photography

Rise Against Cancer 2016

Rise Against Cancer is an amazing charity concert held once a year in Woodstock Ontario. Cover bands from the Woodstock area come out to put on a concert to raise money for Cancer. The band Sweet N' Innocent are the founders and also the headliners for the event and what a show they put on! Not only is there a concert but there is also a silent auction, pizza and  lots of alcohol! 
I was honoured to be asked to photograph the event by fellow photographer Rachael Little, who has been photographing the event for the past few years. Rachael was unable to photograph the event this year so she set me up with Scott from Sweet N' Innocent so he could see my work and bring it to the band so they could decide if they wanted to have me photograph their event. 

These bands were amazing.. the covers were dead on, the lighting was fantastic and the crowed was pretty big, I was blown away. Everyone was having a fantastic time, singing along to old 80's covers from sweet n' innocent, and a variety of covers from other bands. 

This years line up included: 
 

SWEET N' INNOCENT

BLIND DOG JOE

SOCIAL STONE

ECHOING CONCUSSION

FASHIONEEEEESTAS!

     Fashion photograph has always been something I've found to be drawn to, oddly enough, I've never really shot it? 
     This Past weekend, my friend & Hair stylist, Cassidy, had asked to get together and do a shoot with her and one of her friends in London Ontario. We didn't really have a game plan, I honestly hate planning shoots out.. they never seem to follow the plan I make anyways so we decided to make it kind of a lifestyle/fashion shoot. With the weather getting all rainy and cold we decided to keep it in doors and lucky for us Cassandra ( Cassidy's friend and co-worker) had a great location for us to shoot in.. her house! 

From fashion, to punk/grunge this shoot went very well. We used 3 different spaces and a bunch of different wardrobe choices to create some awesome images that I am proud to have in my portfolio. 

A big thank you goes out to Cassidy & Cassandra for their involvement and always providing me with some models to work with. - Shutter Click~

Hair, Make up & Wardrobe: Cassidy & Cassandra
Models: Cassidy & Cassandra
Photographer: Kevin Vyse Photography. 
 

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

© Kevin Vyse Photography
All Rights Reserved 2015

FAKEOGRAPHERS

Just wanted to throw this out there, as i've seen it floating around social media quite a bit lately: " HOW MUCH WILL A PHOTOGRAPHER COST FOR A WEDDING?: this can be answered with another question " WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY AND DO YOU WANT DECENT PICS?" .... there are people out there offering to shoot your wedding for $500 .... these people are what I like to call "FAKEOGRAPHERS " ... don't be surprised if they show up to your wedding with nothing but an iPhone or a point and shoot camera. They are seeing an opportunity to make some quick cash and handing you over crap images which are either unedited or horribly edited.. buyer beware! In photography the old saying " YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR " is VERY true.... If you're going to go the $500 route... do yourself a favour, go out and buy enough of those disposable film cameras for all your guests, hand them out at your wedding and let your guests fire off all the pics then take the rolls of film to walmart, shoppers, staples and have them developed, because this is about the same quality of images you're going to get but at least this way your guests got to have some fun with it and it makes them more apart of your wedding rather than paying some random to show up. 

If you want great images, shot with a photographic eye, edited by someone who has spent years with photoshop, countless hours and money learning photoshop through tutorials, knows some photographic theory... then you're going to have to spend the money for quality. A decent photographer is going to have a portfolio to show you: either online, on an iPad, a Blog or a hard copy that they will show you, and it will have sharp images, fully edited, there will be some sort of style to them. They will have a DSLR some lighting, reflectors, umbrellas... keep in mind not all photographers use flash.. some shoot natural light only, but they will still have a DLSR camera and reflectors. They will schedule a meet and greet session with you, they will have a website and be able to supply you with some positive references from past clients... you will even hear about them on social media. As for a price range... it varies.. there are some really good photographers out there who don't quite have the experience with weddings and are just getting started with them so they have great imagery but charge a little less to compensate for their lack of experience in the wedding field.... they will charge somewhere around the $1200-2500 mark. Then you have your experienced wedding photographers who will charge you $2500+ .... Usually, there will be packages to choose from.. these packages will include 3 levels or more .... each level will have different coverage time, a certain amount of images, either a CD of your images or Prints. Keep in mind, photographers are a business..... they are calculating their packages on their lives... they need to pay bills, pay for equipment ( which is no where near cheep... one umbrella is $200... for a damn UMBRELLA!!!! ), gas for their travels to your shoots, their time shooting and editing, photographers spend countless hours editing your images... it's not just about taking pictures.. we go home load your images.. we have to catalog them, transfer them onto 3-4 hard drives so if one crashes we still have back ups of your sessions, then we have to go through and pick out all the good, usable, edit worthy ones, load them into an editing program, then edit.. it can take an hour per image sometimes depending on what they are doing with your images.. if your package says you get 500 images... well.. you do the math at how long they are going to spend in front of a computer, day and night editing. They have to pay for their cell phones, which is how you contact them to book, internet for email and websites and business cards, accountants, lawyers for contracts, computers and editing software...... so expect to pay for the service... you wouldn't walk into a clothing store expecting to walk out with a $500 leather jacket for free would you? 

