Thanks Jaden! Also, a huge thanks to Christian Mackie for allowing me to borrow his D300 and to Andrew Cottingham for letting me borrow his equipment as well! I'll have some photos from the day later this week.

Recently I also took some photo's for a family. They were all very nice and we got lucky with some nice weather and a very short distance from the river to take photo's.




Both the kids had a lot of energy and were really fun to work with! As you can see here:



For some reason the photo's look a bit darker/saturated on here. But you can get the general idea.

Also, I recently went and took photos of a few friends bands. All played well. The Roaring Frog is very dark so getting well lit pictures was kind of difficult. Lighting conditions such as this make me want a better camera so bad. I need a camera that produces little amount of noise in a high ISO.

Here are some examples:






... and more.






okay. Uhmm I probably have more so maybe i'll update again in the next few days.

Also, everyone should check out Said The Whale, Fever Ray, and August Burns Red. Check em out.

Have a good day.