Behind the Lens: The Making of the Ready 2 Listen Campaign - A Celebration of Indigenous Voices
Are you ready to be inspired? As a producer for the Ready2Listen Campaign, I had the honour of traveling across the country with Spruce Creative on behalf of Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak to capture the powerful voices of Indigenous communities. The campaign's strengths-based approach allowed us to showcase the resilience and beauty of Indigenous Women, Non - Binary and Trans Folks, and I'm excited to share the behind-the-scenes process with you.
As a photographer, traveling light was key. With only a small flash and reflector, I was able to capture stunning portraits that truly showcase the strength and beauty of each person we interviewed. It was a challenge, but I'm thrilled with what we were able to achieve.
Image shared with permission from Spruce Creative - to hear more stories head to https://celebrateindigenous.ca/ready2listen/
But the heart of this campaign is in the voices we captured. From coast to coast, we interviewed rad Indigenous leaders, activists, and artists who shared their powerful stories of resilience and hope. Through this campaign, we hope to inspire and empower Indigenous youth and create a space for their voices to be heard.
Don't just take my word for it, head over to https://celebrateindigenous.ca/ready2listen/ to see more photos and the final videos of the campaign. Get involved and be a part of a movement that celebrates Indigenous voices and perspectives. Are you Ready 2 Listen?
Unveiling the Unforgettable: Captivating Moments of Laura Paolini's Make Your Bed (2020) through the Lens of Photography
Check out these stunning photos of performance artist Laura Paolini during her captivating piece, Make Your Bed (2020). Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Laura's artistry continued to shine through, and I was honored to capture it through my lens. Head over to her website to see the full collection of photos from the performance and learn more about the inspiration behind it. Experience the power of art and photography in this unique collaboration that captures a moment in time that we won't soon forget.
Join our community and elevate your brand with professional photo documentation
Vanity - My photo was used in a article post!
Vanity - where I spend time tracking down where some of my photography work has ended up. Today’s find? An Op - Ed Piece by multi - talented Gloria Song. Spoiler Alert Gloria sent it to me.
You know the funny thing about photos, sometimes you just take them and you never see where the end up. However, I’m starting a mission - I’m going to try and track down everywhere my photos that I’ve taken for clients wind up.
The real question is why I would spend my time doing such a task? Well, let’s break it down:
I have conversations with my clients during our sessions, about how they feel and how they want to be represented. So why not explore and see where the finals from our sessions trying to capture their most authentic self end up?
Anyway, this title does not really apply to this one, as Gloria sent it to me (THANKS GLORIA!!!) but it’s inspired a mission to find all my photos out in the wild…in their unnatural metaphorical wild.
Check out this OP - ED that Gloria wrote about sexual harassment in the workplace (CW for SA and the like). Check it out:
Taking Action Against Sexual harassment in the workplace on International Women’s Day
Now, I don’t want to get too into what Gloria’s article talks about (because we support websites and generating responsiveness).
Be sure to check out the article, and all the other lovely projects Gloria works on - particularly her music venture known as Scary Bear Soundtrack.
Behind The Scenes: With Justina Sadecki & Chris Roussakis
Shows the retouching of an image shot by Photographer Chris Roussakis featuring Model Justina Sadecki - (Click to See the full thumbnail)
In this day and age, if you’re not on some form of social media you tend to miss out on a lot of talent. However, if the spotlight isn’t for you there are still roles in which you can be near the light but not directly in it. At Strast Media, we pride ourselves in being both in and out of the spotlight. Anytime we can help a fellow creative shine we are over the moon about it!
Which leads us into today’s post, as our founder Adrienne Row - Smith assisted, retouched and shot a video for fellow Ottawa Photographer Chris Roussakis. Chris specializes in commercial and editorial photography and is always willing up for a challenge, and wanted to do something a little bit different and also wanted to take the opportunity to feature model Justina Sadecki in his portfolio.
Check out the animated video for retouching and the Behind the scenes video of his shoot and Strast Media work!
How I Got The Shot: Tarzan & James
Short blog on how Adrienne got the Tarzan & James image.
