New String Magazine Editorial

So this is my second proper editorial for String, and it's an idea that's been percolating for quite some time. My employers were kind enough to let me use their swank board room for this, and I'm really pleased with how it all turned out. got to work with some of my favorite people and meet some really talented new ones as well. Check it.

http://stringmagazine.ca/burning-the-midnight-oil-photographed-by-christopher-young/

Fall Photograph

Because it's fall.

That is all.

umm.....

And trees are tall! (yesssssss, I should be a rapper!)

It's been a while..... (again)

So I haven't posted anything in a helluva long time (mostly because I've been too busy taking photos, ironically enough). However, here I am with a new post. This summer my girlfriend and I drove down the coast and along the way I ook some pics. The top one is the only thing I found interesting enough to take in L.A. (and it was just from my hotel window). The rest are all from San Francisco.  All the rest after the jump.

P.S. I made a very half-assed attempt at updating the look of this blog but stopped after I found out I'd have to do some (very) minor backend stuff in order to have one of my own photos appear all blurry-like in the background. So once I figure that out then this stock sunny day grass thing will be history.

The Huddled Masses

Been wanting to get this shot for a while now, and finally took the time to go stand in the rain and spy on unsuspecting commuters. This was taken from behind the Canada Line stop at Cambie and Broadway. I'd walked by a few times and seen people waiting here for the B-Line and thought it would be a real cool shot with that space between the structures. I hadn't anticipated taking it just as the west-bound bus was stopped across the street, but I think it adds a little bit of narrative to what the people are waiting for. I haven't ruled out going back and taking the shot again when it's foggy out, but I'm not actually sure that would add to it anyway. I don't know if it will fit in with any of the other sets, but I hope you like it!

The Glass Is Half Full.......OF FIREWORKS!! (and water, mostly just water)

I thought the nightly fireworks show during the Olympics at David Lam park would be a good opportunity to add something to my Fire In The Sky set. Unfortunately it was also the time that I was spending most of my nights at the office studying for mid-terms until 1:00 in the morning. Thus was the genesis of the photo you see here. The view of the fireworks was pretty sweet from 18 floors up, and I wanted to include the phone in the corner to add a little bit more context. I thought about putting some books in there but I thought that would be too much. Anyway, here it is, I'll add it to the rest of the set when I get around to it. And for those of you who are interested, Fuji 400H PRO, Hasselblad,  Zeis Planar 80mm 2.8 shot wide open, exposed for.....I dunno, a while.

Let's Compare Some Film!! Fuji vs. Kodak - FIGHT!!

As I was setting up for a shot the other night, I realized I still had one shot left in my film back, and thought that this might be a good opportunity to do some film comparisons! The film I use probably more than anything else is Fuji 400H PRO, at least for all my night stuff (which I clearly do a lot of). It's my favorite. The latitude is great, it has really nice and fine grain, and I love the colors it produces. Not crazy like Velvia but still beautifully saturated. So imagine my dismay at being in Custom Color the other day, needing to buy film, and they were out. All they had was the Provia 400, and positive film just doesn't work well for night shots using long exposures. The guy recommended I try the Kodak 400VC and I thought "what the hell?" I give Kodak shit all the time so I might as well put my camera where my mouth is. Hit the jump to hear my two cents....

Hey, My Uncle Is Part Of The Olympics!

I know these are not the kind of shots you're used to seeing on this blog (no pretty girls, no weird night-timey shots), so I'll explain. Basically, my uncle Scott got to carry the Olympic torch yesterday. The whole family was pretty excited and went out to see him run. For me that meant getting up at the crack of 9:00 and getting my ass out to Chilliwack to take some photos. It was really festive and I think everybody had a really good time, especially my grandparents. My friend, who used to do a lot of professional sports photography, loaned me an old 100-200mm f5.6 (the lens cap for which actually sports the logo for the 1976 Montreal Olympics) and it ended up working really well. This is pretty much the calm before the storm until the world arrives next week and the whole city becomes a giant clusterfuck, but I gotta admit, this was pretty fun. Tons more shots of almost the whole fam-dam after the jump.

It's Been A While......

....since I posted anything, so I thought I had better remedy that. This was taken in Abbotsford last month while I was back for Christmas. I have a regular route that I like to drive when I'm home, and this is about half-way through it (just past creepy cult-town "Auguston"). I saw this and decided it warranted pulling over and doing a little minor trespassing. I later used it as the cover for a mix-tape I made for Jamie. I told her this shack was where I was born, raised, and educated (Better than telling her the truth: Edmonton, Edmonton, Catholic school).

As a side note, I think I'll try to post on here more often. The idea for the blog was to have a place that could be updated more frequently than the proper site, and include images that didn't fit as easily into larger sets. I guess what I'm trying to say is, some of the photos will suck, some won't. Plan your day accordingly.

