Trailer for our next interview portrait with up an coming Winnipeg fashion designer Andrew Lennard Taylor Bickford creator of custom hand made Coture Denim.

www.lennardtaylor.com

Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by TEKIM – Mike Talastas.

I’m planning to roam the streets on Friday afternoons taking portraits of people that I meet.

John is the first stranger in Winnipeg that I have walked up to and asked to take a portrait.

I was walking down the street with my fellow photographer OBJECTIF when this patch of colour caught my eye. It was John crouching on the curb taking some close up photos of some trash in the street. He was working on his own photo project where he is making a slideshow of thousands of photos of the interesting trash he comes across. Sounds like an interesting project.

The Li7photo team were invited by a couple of friends to take part in a photo meet yesterday December 16th, 2010 at Level 3 studios.  The event was a mix of a meet & greet and a chance to work in a studio environment and shake off a bit of that winter funk that we photographers get during the winter months.

Check out some of the pics we took from this event after the jump.

Overall it was an awesome turnout and and an excellent opportunity for those looking to learn on how to shoot with off camera lighting.  We’ll be posting up some of the shots we took during the session between myself (Gail), Josh & Mike.

Special shoutout to Sa’ad Gabuna for putting together this clip of yesterday’s event and having it uploaded so quickly:

The Li7photo team features Erroll Layco.  We take this opportunity to interview one of Winnipeg’s up youngest up and coming b-boys/lyricist in the city.

See more after the jump

A student of visual art, dance and spoken word, Nereo is the physical embodiment of the word ‘artist’.

See Li7photo conducts a short candid interview at one of Winnipeg’s most talented artists after the jump

What does it mean to be an artist?  Nereo shows that creativity isn’t limited to just a canvas.  It’s freedom of expression and can come in all types of mediums.  If you want to show love and support to this talented artist, please check out his site http://www.nereo2.com/ to check out his pieces or drop him a note to show your appreciation.

Producer: Josh Tamayo
Cinematographer: Mike Talastas
Editor: Gail Tolentino
Special Thanks: Symmone Ochoa

Music: Nujabes – Sky is falling

“Your body is like a temple…you have to keep it clean, if you don’t keep your body clean…then who will?” A 14 year old Anna taught me that lesson during the first few months of knowing her in highschool.

Li7photo.com explores how she continues with this mantra today over 10 years later since first stating those words to me.  View the video after the jump……

The above portrait was taken as part of a small project taken on by Gail Tolentino & Mike Talastas to conduct a brief interview with Anna from Lulu Lemon – Winnipeg, Manitoba. She shares with us her experiences in the realm of continuous pursuit for personal improvement.

Big ups to fellow Li7photo member Josh Tamayo who scored an interview with Winnipeg local website STAY AMBITIOUS which is a local site dedicated to showcase the unique arts and talents around the city of Winnipeg.

Li7photo has been creating a buzz around the local photography scene with Josh and its starting to pay off.  If you have a second, check out the full interview: Click Here

A photo and video documentary project displaying the passion and talent of the rising stars in Winnipeg.

Starring: Brittany Alyse

See more after the jump….

Brittany is a young and very talented photographer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I met Brittany through a contact add on Flickr. I was blown away after looking through her work and when I found out she was from Winnipeg, I started to keep up to date with her work.

Later on, I noticed more of her work in the local Sandbox Magazine. It was then I realized that her interest in photography centered more around beauty and fashion. Now at the time I was very into fashion photography, and seeing her work created something sort of an inner challenge for me; a challenge which pushed me to try out the fashion look and projects with some friends. I thought to myself that if there was a local photographer out there who was around my age, that could produce master pieces after master pieces, then maybe I could do it too! I was inspired.

After this project was arranged, I sent a message to Brittany via facebook with a request to have her take part in this project which she was more than willing to take part in. On the day of the shoot , we met up at Tim Hortons for a small lunch a long with fellow team member and extremely talented photographer Mike Talastas. We chatted for a bit to get to know each other more, shared some interests and views on photography, then talked about how what the goals and concepts of this photo shoot was. Everything was off to a good start!