So please.... if you're picking a wedding photographer, and you want someone who can provide you with great images expect to pay $2500+ at least... or $1200 for someone who has a great portfolio and is new to the wedding world... anything under $1200 you're shooting yourself in the foot.... lets get rid of these "FAKEOGRAPHERS " who are constantly degrading the quality of photography, stealing work from actual photographers who love the art form and are actually passionate about getting you, the client, what you want. 

Kevin Vyse Photography 
Photographer. 
www.kevinvysephotographs.com

Fitness Calendar For A Cause

They work hard, eat right, are devoted and disciplined as well as love what they do! 

   Bodybuilders and strong men united with Tornado City Boxing in Woodstock Ontario Canada, to put together a fitness calendar raising money and support for support " Daso " a.k.a. Domestic Abuse Service Oxford.

   I was asked to come in as one of the photographers to get some awesome work out shots of Thomas, a local up and coming bodybuilder who is going to be lethal to the bodybuilding world. The thought process was very fast for me as I only had one day (2 hours to shoot), and one day to edit the pics and have them sent out for print. I wanted this to be lit well and in a way that would make Thomas muscles pop but also allow him to be out of shadow so you could see who it was. 
    This calendar is geared towards women so there had to be a sexy appeal to it, which wasn't to hard as Thomas is pretty ripped, so my job was easy and I'm sure the ladies are going to be vary pleased. 

    Since we were there to shoot and I banged out the shots pretty quick, we decided to just keep shooting and see what we could get as this was Thomas' first ever photoshoot. Finally, I was able to sit down and edit some more of the images from our session at Tornado City Boxing. I went with cool tones in the image as thats kind of the feeling I get when I think of metal weights, gyms, hard work, ripped people, so with the cool tones I set the mood. I also wanted to have a lighting set up in which you'd see some of the lights, to give it that "behind the scenes" kind of look to the shoot - Shutter Click. 

  

Mom and Daughter Fashion shoot

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 cast shadows amongst the trees.

Harvard's and Hero's

This weekend ( June 20th-22nd) was a Gathering/Event in Tillsonburg On. Celebrating 75 years of the Harvards and the Veterans who flew them. This Harvard fly over was the largest one since WWII and there was no way I was going to miss a piece of history like that.

I showed up to the Tillsonburg airport around 11:30pm, from the highway I could see a small sea of yellow planes as I approached and was instantly excited for the show. The sound of 11 harvards flying through the air is outstanding, nothing like you've ever heard before. This event wasn't just harvards, the majority was, but there was also a Harvard II trainer there which was a treat to see, and two T-28 Trojan's, One navy blue, and one that was White and Orange if I remember right, it was a treat to see them take off at the end of the show. 

Harvard's and Hero's started off with one harvard and one amazing pilot who was making this plane do things I never thought a harvard could do. This plane was flipping tail over prop, straight up into the sky and stalling out, kicking the tail over the nose, crazy rolls, and really really low flying.. I mean .. if I had to guess, 30 ft off the ground, it was insane!  After that, all the harvards took to the skies to do a couple fly by's, which was then followed up by the Canadian Harvard Aerobatics Team, who always put on an amazing show with smoke and crazy stunts! - Shutter Click ~

 

The Canadian Harvard Aerobatics Team come racing in from the right, smoke on, getting set up for a steep climb.

Coming straight at the crowd while in a diamond formation, pulling back on the stick and going vertical. 

Pulling back, shooting straight up and back over the top for a smoky back roll.

Team comes straight over the crowds heads with smoke on, setting up to bank left and come across centre stage.

Two team members come flying in head on and cross last minute just missing one another.

The reason everyone gathered.. The 11 Harvard Tribute Pass.. what a sound and sight to see. 

Rick Volker, A Harvard Aerobatics Pilot gets in his harvard and taxi's up to put on quite an impressive solo aerobatics display. Who knew the harvard could do the things he made it do!

Rick Volker, Banking hard in front of the crowd as he gains some momentum and air speed to perform some more amazing aerobatics. 

Rick Volker doing a close, topside pass for the crowd and photographers.. what a photo op! 

Rick Volker doing a tight inside loop stage centre. 

New Website!

well, it's here! finally a home for my work, no more facebook and flickr... although I will still be posting to those social media sites, but this will be just the best of my work. Photography is my passion and really it's the only thing in my life that feels right at this time, so it's only fitting that I pay it some attention and love.