No Toast.

Tamara cutting to the chase!

Bitchin' Brooklin Fair.

So recently My girlfriend Tamara and I went to check out the Brooklin County Fair, just outside of her home town of Whitby. I was picturing like a small ghetto little fair that usually comes to various towns throughout ontario in the summer. Boy was I wrong! This is like a huge oldschool kinda fair with all kinds of rides, ridiculous amounts of tasty americana-isk food to eat, freestyle motocross(dirt bikes hitting huge jumps) and a totally bitchin' crash up derby to top things off. A pretty epic time was had!

Whats a fair without rides that are put together in an hour and the unsuspecting parents that send their kids down them.

So this is mid crash up derby, I was told that these were the amateurs. Once the pros came out after this match (they take things to the next level!) you could see the difference right away; Flooring it and crashing at full speed into each other, fighting with the ref's and as told by an ex derby pro sitting near us, that all the competitors usually hate each other! It was like a manly white trash version of a soup opera!

There was some epic backgrounds there also(this was one of them) whens a 7b around when you need one? Oh well, next time.

Dirt bikers hitting huge jumps and doin' awesome tricks that one would see on the X Games was pretty sweet! luckily no one ate shit and all the bikers survived to jump again next year.

New portraits.

So a long while ago I was shooting photos of people and their tattoo work for the series entitled "Immortalized In Flesh" but had to be put on the back burner as duty called else where aka a whack load of magazine shoots for the totally awesome Pie Magazine. I recently revisited and revised the look of "Immortalized In Flesh" and have been shooting new photos of my friends and friends of friends and their tattoo work they have had done. They all have tattoos for different reasons but are connected through their loving embrace of the art form, design and skill involved in tattooing. Something this series documents.

Nicole.

Kim.

Jeff.

A bittersweet Applied Arts win.

Applied Arts winning image- "Margaret"

In early March I received an email with some much needed good news. I had been chosen as a winner of the prestigious Applied Arts annual professional photography award in the category of portraiture. My grandmother who was the subject of the winning photo had just died a few days before. During the last few monthes of her life, I was responsible for looking after her as she was bed ridden as a result of Lung Cancer. Looking back I remember when I asked her if I could use the photo for the competition many months before, her reply was "if it will win you an award for something then sure!" at the time I was thinking "well Marg don't get your hopes up....." as in the past Applied Arts has a funny way of picking winners, as they have passed on some REALLY talented photographers and peers of mine. Regardless of their motives this one really meant something to me and I am glad my image conveyed that to them in some sort of way. This was my first award as a professional and I am super glad it was with this photo!

The full artist statement for this photo can be viewed on my website under "personal Photographs"

http://ianjameshopkins.carbonmade.com/

Family Visit.

So my sister Christine came all the way up from Massatuchutes for a brief visit a few monthes ago. While she was here she asked me to take a photo of her. These are my two faves. The shoot consisted of 1 flash, 2 backgrounds and LOTS of fun!

Christine.

Christine 2.

Training Wheels: learning new programs!

Test shot from a recent shoot: Edited in Lightroom

So I recently got the program Adobe Lightroom 2. I have been looking around for some post production jobs to supplement my need for new gear and pay for personal projects. Everyone I talked to or met with said this program was the way to go! Well I have been messing around with this puppy for about a week now and boy do I feel like a fish out of water! I have been an avid user of the ol' CS3 and I have gotten pretty darn comfy with its interface and way of doing things. The Lightroom has really shaken things up for me and kinda showed me a new way of processing images. I think it is going to be an awesome program for images within a series and have been shot on similar backgrounds or densities, its like slacking off and not using the numbers to match image colour tones(which can be a pain in the butt anyways). I admit lightroom is way over my head at the moment but as the days go by I feel less overwhelmed and more at the helm! Here are some of my recent adventures in the room of light.

Self Portrait-edited in Lightroom

So I have found that the Lightroom is pretty great for editing colour tones. It can be a little difficult at times but once you get a slight hang of it, it definitely gets easier and more fun too! that's the name of the game right?

Tamara-Wasaga Beach: Lighroom Edit.

Self Portrait: Edited in Lightroom.

All in all I feel Lightroom is an awesome program for editing large sums of photos that need similar tones and contrasts or images that need basic post production done to them. However Lightroom is a little stiff and complicated to get started with, some of the jargon and such is difficult to get into and understand at first. Its also lacks good selection tools, something that I use very often in photoshop. Other then these few things its a pretty sweet tool to get a good base colour and density before "exporting" your images to photoshop. word.

Flowers.

With the death of my grandmother comes great sadness but what also comes with a passing of a loved one are often beautiful flowers from fellow family members, co-workers and neighbours or the deceased long lost friends that most likely have learned of the death through a newspaper. These are the flowers that were recieved at my moms home aswell as roses left at my grandmothers grave.

Roses to be left at the grave.

Flowers from a doctor my mother works with.

Flowers from my girlfriend Tamara.

Flowers from my mothers co-workers.