ALP1 Assignment 4 - Photo Story

The Transformation

Behind the scenes with Miss Butterfly and Franky Dee at Sky Bar 

During the day, Johnny and Francois live and work 9-5 like the majority of people in the city. However, every Friday and Saturday night, they transform into drag queen entertainers known as Miss Butterfly and Franky Dee, respectively. The intent of this photo series is to show the hard work and meticulous process that is involved in preparing for the transformation of male to female for the on-stage dancing, singing and lip-syncing spectacle. Johnny and Francois waste little time getting ready. The entire process back-stage from preparing outfits and wigs, to shaving, to putting on make up, to getting dressed all happens within a short 45 minute period. Once the transformation is complete, Miss Butterfly and Franky Dee take the stage, co-hosting the event and introducing other drag performers who either sing or lip-sync to catchy pop tunes with inspired dance choreography. As the drag queens take turns performing, frantic costume changes occur off stage in preparation for the next number. On this night in particular, Miss Butterfly has taken on the persona of Cher. The show ends with a bang with all of the drag performers on stage with Miss Butterfly as lead performer. 

Miss Butterfly and Franky Dee perform regularly in the Village on Ste-Catherine Est on Friday and Saturday nights either at Cabaret Mado or Sky Bar.  

Johnny preparing one of many wigs to be worn during the night.

Francois (mirror left) and Johnny (mirror right) applying make up with speed and precision

After the face is completed comes the tuck. A painful but necessary step. 

Miss Butterfly putting her finishing touches on her Cher look.

Miss Butterfly solo performance

Grande Finale with Miss Butterfly, Franky Dee and other drag performers. 

APD2 Assignment 4 - Composite

- These images were done with a narrative intention to show busy intersection in Toronto. I think that these images could be easily adapted to advertising or marketing purposes if all the people were holding the exact same bag.
- I was inspired by images by Peter Funch who made composites with a "similars" theme. My concept was to take this theme with different perspectives of shopping at two large intersections in Toronto. With shopping and purchasing items, there is a distinction between what is needed and what is wanted. At Toronto Dundas Square, shoppers exit a large shopping mall and I selected for men holding pink bag to represent more frivolous purchases where as in Chinatown, people use the practical carts to get their groceries for the week.

How I made these composites
- I set up my tripod and I waited for a few hours, waiting for my subject to enter the frame. I needed to get the people of interest in different positions, so I took hundreds of photos and organized the positioning of the subjects in post processing.
- I also took a photo with no people in it to act my canvas. I then selected my subjects one at a time, copied it, then special paste (paste in place) onto my canvas frame.

ALP1 Assignment 3 - Travel

Cityscape - f/13, 8 sec, ISO 200

I chose to shoot my cityscape image from a high rise building in the Mile End at blue hour showing the plateau, iconic Mont-Royal and downtown skyscrapers. This image could be for the Montreal tourism website or a travel publication such as EnRoute magazine.

Still Life/Food - f/4, 1/40sec, ISO 800

Lifestyle - f/4.0, 1/40sec, ISO 800

I shot my food and lifestyle shot at a new trendy tea shop/restaurant in the plateau/mile-end. The location made sense for a travel publication because there are many restaurants and cafes in the this neighbourhood. Some restaurants in Montreal even offer cooking classes for customers/tourists looking for a different activity for example at the Montreal Tourism website: http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/blog/cooking-classes-for-montreal-foodies/

Painting with Light - Happy Spring Break!

APD2 Assignment 3 - The Decisive Moment

f/8, 1/40s, ISO 200

St. Patrick's Day parade
Challenges with shoot
- Making interesting compositions
- Cold weather made it difficult to stay in one place, waiting for the moving elements to fit my compositions
- I took many photos of the parade itself, but I did not find many intriguing decisive moments in my frames during my editing

f/8, 1/250s, ISO 100

Chinatown
Challenges with shoot:
- waiting for the right moment
- the pigeons would not move when pedestrians walked by, it took the dog to get them to fly away.
- pigeons kept moving towards me as they thought I had food for them

f/2, 1/17s, ISO 400

f/2.8, 1/9s, ISO 400

The Metro
Challenges with the shoot
- Strangers giving odd looks when I took pictures
- After choosing my composition, making sure people not aware that I was taking a photo

What I learnt from these shoots/this assignment:
- carrying my smaller mirrorless camera allowed me to get better shots (more discrete than my dSLR)
- capturing many shots blindly (from the hip) was very useful
- it takes a lot of patience to capture the moment I visualised
- I had to forget about the many missed moments and move forward and constantly try new compositions

What I liked about street photography:
- pleasant surprises and interesting images that I did not pre-visualise just from shooting repeatedly and from the hip
- it constantly challenged me: I had to think of new creative ways in each situation to try to stay unnoticed, while still achieving my composition

What I did not enjoy about street photography:
- Confrontations from strangers
- Long editing (selecting best images) process

ALP1 Assignment 2 - Architecture Interior and Exterior

Interior Composite (for exposure and removing people)

L'école polytechnique Montréal - Claudette-MacKay-Lassonde and Pierre-Lassonde buildings

f/16, Composite of exposures at 1/30s, 1/6s, 1/3s, 0.6s, 1.3s and 2 sec, ISO 100

- Construction completed: Summer 2005
- University building expansion (tunnel connects it to the main building) with laboratories, classrooms, library and open study space for Engineering students. It also houses the Department of Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering.
- Construction was inspired by the notion of green architecture with the goal to minimize any negative impact on the environment.
- The elements (magma, earth, flora and sky) are the inspiration for the colour scheme and symbols of Polytechnique’s expertise in sustainable development
- I wanted to showcase the bright open space and highlight all of the bright colours that are inspired by nature and the concept of reducing the ecological footprint, which greatly influenced the design this building.

