Ahoy!  Today I share with you a story of love, betrayal, and MURDER.  Don’t worry, this isn’t MY story.  This is a story created by my good friend Gianna Isabella, who asked me to shoot the behind-the-scenes photo’s of her latest shoot, the trailer for ‘Rosalind Revenge’, a movie which will one day, hopefully, become a full length movie (Directed by Gianna, of course).  Although I must apologize as I have already lied to you in this blog entry, as I have no intention of spoiling the story of this twisted tale of awesomeness.  Anyways, ON TO THE PICTURES SHALL WE??

Pictured above is Douglas MacArthur as ‘The Mayor’.

Lighting is a tricky thing, and it is absolutely everything when it comes to both photography and film. Even more difficult is lighting a face inside of a car, as the crew spent considerable time trying to work this out. Their hard work paid off as they ultimately got the shot they needed.

Sound and Light crews work in the dark alleyway… really liked this location, I think I may use it for some portrait shoots in the near future

Pictured just above is Kathy Zaborsky, in the pivotal role of ‘Rosalind’. Kathy brings a wealth of experience to the role and is possibly one of the nicest people on the planet.

This brave girl lied on the cold alleyway for 3 hours while filming took place. I assure you, it was chilly (no thanks to the wind).

Gianna directing the scene in the alley. There must have been 50 people there in total from the crew, actors, and extra’s that she had to manage. You’d never know if she was stressed out by it – completely at ease through the entire process. Look out Tarantino…

The trailer is expected to be released at the end of the month. It’s amazing how much hard work goes into such a small amount of footage, but that’s what it takes to create art.

So today is an exciting day… one of my photograph’s is now a book cover.

The book is titled ‘Tribute’ and was written by Ted Moore, who is the lead singer of a band called ‘Blaze of Glory’. They’re a tribute band and at this particular show they were performing cover songs of Bon Jovi.  I thought they put on a terrific show and as a photographer it makes what I do so much easier.

It’s funny to think of how this almost didn’t happen… I saw the show at the Whoop Up Days fair here in Lethbridge last summer. I was with a couple of friends and it was their idea to see the show which I knew very little about. Luckily I had brought my camera gear to the grounds (I almost didn’t), so I took it along. When we arrived I encouraged my friends to let us sit close to the stage near center so I had an optimal vantage point for my camera, and we found the perfect spot. The show went on and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I remember at one point I literally had to take a break as my hand was starting to cramp from taking so many pictures.

My friend encouraged me to send a link of the photo’s to the band, which I hadn’t done yet. I guess I felt nothing would come of it because I didn’t listen to this advice. Lucky for me my friend did it for me (without my knowledge) and that’s when I received an email from Darcy Nybo of Artistic Warrior Publishing. She and Ted Moore felt one of the photo’s was a strong candidate for the book cover. We exchanged emails for a while with the understanding that while the photo was currently their top pick for the cover, nothing was official, so I kept relatively quiet about it until now.

Today the book was made official and I couldn’t be more excited.

Here is a brief description of the book taken from the Tribute homepage: “Tribute is a love story about music. It’s about an aspiring artist who dedicated his life to rock ‘n’ roll in all its seedy glory. It’s about writing, recording, touring and performing music for the world, and having the world turn away.” You can check out the webpage here for a more detailed description: http://www.bonjovitributebook.com/Home_Page.html and also check out the Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute/417188795029659

http://artisticwarrior.com/  - Artistic Warrior Publishing Homepage

Thanks again to Darcy and Ted for this huge honor

OK just something I need to get off my chest.  Every so often an image will appear online that people go ga-ga for without realizing it’s a forgery.   People need to realize just how ridiculously, unfairly powerful a program like Adobe Photoshop really is.  It’s truly ridiculous.  If you have the patience to learn every little square inch of that program, you can do literally anything with a photograph with very little to work with.  Even with everything I’ve learned about Photography I can still be unsure at times if what I’m seeing is the real deal.  Now, I’m not here to slander people who are exceptional at manipulating photo’s, it’s a true gift and I envy the talent to do it.  What bothers me is when people aren’t forthright about it.  They’re basically making these images just to see if they can fool people.

