Oh hi there Hawaii...

Mmmmm holidays...especially those that take you to magical lands like Maui...

We just recently snuck away for a week with a couple of our friends to rent a condo in Maui, and re-set before the summer season starts. 

Along with sharing a few of our favourite shots, we thought we should also share some of the major highlights/things we learned:

1- Maui has some weird liquor laws...we decided it was actually the town from Footloose because it's illegal to dance in bars unless you're in a designated dancing area. (seriously...bars have to have a specific dance floor or else it's banned).  

2- If Brianne were travelling alone, she would have gone on this awesome tour of this really great condo that she didn't even have to be interested in buying, which only would have taken an hour of her time and then she could have gotten LOADS of free tours and coupons! But noooooo, everyone had to be all debbie downer and say it was a time share and drag her away from the nice sales man. (Whom she trusted whole heartedly) 

3- SEA TURTLES.  They are giant and magnificent creatures

4- Lu-au's, although touristy and cheesy, are the greatest thing ever when your name is Brianne Bremner

5- Gary still yells at landscapes when the sun doesn't set properly... (Anyone who's taken our photo course knows this has to do with his control issues...HA!)

6- Drinks DO taste better when there are mini umbrellas in them

7- When watching a world class group of wind surfers do their thing, you are incredibly humbled and realize you will never be even as close to as cool as them...not ever.

8- SUP boarding is overrated.  See GIF below.

 

9- Yelling out "Surf Board" in a Beyonce voice (a la Drunk in love) never gets old...for Brianne...it probably does for Gary though. (Katie Hill gets me) 

10- Seeing people boogie board nude is an interesting experience...

So to sum it up...you should probably go to Hawaii some time...turns out it's pretty great.


Theatre's where it's at...

Anyone who knows us, knows we are big fans of the arts...And we are insanely lucky here in the Yukon to have such an incredible artistic community that is really supportive of each other, and full of unreal talents.

And one of those groups filled with unreal talent is Open Pit Theatre.

Open Pit is a professional theatre company based here in Whitehorse, and we just recently finished a project with them where we made a trailer for one of their recent live theatre productions, Leave a message, Après le Bip.  

Check it out, and for more info on Open Pit, and updates on what they're up to, check out their site at: http://openp.it 






International Women's Day

To all of the badass, beautiful, smart, adventurous women out there...thanks for being so damn awesome.

Happy International Women's day!

 

Family Love...

So some of you may remember a little set up in the studio we had a while back that looked something like this....

1506680_10152172178221438_74813860_n.jpg

Well we thought we should probably share some of the shots that came out of it!

We had SO much fun on this shoot, as we got to work with an incredible family, the mom of which just so happens to share the same love of photography as us, and had a specific concept she wanted for her shoot.  The goal was to create a really beautiful, soft light with an etherial feel.  

Now we all know Gary loves building stuff, so the answer to her request, was to build a mock-bed room-like space in the studio, which he then named the comfy fort and was highly disappointed when we had to tear it down.  

The cool thing was that it wasn't actually that tough to build-it really just consisted of a bunch of white bedsheets suspend from light stands and 2x4's, and then a sheer bed netting, and cream blankets for the base. We then backlit all 3 walls by bouncing studio flashes off of our white walls of the studio which helped disperse and soften the light, creating an even soft light throughout the entire room.  Basically, our walls and the sheets became giant soft boxes.  

We were really happy with the results...also doesn't hurt that the whole family was just so-darn beautiful too!

Thanks again Carmen for being so awesome to work with and for bringing your amazing family to the studio! 



A law firm with a new look...Headshots by GBP Creative

We recently got to work with Aasmans Brand Communications to create portraits for one of their clients-a local law firm, who was getting a full re-design done of their website.

We had some very specific requests in terms of the look and feel of the shoot, as they needed images that really expressed the right emotion and that would tie in well with their new web design.  

Specifically, they were looking for head shots of their team which helped showcase their confidence, and professionalism while remaining inviting and accessible.  

We also thought it would be really cool to go one step further and include some of the brand's complimentary colours in every shot to tie them all together, which was this great, vibrant green.

Ok...only issue was that it turns out all of their legal team didn't have exact matching pieces of green clothing (go figure eh??).  So, through the magic of post processing, we were able to pick pieces of their attire to change up and create our uniform look without making everyone go on a shopping spree...

And here you have the results!

To see what the images look like incorporated into the new web design, check out Austring Fendrick & Fairman's page at:  www.lawyukon.com 

 







Things I wish someone had told me before I quit my day job-Part 1 ...GBP Creative Photography and Video

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WARNING: This is about to get super nerdy...

As we mentioned the other week, we've decided to start a new section of our blog where we share some of the knowledge and tips we've learned over the past few years, now that we are full time photographers/ videographers. 

It's an attempt to help share knowlege with fellow photogs/videographers, in hopes that you don't have to learn the hard, and often expensive way of trial and error... Not that that's what we did... *cough cough*

Now, we're not saying that there aren't better solutions and products out there, but we're not product testers… We don't get stuff for free, so everything here we have learned, first by researching online (obsessively) until we figured we knew what we needed to know, then spending some hard earned (or borrowed) money. This is all stuff we wish someone had told us when we started in this business years ago...