How I made this composite:

- I used my tripod and kept all my settings the same (aperature, manual focus, ISO, composition) and took multiple shots with different exposure speeds to capture correct exposures for the sky/sky light as well as the interior of the building to show detail in both.

- I also waited for people to move through the frame at the same shutter speed so that I could put a layer of empty space over which there was a person to make the building look pristine and empty.

Natural light = Artificial Light

L'Université du Québec à Montréal - complexe des sciences Pierre-Dansereau (100 Sherbrooke Ouest)

f/16, 3.2s, ISO 100

- Administrative Building - Télé-Université (Distance Learning at UQAM)- According to the UQAM website, the Pierre-Dansereau science complex, consisting of 4 pavillions, started construction in 1993 and finished in 2006.

- Multiple architecture firms were involved: Saia et Barbarese, Tétreault, Parent, Languedoc and associates, Birtz, Bastien and Claude Cormier

- I wanted to highlight the interesting shape and structure of the building - especially the jagged windows and down-hill structure. I also wanted to show the busy environment where this building is situated with lots of traffic passing by along Sherbrooke Street. I also chose a wide angle to show the contrast between this modern architecturally designed building and the older brick building that is connected.

Vertical and Horizontal Lines Parallel to Frame
Complexe Desjardins / Hyatt Regency Hotel Montreal

f/11. 1/80s, ISO 200

- Multi-use building complex comprising four towers on a substructure, occupying a full downtown block

- Construction: 1967-1976

- Architects and planners: Jean-Claude La Haye et associés, predecessor to Société La Haye-Ouellet, urbanistes et architectes; Blouin, Blouin et associés, architectes; Gauthier, Guité, Roy, Architectes; Ouellet et Reeves; and Longpré, Marchand et Goudreau

- The building has been referred to as a symbol of the advancement of French Canadians in North America (after the Quiet Revolution), therefore I tried to highlight the height and stature of the complex in this photo by using lines parallel to the frame.

- I chose black and white for this photo in attempt to make it more timeless, and make the viewer look at the buildings and contrast rather than be distracted by the different colours present in the environment. I also inspired by the photos seen in class by photographer, Dario Zini.

Interior Space
Complexe Dejardins and Underground City

f/14, 5 sec, ISO 100

- Completed 1976
- One of the objectives of the designers was to provide a meeting place sheltered from the winter weather.
- I wanted to show the large central interior plaza surrounded by mezzanines, public art and stores with some people in it to show the social nature of the space and provide context and scale to show the height of the fountain.
- I took this image with a wide angle to show the large open space and to show the many different levels of the complex, including the underground substructure


Problems encountered with the shoots:
- It took many attempts to take the image with artificial light equal to natural light, one time the interior lights of another building did not turn on as I set up my camera and waited for the right time.So to overcome this, I attempted this shot many times before succeeding.
- For my equal mix of light shot, I had to step off the sidewalk to get a better angle of the building, so I had to be more aware of my surroundings instead of focusing on the frame in my camera (safety first).

APD2 Assignment 2 - Conceptual Image

Still Life 

f/4, ISO 800, 1/15 sec

I wanted to further animate the toy solders and give them a sense of personality. I chose to match the toy army soldiers with the green cutting board because the colour of the cutting board matched the army men, which helped to convey a sense of camouflage, which is very important aspect for actual military officers.  This idea of camouflage helped me to portray a mundane expression as if the toy solders actually belonged on this cutting board, when in fact they would normally be found in a child’s toy box or in a bucket sitting on a shelf. I also paired the soldiers with the location because the grid and geometric lines helped me to reinforce the idea of structure, intense planning and discipline associated with the military. With the diagonal line, it reminds the viewer that it is a cutting board and potentially at any moment, the blade could strike and attack the soldiers.

Narrative Image

f/11, ISO 200, 1/50 sec

I am trying to tell the story of a depressed mother making an after school snack for her child. The mother has become antisocial and has resulted in a strained relationship with her husband and child. She has been quite unhappy for sometime now and had become jealous of the close relationship between her daughter and husband. After this moment, will she continue to stay unhappy? Is she simply adding more salt to the already salty, processed macaroni? Or has she mistakenly or purposefully adding rat poison to the food to end the misery?

I chose a friend’s kitchen with a large window on the side and shot in the late afternoon to light the subject and general environment. I used a tungsten light source on the side to mix with the daylight and flash to obtain more cinematic-like lighting. I wanted the subject’s pose to show that she had just reached for an ingredient and is putting it away in the cupboard. I also used the daylight and my flash to light the cupboard and the ingredient in her hand to clue the viewer into the idea that she could be adding poison to the plate.  I also added a child’s drawing to provide context of the family situation.