As published in Snapd Brampton, December 2014

Sports Photography

December 12, 2014 in Sports, Event Photography

Shooting and writing for Snapd Brampton has given me the opportunity to see a new and different side of my local community. While I often report on charity fundraisers and other local events rubbing shoulders with politicians, philanthropists and business owners, I've also had the chance to expand my photographic repertoire to include sports photography. This couldn't be more fun; a press pass gives me access to a whole venue, so I can go where I want to go to get the shots I need. So far, I've covered the Brampton Beast's home opener, the Brampton A's home opener, and a couple of charity 5k races.

Photographing sports requires speed in everything - fast lenses, fast autofocus and the ability to predict when the moments you want to capture are about to happen. Fortunately when you combine all of this with a high framerate and a little courage, the results can be great.

Not Your Average Extreme Sport

May 05, 2014 in Event Photography

Chivalry might be dead, but jousting isn't. I'm always looking for something new and different to photograph, and based on a Facebook advertisement for Knights of Valour (www.knightsofvalour.ca) I decided to head up to the Mono Fairgrounds near Orangeville and see what "full contact jousting" was like. This team's website is very clear; this isn't a theatrical event like what you might see at Medieval Times – it's an unscripted, combat sport where the human competitors can and do get injured, and the outcome is the result of strength, prowess and perhaps a bit of luck.

The competitors can only score points when they strike a reinforced piece of armour on their opponent's left shoulder about the size of a frying pan. Even when they don't unhorse each other, the competition is dramatic, as competitors score points for breaking their lances against each other – something I was able to capture dramatically.

It was a fun way to spend a Friday evening. There were many broken lances, a couple unhorsings, and plenty of excitement. The troupe's leader, and MC for the evening, Shane Adams, really knows how to work a crowd. The Knights of Valour have a full summer of events; I'll definitely go again next time I have a chance.

Volunteer MBC 4th Annual Awards Ceremony 2014

April 18, 2014 in Event Photography, Volunteer MBC

On April 10th I had the pleasure of covering the Volunteer awards ceremony and AGM for Volunteer Mississauga Brampton Caledon at Greenbriar Recreation Centre. VMBC promotes volunteerism and runs an excellent volunteer-opportunity search engine (think Monster.com for volunteering) at http://peel.cioc.ca/volunteer/. Once a year during National Volunteer Week, they honour volunteers who stand out for work in our community.

I've covered several events for VMBC including awards ceremonies, open-houses and the opening of their office in Caledon, ON. Besides the good work they do for the community, I have always been eager to support them for my own personal reasons. When I first came to Canada, I was able to find two volunteering opportunities through their database – one as a volunteer teacher, and another doing grants research for VMBC. Now that I'm more established, I still donate my time and energy to them in the form of my photography.

Linkedin & Hispanotech Event Photography

March 07, 2014

Photography always takes you to compelling and thought-provoking situations. Recently, I had the pleasure of photographing Perry Monaco (Twitter: @elvisrun / Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/perrymonaco), Strategic Product Specialist for the major social networking site Linkedin, give a talk on how best to leverage his employer's network to more effectively search for jobs. The location was the sleek Bay Adelaide Centre on Bay Street in the central core of Toronto. It was a lively talk, with much useful information, given as part of a series for Hispanotech.ca (Twitter: @hispanotech), a non-profit aimed at supporting the Canadian hispanic community in the technology sector.

Photographing events like this is in some ways straightforward documentary photography, but there are definitely challenges. Photographing people in the act of giving a speech requires precision, to ensure you get photographs that show the speaker comfortable and natural, rather than mid-word/mid-blink/mid-gesture. Fortunately, everything seemed to work out, and Mr. Monaco has now updated his Linkedin profile to one of the ones I created at the event.