March 5th, 2019
Lighting Schematic for Tarzan & James ©2019 Adrienne Row - Smith / Strast Media
Normally, my favourite images are high contrast with an accent of colour. I like to do larger than life production photographs, however I prefer their technical setups to be minimal. However, I wanted to try my hand at emulating a big production and lighting photograph to just see how far training my eye via the Algonquin Photography Program has gotten me.
The image that I wanted to Emulate was David LaChapelle’s American Jesus: Hold Me, Carry Me Boldly (2009). However, before even going into the studio I had a lot of prep work to do. Firstly, I needed to understand the lighting (as much as I could get through the camera).
Tarzan & James ©2019 Adrienne Row - Smith / Strast Media
Initially, I was under the impression that there was a hair light and kicker in the background that helped give the ‘Jesus’ of the image his glow. However, based on other lighting around the bodies, and after further consultation with others it was decided that the best route would be to use medium strips off to the side and pointing at the subject. Then, I decided to use a beauty dish up high, and a parabolic with a 3 degree grid down below to help create a harder shadow while also still ensuring light filling in on the subjects. Finally, to make sure that the subjects had enough even lighting, I decided to enclose my set with white v – boards. During shooting I realized that the Beauty dish was a little too harsh and hot (meaning that the subjects were having very bright spots landing on them overexposing certain areas) on the subjects – that I decided it would be better to bounce the light back into the white v – board to diffuse it a little bit more. And not to forget, I included an orange gelled snoot shooting through my background, to create the illusion of the sun setting.
Once I had the lighting figured out, I need to go get supplies. I found the greenery that “Tarzan” was sitting on at Michael’s, and then found the leafy flooring (which was actually a wall trellis) at Lowe’s. However, the most challenging part was creating the background. The background was printing on vinyl, after I found a royalty free image online. Once I had all these pieces and lighting together it was time to head to the studio and tie it together.
After shooting with my models (shout out to Lucas & Jesse for being great sports!) I then imported the images into photoshop from Phocus (Hasselblad specific software) and began to put it all together for the final image you see below!
Why Printing is More Important Than You Think
In the digital age, printing is as important as ever. Check out Strast Media’s blog post as to why we think printing is vital in the wake of the digital age.
Printing in the digital age appears to be a topic of great disccusion, with some emphasizing its importance while other feel that printing is becoming a dying industry. However, at Strast Media we beleive that printing is still an important asset. Here at Strast Media, we believe that printing helps to enhance the vision of our clientele while also showcasing our work in its best light. Thus we want to elaborate on the importance of printing and understanding the process it takes to print!
Experimenting with test printing helps you to better understand which of your images look great with texture, less colour or even a colour cast!
The upside to the digital age in regards to printing, is that now, printing is fairly accesible and afforable for photographers and creatives of any level. But if you’re new to printing it can be a daunting endeavour to wrap your head around. Especially with the varying degrees of textures and colour boosting papers that can be accessed, it’s difficult to know where to start.
So let’s start with the basics, you have the perfect image completed edited and ready to print - but how do you know paper is going to best showcase your efforts? Will be something with a bit of texture? Or a paper that has a colour cast to it? The questions and options are endless! That’s why photoshop or any editing software with access to ICC profiles is a great way to experiment and start. For those that don’t know what ICC Pofiles are, they are a set of data that characterizes a colour input or output based industry standards and can be set by the user based on their needs. In short, ICC profiles allow for the user to digitally mimic an output for printing in order to get a closer picture to what the image will look like when it is printed.
With that in mind, a user can use ICC profiles to see what the potential outcome of their print will look like without having to spend money and time on paper and printing! However, at Strast Media we believe that this is a helpful step, it is always better to do test prints to get an accurate picture of what an image will look like.
The upside to this is that multiple stores like Henry’s and Vistek offer paper packages that allows you to experiment to see the physical differences that paper can have on your images . At the end of the day, printing helps to give your clientele a concrete example of what you’re capable of ,and helps to drive home your abilities as a creative! So be sure to try printing out and give your brand a better representation of your vision.