Part One: Batteries are lame.

AA Batteries are a the WORST...AND it turns out they run pretty much everything we (ie. photo/video people) use from the Zoom H4n, to pocket wizards, to of course the biggie… our speedlights. 

Ok you're right, it could be worse...we could have like 5 different kinds of batteries to use instead of just the standard AA’s. BUT the problem comes when you're shooting almost every day, but you're going broke trying to keep up with replacing these Double A demons….

Because if you think about it, even if you're shooting with only 2 flashes, both with battery packs, and say you get a whole week out of those batteries (not likely), thats 12 AA’s per flash x2...so 24AA’s a week, 96 a month, or over 1000 batteries a year!! In other words, you quickly could become a planet killing, douche ”B”! (A broke one too)

Now, say you forget to buy some extras, because you thought you had enough to last this job… but you end up shooting way more than you thought and you run out of batteries...

When someone is paying you to shoot something there is no way in hell you can risk having a dead battery stall, or even worse shut down your shoot. Can you imaging having to ask the client … “um hey man, um do you have any double A’s kicking around that I could borrow?” … NO, just NO. 

So, you need yourself some rechargeables and a metric shit ton of em' too. So here's the ditty on rechargeable batteries that pertains to us:

The most common types of batteries today are NiMH and Lithium Ion.  Lithium Ion is the same type of battery that is in your cameras, cell phone, tablet, laptop etc. The reason for this is: they're lightweight, hold a mean charge,  have built-in temperature control stuff, and no longer have the need to completely run dry before you re-charge them.

The down side is that they are still relatively new (especially in the AA’s market) which makes them super expensive, and not easy to find. No doubt eventually we'll be rocking these little gems in all our gear but not yet my friends...

So, that takes us to NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride). These guys have two types: Low self discharge (LSD), and the regular joes (lets call them RJ’s). The difference is kinda in the name.. the RJ’s will drain themselves as they sit there being unused in your gear which sucks if you like to have your batteries charged and ready to go (which you should) incase you get a last minute job call. The LSD’s, on the other hand, will still drain but instead of a couple months they will take like a year to drain anything significant. 

The only disadvantage of the LSD’s over the RJ’s is that the RJ’s will generally have a higher power output (that’s the mAh rating).  But realistically,  you have to be in a lab, bench testing this stuff to notice anything, and in my opinion, the advantage of the LSD’s outweigh any tiny amount of power difference from the RJ’s.

Part two: Chargers have feelings too

I thought a charger is a charger and that's that…nope! It turns out there are 2 types of AA battery chargers: a Smart one and a regular one. If you have a regular charger like I did, (Like a Duracell 4 battery charger I found at Walmart for my Duracell RJ’s, pictured right) it turns out, it only charges the batteries in a group, not as individuals.  In other words, it pumps the same amount of energy into each battery, regardless of their current charge, for a predetermined amount of time.  So when it says the batteries are "full" it might mean 1 is full, it might mean all 4 are full...you have no way of knowing. Not to mention it can also damage your batteries during this process, which reduces the capacity for their life cycle.

SO, now you jam those AA’s into your speedlight and start shooting away, but your speed light only see’s the batteries in groups as well,  so when 1 battery drops below a certain point, (because it's the one that wasn't fully charged) it assumes they're all dead… So you're left not being able to figure out why you're getting crap battery life out of these damn rechargeables...

Now, the smart charger (SM), on the other hand, charges each battery separately and knows when to stop charging each individual one.  This ensures ALL of your AA’s will be fully charged every time. The batteries then also get less damage every time, increasing their life cycle...Good for your wallet, AND the environment.

SO, moral of the story? Quit pooping on the planet and buy some NiMH recharagbles which can be either LSD or RJ’s (up to you) but for love of GAD buy yourself a decent charger or you're not getting the most out of the rechargeable batteries you do have.

Gear that we chose, based on performance, value, reviews, and availability:

Batteries

-

Maha IMEDION 2400mAh

Location

-

paulsfinest.com

because of good shipping, good value and decent web page (not great tho but works well enough).

Adventure lover on your Xmas list? GBP Creative Photography and Video

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alright the countdown is on...Santa's gonna be squeezing into your living room in just a few short weeks, and we just so happen to know that he had a bit too much egg nog one night and is asking for some help to check off the gift lists this year....

So...if you've got an adventure lover on your list, we're here to help you out!

We have  prints from our 'Gear Room' series available, with custom frames done by the oh-so-awesome Steve Brewis of Northern Frameworks!

And since we're in the Christmas spirit, we're going to give you a SALE!

Originally $300, we are selling each for

$250.00

instead!

So...who's on your list? A climber? Canoe lover? Mountaineer? Biker? We've got you (and Santa) covered....

For more info on purchasing a print, give us a shout at info@garbremner.com

**Features a simple black metal frame, with a clean white matt.  Glass is standard, gallery grade glass and print is on high quality exhibition fibre paper.  Each total frame size is 51cm x 68cm