Kerr Photography - Victoria, BC, Professional Photographer » bc

The End of the Season – Movember

Matthew — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:00:28 +0000

I know, I’m a little behind the ball here. In any case, it doesn’t make a difference whether I post this now or later. This past Movember was the most successful Movember to date!
First off, I’d like to thank all the donors who helped me raise over $200.00 towards men’s health and prostate cancer:

Adriana Durian
Cathy and Bruce Kerr
Liz Kerr
Phil Jolley
Eve Ouradou
Brianne Hauff
Courtney Fiala
Suzanne Ives and Rolf Ludwig
Grant Schwartzentruber
Kris Klusmeier
And a few other anonymous donors

THANK YOU!
Second, to all those people around the world who helped raise over $111,000,000.00! And especially in Canada, we helped raise over $39,000,000.00! That’s about $160.00/moustache. Those are some expensive faces out there. All of these totals can be found by going to the “Mo Money” page at the official Movember website.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Matthew — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:59:03 +0000

As I stated on my Google + profile the other day, I train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) and Japanese Jiu Jitsu (JJJ). I’ve only been training for 5 months, however, I already have seen and felt the sense of community in the dojo. That is to say, when someone is testing for their next belt, it stands to reason that you go and support them. Above is one of the instructors, Dan, who is performing a helicopter sweep right in to an arm bar. If you don’t know what that means go check out Submissions 101. This is a technically challenging move that to my eyes, Dan pulled off flawlessly. After Dan passed his purple belt test the white belts who were testing for their blue belt lined up and began a rigorous warm up that was designed to wear them out.
Above is them demonstrating some moves to their sensei and the other blue belts during their test.
If you’d like to know more about Martial Arts, and you’re in the Victoria area, drop by Fierce Studio and watch a class. More pictures are available on the Facebook page (the link is in the side bar).

Olympic Sailing – Victoria, BC

Matthew — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:00:43 +0000

This morning I got the opportunity to photograph Canadian Olympic Hopefuls Hannah Meers (skipper) and Erin Flanagan (crew) as they practiced in the cold waters off Oak Bay. We started the morning by getting the boat ready (I drank my latte) at 7:45 and we were on the water by 8:20. The air was frigid, the clouds were dark and the sun wasn’t fully awake yet. It started to rain. Thankfully, the rain did hold off for the most part, but it was still way colder than it needed to be. I think we were on the water for about 2 hours in total while the girls trained (Hannah with bare feet). It’s been a while since I was on the water when it was this cold and photographically speaking, my hands were too numb to fully grab my lens. Not to mention that my knees are bruised from being bounced around the zodiac, I’ll remember to bring knee pads next time.
They sail the international 470 dinghy in the women’s division. The 470 first became an Olympic class in 1976, and is one of nine types of sailboats raced in the Olympics. Both Hannah and Erin grew up in southern Alberta and thus, their team name is Wild Rose Girls. You can find them and follow them on Facebook here or follow them on twitter with @Meers_Flanagan. The two are on their way to Miami in the following weeks to continue their training.

Expiration

Matthew — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:36:53 +0000

So, I was over in Vancouver a couple weeks ago (not for a hockey game) and was able to spend the morning with my lady and a friend of her family-friend who oddly enough went to the same photography school as I did. We wandered down to Granville Island and had some lunch in the market and then cruised on over the bridge. I, for the first time (just before the wedding) took my Minolta out to play. These are two of my favourite shots from that trip.

We didn’t just go over for Granville Island market food, we actually went over to see the musical Wicked. If you ever, ever get a chance to see it, I recommend it with the highest of all recommendations.

I like this. Thoughts? Post them in the comments box!

Summer Wedding

Matthew — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:42:23 +0000

I had the pleasure of going to my cousin’s wedding early June in Parksville. It was a very beautiful day and the Jonathan and Kathryn couldn’t have looked happier. Since I wasn’t the photographer at the wedding, I decided to shoot an old Minolta srT200 with a 50mm f/1.7 Minolta lens on some very expired Kodak Gold 200 film. The result was fantastic and I really enjoyed being so restricted by my focal length and speed.

I have talked before about not having the luxury of zoom lenses or digital ISO settings. You tend to focus more on the creativity, because, that’s all you can change.

All of the pictures were scanned on my Canon flatbed and then cropped and edited in Photoshop. Only a few minor colour corrections and the contrast was punched up a bit. I wanted to preserve the film “look”.

