Women

Joe Pember Jr. Final Goodbye

November 28, 2015

They work long hours, holidays, weekends and always put themselves first using their advanced knowledge to save lives everyday. Today in Oxford County was a sad day as the residence and EMS personnel mourn the passing of EMS Chief Joe Pember Jr.

Emergency Service personnel (EMS, Fire, Police, Flight Medics) from far and wide came to Woodstock Ontario to show their support and pay respects to Joe Pember Jr and his family. Joe's sudden passing shocked many in Oxford, gone to soon but never forgotten.
Lights flashed, bag pipes played and a sea of emergency service members marched down the road from the TA Truck Stop to GOFF HALL as people gathered to mourn Joe's passing.

Joe arrived in an old Ambulance from the 60's which was used back then and resembles the "Ghost buster car " as many people call it. Along side the Ambulance were Woodstock EMS members marching, following them was Joe's family and friends and behind them was a sea of Emergency Service members all marching in formation. Service flashes from Hamilton, London, Brant County and many more... it was an amazing sight to see. Once at GOFF HALL Joe was brought into the hall by fellow EMS where the ceremony took place.

Outside, after the ceremony... EMS, Police and fire lined the GOFF HALL entrance/exit driveway and saluted Joe as the hearse passed them by showing ultimate respect and honour for his years of service. A low rwaring, buzz was heard off in the distance which got louder and louder. To everyones surprise, the WWII Harvards came flying over head, so fitting for the occasion. 3 passes were made and on the final pass, with smoke on, the fallen man was performed. The fallen man is when three or more planes come in formation and one splits away from the rest to signify " the fallen man ". This ceremony was very well done, well deserved and Joe will be greatly missed in Oxford County.

I am constantly keeping Joe and his family in my thoughts. R.I.P Joe.

Kevin Vyse Photography All Rights Reserved 2015 — Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

2015 WNU FITNESS CALENDAR

November 22, 2015

Well, it's that time of year again!! welcome to the 2015 WNU FITNESS CALENDAR photoshoot.

Dedication, Strict diets, long hours in the gym, time management... this is what it takes to get the bodies you see in magazines and thats what our models have been doing for this calendar... well not specifically for this calendar.. this is their life style.

This year two calendars were made.. 24 people! 12 males and 12 females for a male and female calendar.. WOW! I know, thats a lot of people, but they were amazing people, easy to work with, fun and ripped! We shot this calendar over 4 weekends, we had planned on shooting about 6 people a day, but like with anything in life.. people get busy plans must change so we work around it to get the job done, which is what we did and we pulled it off.

WNU Fitness is selling calendars to raise money for two charities: DASO ( Domestic Abuse Service Oxford ) and The Kendall Courts Project, which is an outdoor basket ball court that will have a roof over it so it can be used no matter what the weather is calling for, so kids have more fitness options. Not only did we shoot a calendar but there was a fantastic Party that followed. GOFF HALL in Woodstock On. was rocking with special guest, DJ FLASH from 91.5 The Beat Kitchener spinning all the hits. Everyone was there dressed up all pretty, dancing and drinking the night away. All proceeds from the calendar release party also go toward the two charities.

Overall, I had a blast being part of this amazing cause, meeting new people, pushing the photographic boundaries, my knowledge and editing abilities. I'd like to shout out a big THANK YOU to WNU for bringing me on board as the official photographer and for all their shout outs on social media and Rogers TV promoting my photography, you guys are fantastic! Can't wait to hear the finally tally raised. - Shutter Click.

2014 RAM RODEO

September 06, 2014

Mud getting kicked in my face, Men and Women flying through the air, Bulls and Horses Jumping through the air.... this was my day at the 2014 RAM Rodeo in Woodstock Ontario, Canada.

