Sep
26
Here’s a sneak peek of today’s newborn session… We have a new time record for a baby peeing during a shoot…. This little guy couldn’t wait until the first shutter click before he left a puddle behind!
Sep
05
In the words of The Notorious BIG, “It’s Brooklyn in tha house”… Today against all plans and preparation we welcome our second daughter Brooklyn Thilini Gunawardena into the world… She was born on September 5th, 2013 at 9:17am weight in at 6lbs 10oz and 51cm tall… Welcome my little girl… you’re definitely a chubby little monkey and I can’t get over those cheeks!
Aug
31
Our close friends Elaine and Wei Kiat are expecting their first baby and I was delighted when they asked me to do a maternity session for them. They didn’t want the typical cliche photos, so I opted to do more of a lifestyle session with them. The weather was perfect and we made good use of this beautiful Vancouver summer day. Here’s a few photos from the session:
Jun
19
There’s nothing more precious than the sight and sound of cousins playing together. Even though we live halfway around the world from the rest of our family it’s amazing to see my little nieces and nephews embrace Savannah and before long they act and adore each other as if they’ve live under the same roof their whole lives.
Apr
05
Today I was excited to have a family portrait session with Rachel, Matthew and Naomi. Our initial plan was to meet at Stanley Park and work our way around from there. I got a call from Rachel saying that they were running a bit late, so I decided to drive around to scope out some shooting locations around downtown. The previous week I wanted to do the portrait session with Cherry Blossom trees as the backdrop however they weren’t blooming yet. I drove around and in that short time frame between shoots they were out in full force! I changed our plan of location and we had this amazingly colourful backdrop to use for the session. Being an Easter long weekend it was quiet and there weren’t many people around. These trees only bloom for a short period of time before they shed their petals and look just like any normal tree, but when they do come out they just attract the masses…
So once I got us all setup we followed through the session and I made use of the huge water feature and surrounding gardens. Little Naomi has a pout that can man any father melt and hand over all the candy he’s holding and she definitely put it to work!
Check out some of the photo’s from the session below:
Mar
28
Today I had the privilege of doing a portrait session with the Narula family. Avi, Krista and 6 month old baby Kai were extremely fun to work with and it was a perfect day to shoot with the overcast sky creating the perfect lighting. Since they are moving away from Vancouver, they wanted to have a session done before they left that captured the essence of the city. What better location than on the waterfront with the iconic city scape and mountains in the background. The first stop was Vanier Park where we used the marina’s rocks and clear views of downtown to set the perfect backdrop. Bubba Kai showed his Kiwi roots throughout the day doing the Haka dance complete with his tongue sticking out! The next stop was Coal Harbor sea wall and the Westin Bayshore gardens. This shoot was the first time I tried out my new Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5’s on location for wireless flashes and I’m loving the convenience and results! Let me know what you think of the photos!
Feb
21
This is my re-creation of a photo concept that I had seen done before and wanted to take it and put my own spin on it. I wanted to make it a more whimsical feeling of magic to the scene portraying that the child’s imagination is running wild and is bringing the story to life.
Some of the components in the scene like the chair, cabinet and lamp were reused from the original photo. This is more of a composition project with elements being photographed individually like the room, floor, play chest, drawer panels, baseboard and then integrated each one into the photo one by one to build the environment. Other elements were taken from stock photos and finally the characters were taken from rendered wallpapers to give it a more animated feel. I didn’t want to go too dark with the characters coming out of the shadows because I didn’t want to create a creepy “child’s play” effect. Lol I don’t want to traumatize her just yet. The photo of Savannah was taken with the softbox angled up at 45 degrees to to emulate the light source emitted from the book and the rest of the smoke, mist, flares & character shadows were created in post production.
Overall I’m quite happy with the final image and hope that it looks believable and portrays the feel that I was trying to create!
Feb
01
While travelling in Mexico my wife and I came across this cute little shop that sells hand stitched tutus for children that were absolutely adorable. The craftsmanship and attention to detail was so amazing and we got to meet the little old lady that makes them. After trying on almost every tutu in the shop, we ended up buying 2 for Savannah. Every little girl wants to be a ballerina or a princess at some stage in her life and with a tutu like that who would blame them?!
Jan
27
Today I did a maternity session with a lovely couple expecting their first child. Philana and Albert were the winners of my facebook launch campaign contest and I was very excited to work with them. Philana was approximately 7 months old and this is great stage in the pregnancy to do maternity sessions as you’re “popping” enough, yet you’re still able to move around and pose without too much discomfort.
Often when working with clients I’m flexible with the location where we do the session. Sometimes they prefer a studio, on location or the comfort of their own home. This session was done at their apartment and wanted to do some editorial style maternity photos in addition to the traditional keepsake style poses. They were very accommodating with my requests including moving furniture around to create the best lighting and environment for the scene. Here’s a few photos from the session:
Congratulations Philana & Albert on the new baby and all the best on this exciting new chapter of your life!
Jan
26
Today another photo of mine “Absolut Zest” was one of the featured images critiqued over at www.slrlounge.com. Click here and skip to the 0:50 mark to see what they had to say about it!