Here are some examples of what I’m talking about:

Pretty cool picture, right?  Too bad it’s fake.  I was first taken back by this when I saw it… I’m a pretty avid fan of extreme weather and this photo seemed almost too good to be true.  One day I decided to find out if it was.  This is what I found…

Same Tornado, exactly the same.   The person who posted the picture with the skaters said nothing about his/her photo being a composite, so naturally people are compelled to believe it’s the real deal.  What’s worse, I fear the original picture probably wasn’t even owned by the same photographer.  So now you’re dealing with copyright infringement.  It’s wrong, plain and simple.

 Another type of forgery that annoys me is this:

Heath Ledger, as the Joker, skateboarding over-top of Batman in between takes.  Now, one big reason this picture has been so successful is because there’s some truth to the story.  Heath Ledger DID skateboard in between takes (sometimes) while in his full Joker costume.  So that makes it easier to believe.  Let’s analyze this:  This doesn’t look like they’re in between takes.  This looks like one of the scenes they were actually filming.  Ledger was a true professional, he wouldn’t pull a stunt like that when people were waiting on him to deliver a scene.  Plus it’s dangerous.. what if he landed on Christian Bale?  Injured him?  There’s no way this would happen.  So here’s the original:

In conclusion, writing this won’t change anything.  I just hope that people will take a step back at times and think, ‘There’s something not right about this.’  Rather than just quickly believing anything that is fed to them online.  This is only going to get worse as editing technology improves and more people learn how to utilize it.  I certainly don’t appreciate being fooled and feeling silly afterwards.  I’m sure you don’t either!  Ok I’m done.  END RANT.

Ok just one more for good measure  I shouldn’t have to tell most of you what’s wrong with this one…

Happy New Year’s!!  Now is my first ever blog post and hopefully the first of many exciting photographic adventures in 2013  This will be a big year for me as I transition from hobbyist to professional, and it all starts with this website dedicated to helping people view my work, contact me, read my blogs and give easy to use options for ordering prints.  Now onto business…

The trip began with an 19 hour drive from Lethbridge, AB all the way to Vegas, Nevada in one day.  The weather sucked.  Nevertheless, we arrived at our hotel (Mandalay Bay) around midnight and I was astonished to see this view outside my window room! (Below)  -  Special Mention to my Dad who generously took my sister and I on this awesome trip

We saw many shows while in town however the majority of them prohibited camera use (sad face).  One of the neat exhibits we got to see was the Mob Attraction located inside the Tropicana Hotel.  Among interacting with live actors, there were also displays of real mobster artifacts and a cool theatre room showing Mob documentaries.  Below is a shot I took of one of the Holograms along the tour.

New York New York!!

This Rollercoaster was WELL worth the wait in line, highly recommend it for any of you thrill seekers out there!

Hoover Dam was great to finally see, the amount of time, work and money that went into it is just mind boggling.  We did a power plant tour to get a glimpse of how it all works and as you can see, WOW.

If you’re into any kind of Landscape photography, whether as a photographer or an enthusiast, Red Rock Canyon is a dream come true.  We originally didn’t really plan on going to see it, but on New Year’s Eve we had to switch Hotel’s (New Year’s Eve rate’s get a little crazy), so we had some time to kill between check-out and check-in.  I absolutely loved this place and if I lived there I would be out there every weekend hiking and taking more pictures (preferably some with the sunrise and sunset!!)

Just outside of Planet Hollywood at the stroke of Midnight, the fireworks began right above us.  The display was awesome, but that’s not the real story.  The story is the MASSIVE amount of people there to celebrate the New Year.  Every New Year’s Eve, the strip closes off to traffic to make room for the incredible amount of people that invade the streets.  One of the Cab Drivers informed us that the strip will fill up to about 5 Million people.  He wasn’t kidding!  After the show ended I couldn’t even move!  It was like being front row of a concert, you can push and claw as much as you like but you ain’t going anywhere…

BONUS – A brief video of the conclusion of the fireworks!

KTF4387 from Kyle Fowler on Vimeo.