I never knew a rodeo would be so much fun! I'm not a cowboy by any means, sure I live in a small town that has a ton of farm land, and we're known as the Dairy Capitol, but I'm more of the city photographer guys. Still, I enjoyed myself quite a bit and Bull Riding.. geez those guys are nuts! I really wanted to give it a try but they wouldn't let me, must have been afraid I would have done really well.. hahahha just kidding, I give them a lot of credit, those Bulls go nuts out there.
Not only was there Bull riding, but they also had: Barrel racing, cattle roping, bucking bronco, both with saddle and bareback, horse slalom, and they even had these young ladies that did all these tricks while riding on horses, it was impressive. I will definitely be attending again next year, one of the best events Woodstock has to offer. - Shutter Click

Images Below.

Cowboy tries his best to hold on for 8 seconds, but this Bull had a different idea. This was the best bucking bull out of them all, I couldn't believe how wild he was.

Cowboy gets thrown head first by this bucking bronco at the 2014 RAM Rodeo in Woodstock Ontario, Canada.

Cowboy comes out of the gate with Lasso ready to rope the calf and tie em up!

Cowboy quickly dismounts his horse and runs over to the calf, flips it over and ties up its feet

After being thrown off this wild bulls back, it spins around and comes after the cowboy while laying in the mud... sometimes, the bull wins.

Almost made the 8 second mark, but this bull had other plans and quickly spun to the side throwing this cowboy off his back into the mud.

Mom and Daughter Fashion shoot

September 01, 2014

You will see a lot of these two from me, they are my best friends and we're always doing shoots together. It's Labour Day weekend, it's still summer and warm out, so there's still time for some outdoor photoshoots. We had talked about doing a shoot but weren't to sure if the weather was going to cooperate, but we were hanging out anyways so we played it by ear. The weather actually ended up working perfectly, it was too hot for the most part, especially when we went down to the trails in the woods.

We started off in the backyard, there's a neat little shed back there that kind of has a rustic look to it which I felt would be neat for a background. I put a flash on a stand up in amongst a tree hoping to have some of the leaves and branches cast shadows down onto the shed for a little more drama in the scene, plus I love shadows.
From there I told them about a place I know of where there's all these trails down through the woods and a big lake, which I thought would make for some good images, I've shot down there quite a bit. We walked a few of the trails but didn't go to far, the sun was out in full effect and with these trails being incased by trees there was zero air flow, so it was getting quite hot and muggy and the mosquito's were treating us like a buffet.

for these images I was just using one flash, up high on a stand, no umbrella or soft box, just hard light, which is weird for me because I hate hard light. To carry a soft box, stand and flash plus the camera down there, for an impromptu photoshoot was to much so I decided to restrict myself and see what we could come up with. Over all the shoot went pretty well, I'm still not that good at mixing flash with ambient light, I get the concept it just isn't something I've done a lot. For the most part, i've been an ambient light shooter, only in the last 1.5 years have I been tackling flash, so I'm happy with the images and so were the clients. Here's to a great day with two people I love more than life, a good shoot, and summer. I'm going to miss these summer days/nights, but it's the price you pay for living in Canada!

Images below

- Shutter Click.

These trails were a little dark and kind of creepy, so we decided to have some fun with it and do some hard lighting to give that dark, moody, shadow feel to the image.

She was getting a little tired of shooting and wanted to do more cuddling, so, roll with the punches and use whats presented to you..

using a flash far back shooting through the trees, I was able to cast some shadows down onto the shed to give that " late in the day, hard light " vibe.

These were some of our fav pics from the shoot. Out in the woods with a tunnel of trees, the light was nice as it filtered down through all the leaves.

A another image of pyper running into her moms arms after she was getting tired of walking and just wanting to go home.

Pyper didn't want to do pictures anymore, she was getting tired. As the wind blew, she decided to walk off set. Sometimes the best images are the unplanned, quick shot images.

Shoots can be tiring for little ones, especially on hot summer days. Always wait for that moment when a child decides walking is overrated and wants to be carried. Once the parent picks them up, you can get some good candid, real moment shots.

