Kerr Photography - Victoria, BC, Professional Photographer » British Columbia

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).

Movember 2011

Matthew — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:42:44 +0000

As some of you may know, Movember is the month formally known as November. The name was changed in in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia when a couple of “Bros” took it upon themselves to change the face of men’s health. That year there were 30 participants. Since then there has been over 1.1 Million registrants at Movember.com and over $176 million raised globally.

The goal is to change established habits and attitudes men have about their health. Through education about the health risks they face, getting them to act on that knowledge thereby increasing their chances of early detection, diagnosis and treatment. In 2010, nearly 119,000 Canadian Mo Bros and Mo Sistas got on board, raising $22.3 million CAD. This year, I will join them and I would love for you to assist me.

Over the next month, I will be growing, no, cultivating a mustache in support of prostate cancer and men’s health. I’ll be updating my status on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as much as possible so you can follow along in awe. If you would like to support the cause, head on over to my donation page and drop some coin.

For more information about Movember go here or here. Pictured above is Justin Guthrie, Movember veteran (no that’s not his real ‘stache).

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.

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!

Photos By…

Matthew — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:00:22 +0000

One photographic aspect of my life that I’ve been struggling with for the past couple weeks is my editing. That is, narrowing down which images are the best, worst, alright, etc. I have been trying to decide on a couple of pictures for the “Photos By…” competition that the Victoria Boulevard Magazine hosts each year. It’s purpose is to focus on more personal images, rather than professional work. In that case, I’ve chosen to go with some images that speak as to what I’ve done over the past year.
The first image (shown above) is something that I worked on very early in the year. I was inspired by my 4×5 work that I had accomplished in school, and having a 4×5 film holder with no camera was getting me down. So I made a camera and produced the above image of the Victoria Skyline. The next two images were taken while I was in Australia and New Zealand respectively.
The first image is from Cape Byron, on the east coast of Australia. The picture was taken looking southwest from the most easterly point of mainland Australia. The closest we were to home (via longtitude) since we arrived in Cairns. It points at the journey ahead; beautiful, rugged, and raw. The second image is from South Island, New Zealand. In an area known as Fiordland. The view is of Eglinton Valley and the Earl Mountains. A peaceful serenity. It was the end of our trip and in less than a week from taking this picture, I would be back home in Victoria.

(click on images to enlarge)

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.

Vancouver 2010 – Pictures From The Streets

Matthew — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 04:06:38 +0000

During the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, I had the chance to go and partake in some of the festivities that took place surrounding the men’s gold medal hockey game. During my visit there I saw people laughing, screaming, crying, standing, sitting, climbing, hugging, hi-fiveing, cheering, singing, dancing and watching. It was the most intense emotional experience somebody could have. If you were there, you know what I am talking about. Something, Canadian, was in the air that day. People were extra friendly and I heard the words “please”, “excuse me”, and “sorry” more than one person could say in a lifetime. I had the pleasure of meeting a few people while we were there and connecting (photographically) with so many on what proved to be a very patriotic day.

Click on the images to enlarge then click on them again to go to the next image. Best viewed with a resolution over 1600×900.

* I apologize if the enlarging doesn’t work in your browser. Please let me know in the comments box if you are having difficulties viewing the pictures and I will revise the layout.