The happy colour changes were a complete surprise with the expired film.

As you can see, I left some dust on the negative.

Editorial Photography

Matthew — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:17:05 +0000

Textbooks define editorial photography as interpreting the facts of a magazine article in a creative way. For me, it is all about telling stories. Editorial photography should engage viewers and interact with them. It should prompt the audience to imagine how the story unfolds, who the person is, and how they can find out more. That’s partly what my little project called “Who Are You?” is all about. Using photography to tell the viewer a story. The story is you.
This is Eve. She has a dog named Elsa and she loves cooking and photography. What else can she tell you?

Have a story to tell? Send me an email and we can do it together!

Facebook vs. the Job Interview

Matthew — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:21:58 +0000

We’ve all been told before that story of how someone was not hired (or fired, demoted, sued, etc.) because of something that their soon-to-be employer (or former employer) saw on Facebook or some other social media site. It’s not uncommon for an employer to “Google” an applicant prior to offering them a job. So, you’ve gone and “removed” all that incriminating evidence. Now what? My thoughts are that you should flood it with good stuff. The stuff that employers want to see from a bright, committed, respectable and trustworthy team player such as yourself. I’d start off with a great profile picture from Kerr Photography (it’s the first thing I look at).

Who would you hire?

Book your portrait session with Kerr Photography before the end of February and receive 20% off the sitting fee. Refer a friend and I’ll give you another 10% back! Get your quote on prices now!

Graduation Photos!

Matthew — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:22:26 +0000

Are you graduating this year? Know somebody who is graduating this year? If it’s high school, college, university or kindergarten, pictures of this special occasion are becoming more and more popular.Booking starts now, and it’s as easy as emailing contact@kerrphotography.ca and requesting a quote. Prom package pricing starts at only $60, packages can be found here. Don’t want a package? Not a worry, just email with the pictures you want. It’s my belief that your pictures should be fun! Not a boring, sit-in-front-of-a-lame-library-backdrop shot, but rather an expression of who you are! Among the prom and grad promotional pricing you’ll also find wedding packages for spring and summer of 2010 and family portrait packages.

Competition Time

Matthew — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:48:39 +0000

Competition is closed

visit this post for the winner and new competition details

As I am sitting here at my computer, Herbal tea within reach and Justice in the ears, I am realizing, I should have got this post out a couple of days ago. If not weeks ago. I’m going to be holding a little competition in the next week. It’s inspired by a fellow photographer, Reuben Krabbe who put out a competition a little while back. In the spirit of the times, I’d like to do a small give-away! I’ve put together a small collection of my images and had it printed by an online printing company. The link for the book has been in the sidebar of my blog for the past couple weeks (go ahead and check, I can wait…) with a little preview.

Check out the details

Requirements:

To receive the prize, you must reside in Canada. (I just can’t be shipping this all over the world, sorry!)
You should be a fan on facebook, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow on twitter. (I have no way of knowing this, so be honest!)
Participate!

The Goal:
I’m trying to get more people involved in photography. Post in the comments section of this post a link to a photographer or a picture that you like and explain in your comment why you like it.
Here’s where the participate thing comes in to play. You need to check out other peoples pictures/photographers and read their reasons, react and comment on their choice. Use the @ style interface to point at a certain user (example, Johnny wrote “Ipsum Lorem….” and you comment “@Johnny…”).
I will be monitoring this when I decide the winner and announcing it on Twitter and Facebook.
If you are reading this in an RSS reader or if you are reading on Facebook, please comment directly from my blog.

The Prize! (and how I decide)
I will be giving away 2 copies of my book to 2 lucky participants. Deciding will be tricky, it will be a combination of how many of the community like your choice, your explanation of why you like or dislike it and my own personal interest (to a point). I know I shouldn’t have to say this, but, please keep it clean.

The competition starts now (07-01-2010) and will end in two weeks (22-01-2010). If there are any questions, please email comp@kerrphotography.ca

Bloopers and Outtakes – Playing with Video

Matthew — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Purely just bloopers and outtakes. This video was completely shot with my Nikon D3. I blasted away at 8fps and then threw it together for motion. The song you hear is Epic from local band and bro’s, On Call Heroes. They’re about to go record their second album, so go check them out. I hope to do more stuff like this in the future. It’s a really cool way of shooting video in my opinion.

Thanks to my friends for being the subjects, yet again, in one of my little projects. It would’ve been really boring without people in the video. Also, thanks to the band for the music. Again, really boring without it.