These trails can get pretty dark and seem a little creepy. Pyper thought there were packs of wolves in the forest and kept yelling out "pack of wolves". We decided to use this to our advantage and do a creepy, dark woods image using hard light to ca… — These trails can get pretty dark and seem a little creepy. Pyper thought there were packs of wolves in the forest and kept yelling out "pack of wolves". We decided to use this to our advantage and do a creepy, dark woods image using hard light to cast shadows amongst the trees.

Renaissance Festival!

June 14, 2014

WOW! it has been far to long since i've done a blog post, this must change.

Smashing lances, crowds cheering, beer drinking, pig roasting, sword fighting and much much more! This was my experience today as I attended the 2014 Woodstock Ontario Renaissance Festival. This event was pretty amazing, with so much to see, from fire breathing to catapult slinging, archery, sword fights and Knights upon their steeds hitting each other with 10 foot wooden lances. When I showed up, the first thing I saw was 3 people dressed up in proper old time attire in a barn with Fire Batons spinning around their bodies, being balanced on their heads while another woman twirled around on a hula hoop type contraption hanging from the ceiling, it was quite impressive.

I continued onward to the grand stand where I heard the crowd yelling and clapping, of course I had to hurry to see what the ruckus was about. JOUSTING was about to commence! An announcer came out on a horse wearing quite the outfit and explaining what we were about to see and gave us the run down on how scoring for Jousting worked. Next rode out one of the knights, an older looking fellow with shiny armour. Then another knight came out, apparently they were father and son, who would think a father and son were about to joust one another, but thats what happened! 5 bouts took place with some real hard hits, one being dishorsed, chunks of wood flying through the air... men and women running through the crowd crying and screaming.... ok ok... that last part didn't happen, but in my weird over active mind it did lol.

Here's some of my images from the day... I was only there for about an hour so I didn't get to see everything they had to offer. At some point there were sword and axe fights, some falconry and bands. There's still time, I may go back. - Shutter Click~

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2014 Fire Blower getting a flame to burst off the end of the baton. — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2014

Fire Blower getting a flame to burst off the end of the baton.

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2014Lance smashes to pieces as the knights connect on horseback — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2014

Lance smashes to pieces as the knights connect on horseback

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2014 Another hard hit from the knights shattering the lances... the knight in blue was actually dishorsed with this hit. — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2014

Another hard hit from the knights shattering the lances... the knight in blue was actually dishorsed with this hit.

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2014First Knight came out and put his helmet on, then proceeded to ride right up to me for a close up photo op — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2014
First Knight came out and put his helmet on, then proceeded to ride right up to me for a close up photo op

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2014 After jousting a crowd gathered on the grass as a bagpipe and drum band rocked out some tunes to promote their show later tonight. Braveheart style! — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2014
After jousting a crowd gathered on the grass as a bagpipe and drum band rocked out some tunes to promote their show later tonight. Braveheart style!

Hair/Fashion/Glamour OH MY!

March 23, 2014

Cans of hair spray flying, make up pallets blasting colour all over, dresses, shorts, shirts, bra's, shoes all around me. This was what it was like on set a few weekends ago in London, Ontario as I got together with Hair Stylists Cassidy and Jodie, jodie also does make up, to do a hair shoot for the Salon they work at.
Our goal was to set up some simple portraits to show case different elaborate hair styles so we can place some of the images in to hair competitions. But first, before we got into the hair shoot, we decided we would do a little photoshoot for Cassidy to get warmed up. We did the shoot in Jodi's loft which is gorgeous.. 13' high ceilings, crown moulding, all open concept, big windows and a rooftop with an old fire escape... as you can imagine it's a great location with endless possibilities. Due to living in Canada and it being winter.. the rooftop didn't work out for us because it was covered in deep snow, but it will be used this summer with out a doubt.

After Cassidy's shoot, the other model's ( Ellie, Alex and Shelby) showed up so we could get started on hair and make up, this was around 2pm. Alex and Ellie were up first, so we started shooting against my white seamless backdrop, shooting some head shots and some full lengths. It went pretty well, I found that the roll of seamless I have is only good for head shots.. it's only about 4-5' wide which doesn't work well for full body so we decided to move over to one of the walls in the loft and use that. Over all the day/night was a success, it was long ended up being about 11 hours.. but that was with breaks to change looks and change make up, change hair and lenses and lighting set ups.