How to Steal Fruit and Look Cute Doing It

I have a friend who's a fashion student at Quantlen right now and recently I volunteered to take photos of one of her class projects. As it happened, Jamie also managed to coerce her roommate/classmate, Cheryl, into being a model for a day. Her project was meant to be a light, cute spring dress, and indeed it was, the only problem being that it's bloody winter. Thankfully, it was really sunny that day, so (with a little photoshop) we were sort of able to fake spring. I was really impressed with Cheryl's lack of diva-ness, especially given the fact that it was so cold that all of the color had drained from her legs (again, thank you photoshop) and Jamie and I were both in big jackets and pants. She was a real trooper. Main Street ended up being a great place to shoot and then we all got cinnamon buns at Solly's (yes!). Jamie's dress looked really good and Cheryl found a Perry Como record. Huzzah.

I Heart Food Photos

So my good friend Karima recently asked me to take some photos of her, and after twisting my arm (literally) and bribing me with food I was right on board!. She runs a great cooking blog called I Heart Big Flavour! This is where she does crazy awesome things with food and even posts lots of vegetarian recipes (she gets an extra gold star for that one). So a couple of weeks ago we spent the better part of a particularly rainy Saturday shooting in her rather, uhhh... cozy kitchen. The idea was to achieve a kind of classic LIFE magazine feel with just a little (a lot) more attitude. The best part was she cooked the whole time! I left well fed and with several rolls of kick-ass material. I shot half the day with Provia 100 and the other half with Reala 100 and I couldn't believe the difference between my positive and negative film in terms of tonality and skin colour. We also played around with lots of diferrent lighing tricks and I leaned heavily on my cameras super fast sync speed to achieve the narrow depth of field in the photo above. I even got to throw open my scrim, only instead of shooting through it, we used some black fabrick and created a dividing wall to separate the light sources. All and all it was a lot of fun, I taught myself a few new tricks, and I think the photos turned out rad. Cheers Kari!

Why The Hell Is Jeff Wall Famous?

Or more to the point, why aren't I? Here's this Jeff Wall photo from 2002 called....wait for it...... Concrete Ball. I've seen this displayed at VAG (backlit like a bus stop) and lots of people think it this photo is just tits. In fact, here's what the internets say about it:

"Based on a found scene, the quietness of Concrete ball reveals Wall's attention to pictorial composition. The concern here is not torepresent an event, but rather to depict a generic urban landscape, without specific qualities and devoid of any drama. The perspective is carefully calculated and the central element responds to the curve of the road. The large scale of the work, proportioned to the human body, evokes a sense of immersion in the scene."

Well that's just super. Meanwhile in 2009 times, Rob and I were walking past this park quietly (not so quietly) making fun of athletic people when I saw this. Jeff Wall has all this street cred for elaborately staging his photos so I figured I better do the same and I told Rob to stand by the ball and look all artful and shit. Somebody pay me for this.

Stupid Swine Flu.......

So I'm stuck inside my apartment for a week. This is wholly unfair. I don't even eat pigs! In fact, I frequently comment on how intelligent and emotionally evolved pigs are. And yet this is how they repay me. Motherfuckers. Well if we learned anything from Charlotte's Web, it's that pigs are jerks. You knit them some nice messages with your web and in return they give you the goddamn Pig A.I.D.S. and then you die but not before the farmer comes in and kills all your spider children and awards the pig some sort of prize for training the sheep dog.....or something. (Full Disclosure: I never read Charlotte's Web, but I did see it at the video store once. Granted, I rented Red Dawn instead, but I think we can all agree it's the same basic story). Besides, you know who should have got this thing if there were any justice in this world?  

Tristan. I think it's obvious why.

Oh yeah, I took this photo a few nights ago by my house. Go Wolverines!

Update:  I forgot to mention, I do plan on spending this time productively. I'm growing a boss (read: not very boss) quarantine moustache! I'll let you know how it goes.

Walking Home.

After hanging out with my cousin Erin last month I ended up walking home from downtown, part of which involves a trek over the Cambie Street bridge. I happened to have my camera and tri-pod at the time so I figured I'd shoot a roll, including this rather adorably sullen one of Erin sitting outside my office. These were taken during the middle of Robson square getting it's Olympic face lift, hence all the scaffolding. I kind of like the one of the streetlight.

Four more after the jump.

Parksville Sure Is A Fun Place......

Okay, that was a lie.

This past Thanksgiving I went to visit my mother's side of the family and that meant driving up-island to Butt-Fuck Nowhere just past Parksville. There isn't really a whole lot to do and if I'd been raised there I think I would have developed a pretty cool drug addiction. However there is a total lack of light pollution so I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to see what kind of shots I could get of stars. So once it got dark I grabbed my cousin Olivia and with her as my guide through the wilderness we endeavored to go get some shots. I'm not thrilled with the results but probably the most important thing I learned is just how quickly you start to see star tracks when holding the shutter. The world spins pretty fast I guess. 

Two more after the jump

So This Is My Blog.........

I'm starting this blog as a way to more frequently update photos without having to re-arrange my website every time. Also, it's a good place to post photos that won't ever make it into any particular sets or otherwise see the light of day. Once I get into the swing of things, I'll most likely start to abuse the space and just post rants about stuff I like/don't really like at all.

I hope you like my stuff.