We then headed over to our chosen location, and chose one of my favourite spots in the park -  Through out the shoot, I learned that Brittany is very open to ideas and very out going. Really fun to work with and she played a huge role in making this part of the project as interesting as it is. When asked for some words of advice, she left us with this one:

“Be open to new experiences, experiment and live without regret.” -  Brittany Alyse

Thanks Brittany for coming out! Hope you enjoy the video and the portrait as well. Wish you all the best to your future and your career in photography.

- Josh Tamayo

Gear used for this Project

Video:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L USM .
• Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
• Final Cut Pro

Portrait:

• Nikon D700 FX . Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D AF
• Hoya ND 8
• Alienbees B1600
• 47″ Octobox with Grid
• 5ft Reflector
• Vagabond II
• Pocket Wizard Plus II
• Adobe Photoshop CS4

Shout out to Mike Talastas and Gail Tolentino – Thank you for all your hard work and using your unquestionable talents to support this project.

www.Li7photo.com

If you don’t know, beyond a reasonable doubt, well you’re about to. Make some room in your inspiration folder and check it out.

You may not be familiar with the name, but if you like Hip Hop then you already know this man’s work. Mr. Mannion boasts some of the most iconic photographs in all of hip hop.  He is a commercial & portrait photographer who’s work has been in numerous magazines and album covers. He had also worked under the legendary photographer Richard Avedon. (Another one of my all time favourites, but we’ll save that for another day).

Click here to see John Mannion talking about his approach to shooting Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt album cover. (Starts @ 1:04 of the video, just incase you don’t wanna listen to “Young HOV” talking for a minute)

His body of work, as well as his approach to shooting his subjects has made him a definite source of inspiration and a permanent resident in my inspiration folder. As DJ Quik once pointed out, the world sees hip-hop through Jonathan Mannion’s eyes.

For more Mannion check it out here.

In moments like this I remind myself that money wasn’t there when I picked up an SLR the first time in highschool and its definitely not around now. Nearly 8 years later and I still shoot for the sake of bettering my skill behind a camera.

I think anyone dedicated to this art form of still images knows there’s always that unending feeling of pushing yourself to be better. When I meet other photographers, I’m always curious to find out and ask: Where do you find your inspiration?

For me, this last summer I hit a plateau, I hit a funk where I couldn’t create anything, I couldn’t think of anything.  I just didn’t even want to pick up my camera for the fear of disappointing myself that I couldn’t create anything worth “selling” to make money for future clients.  It was as if I lost my vision to create and instead turned that into greed.  It wasn’t until I saw this musician by the name of Nikolaus Herdieckerhoff this year during one of his street performances.  I’ll let the video I took of him speak for itself:

After watching him play a 20 minute set, I was completely blown away.  He travels around the world with nothing more than a small suit case, a 4 track loop machine and a cello.  Yet he’s able to make people stop in the middle of the street doing what he does. The way he performs is simple.  No need for a giant speaker, stage or back up singers…..this is how I wanted to re-approach photography.

What does this street performance have to do with photography?  Well…in what I thought would be another wasted day of shooting turned out to be probably the greatest shot I think I will ever take for my personal portfolio.  (see below)

The shot above wasn’t done without any flashes, tripods, good looking models, extras, light stands.  Just as Nikolaus is able to create amazing performances with barely anything… I want to be able to take amazing images with barely anything as well. Looking and listening to Nikolaus play his cello with such simplistic methods made it to me, just that much better.  Reminding myself that photography was not about proper technical lighting, proper exposures or having the ultimate gear….it’s about being able to execute the vision you see in your head, no matter what you think your limits are.

Following those rules, will eventually lead into people gaining enough interest to want to invest their time to commission you to do business with them.

Always be unhappy with your quality of work and I guarantee you will become a better photographer.