This post is just a starter post for this shoot... Seeing as how these images are being entered into competitions I can't post a lot of them because we don't know which ones we are entering yet. The ladies are going through the contact sheets to select which images are to be edited for which categories, a lot of them I haven't even edited yet because I want to know which ones are being used instead of editing a bunch that we won't use at all.... Soooooo with that said, I'm going to use this post to show of just a few shots I did of Cassidy in our PRE shoot, and then i'll follow up to this blog post later after the hair images have been selected, edited and entered for competition. Hope you enjoy these images. - Shutter Click.

Loved the wallpaper here, made for a great backdrop and a nice neutral colour to make her hair and skin pop.

This was one of my favourite locations.. Here I had to brave the deep snow on the rooftop to get down to the landing on the fire escape, and shoot Cassidy as she leaned out the window of the loft for a fashion/glamour kind of look.

The bedroom was an outstanding space.. Huge King size bed with this amazing headboard and a giant window behind it making for an awesome amount of backlight to create nice separation and get that hair glowing.

2013 FireFighter Fit Challenge

August 11, 2013

I've never seen so many pretty ladies gathered together at an event in my life!

This weekend ( Aug 9,10,11th) was the Ingersoll Ontario 2013 FireFighter Fit Challenge. This is an event where Firefighters, men and women, gather to run a course which show cases how physically fit they are, and have to be to do their job. I may not name the sections of the course correctly but it starts out with: A run up 5 flights of stairs in full gear, then at the top, they do a hand over hand pull of rolled up hose to the top of the tower. After that, they run back down 5 flights of stairs. Once at the bottom they have to bleed their oxygen tank, and switch tanks onto another firefighters back. Firefighter number two then jumps onto a Hammer Shuttle and beats a big steel block from one end to the other, then takes off running, weaving around fake fire hydrants. They then pick up a fire hose, throw it over their shoulder, and run back down the course to a target where they then have to blast the hose at the target and knock it down. Once the target has been knocked down they pick up a 175lbs dummy and drag it all the way back down the course across the finish line.

This event was pretty sweet to watch take place and it really makes you realize how in shape these firefighters really are.

Shutter Click.

© Kevin Vyse Photography All rights reserved 2013 — © Kevin Vyse Photography
All rights reserved 2013

Miss ATL Bikini Competition 2013

July 20, 2013

Women, Bikini's, Motorcycles, Beer and Bands! Oh my!

All of the above where what you could see when you walked onto the property of Rocky's Harley Davidson in London Ontario. I had the amazing pleasure of photographing the MISS ATL 2013 Bikini Contest, which was quite a show! Last years winner, this years host, Kristen McCord had told me about the event and instantly I was hooked on the idea of showing up on this saturday to make some pictures happen.

Not only did I enjoy being surrounded by beautiful women in bikini's, I also was able to meet Jim Kelly, radio personality on FM96 as well as the guys in the band After The Lounge, which is what the ATL stands for in the Miss ATL bikini contest! It was a very hot day, but the crowed didn't seem to mind the heat.... and the beer tent hahah.

I started out the day walking around, photographing the UWO (University of Western Ontario) ladies run their bike wash as well as some of the bands on stage providing some rock while we waited for the bikini comp to start. The turn out was pretty awesome and bigger than last year from what I understood. Oh and did I mention that this event was FREE!, yep, free! I went to the bank before I drove to London thinking that I was going to need $10 minimum to get in, when I showed up.. I walked in free of charge.

This is a yearly event, a lot of fun, great music, there's food available, Beer tent, and for all the parents out there, if you can't find a baby sitter, no worries, they even had a bouncy castle set up for the littles! so next year, if you don't have anything to do I would suggest making it out to Rocky's Harley Davidson in London for the MISS ATL BIKINI CONTEST.

Shutter Click!