Yanik’s Photo Blog

Did you know that since I’m a professional photographer and teacher I know everything about photography? I’m sure you do! So much so that I often get asked for help and my “professional” opinion in choosing everything from small point-and-shoot to pro body cameras, to lenses and.. well… just about anything related to photography. I’m always glad to help! But I figured that today I would let you in on one of my secrets to helping you choose photo gear better. When you ask me whether you should get this Canon or that Nikon, the first thing I do is go to my favorite Continue Reading »

Hello everybody

Here’s a review of and online photography contest site that’s a lot more than it appears to be! Read on…

DPChallenge was born in January 2002 by 2 young guys (Drew Ungvarsky and Langdon Oliver). The original idea behind the site was for it to be a place where the two of them and a couple of our friends could teach each other to be better photographers by creating weekly challenges. The idea quickly took off and became much more in the months that followed. And now it has 92 738 registered users that have submitted a total of 178 373 images to 849 challenges! It was also rated in the “Top 100 sites you can’t live without” by PC Magazine!

Main focus: the contests

Each week new contests pop up on the main page. Non members (free registration) have 2 themes to choose from for that week (open challenges). Paying members (a measly $25/year) get an extra contest theme which starts at a different date in the week and a monthly “free study”. The open challenges have Continue Reading »

Hello everyone. It’s time for part 2 of my video walkthrough of Photoshop Express! If you haven’t seen part 1, you can view it here. You can also see my review of this free online photo editing software here.

Now, sit back, grab a cup of green tea and Continue Reading »

Happy Monday everybody.

This is our first Spring in our new home “out in the bush”. So seeing nature come alive after a cold winter and 12 feet of snow (a record) is awe-inspiring to say the least! I took my canoe out for the first time a few days back and made my way down river to see if the lake had started to melt. To my joy, the currents had melted a part of the ice for about 200 feet in. I got to soak up this unique and beautiful scenery and I saw these two love birds, actually called Common Mergansers, basking in the warm sun on the edge of the ice. What a sight!

Sitting back at my desk transferring the photos from my CF card, I hear a short scratching sound from the window on my right. I peak out and see Continue Reading »

Welcome to my blog’s first photography video tutorial! Woohoo! Well… it’s more of a walkthrough than a photography tutorial but hey, I’m sure you’ll learn something! I hope you’ll enjoy part 1 of the Adobe Photoshop Express Tutorial / Walkthrough. Stay tuned in the next few days for Continue Reading »

I woke up this morning to a majestic sight. Not 1, not 2, but 3 Great Herons dosing and fishing on the river! This was followed by a pair of Loons making their way up river. WOW! My friends are slowly coming back north and I’m enjoying every minute of it. There’s still about a foot of snow left on the ground but that hasn’t stopped any of the critters from migrating back to their summer homes.

Ok, let me get a little philosophical now…. Waking up to such a sight reminds me Continue Reading »

Good morning every body

I just had the opportunity to test drive Adobe’s free online image editing software called Photoshop Express.

Having been an avid Photoshop user for roughly 7 years and also giving workshops, I wasn’t expecting much from a free Flash-based software. But boy was I impressed when I loaded my first image and started playing with the various adjustments. Let me break it down for you: Continue Reading »

Well guys…. being a Fench Canadian, I have a strong French speaking following and I was asked why my blog was in English. To be honest, I was torn. I eventually decided to go with English as most (if not all) of my French speaking readers understand English which is not true the other way around. And typing everything in both languages was out of the question since it’s soooooo time consuming. So that was my head speaking….

After discussing the issue with people close to me, I’m happy to say that I found a middle ground. So here it is… posts related to Quebec events or issues will be in French with an English summary. All other posts will be in English with a French summary. Ahh the joys of living in the Great White North! I’ll try it out for a while and hope for the best!

—————–

Mes chers lecteurs francophones

J’ai pris la décision d’incorporer ma belle langue maternelle dans tous mes écrits du blog. Lorsque le thème touchera le Québec, mes commentaires seront en français avec un résumé anglophone (merci de ne pas m’avoir trop tombé dessus pour mon entrée de Ste-Justine!). Tous mes autres commentaires seront en anglais avec un résumé en français. Je vais essayer ce format et on verra bien!

A couple of weeks back, I got a phone call from Jérôme Tiercelet, the founder of the Un Geste Un Espoir foundation. He needed a photographer to shoot a celebrity fundraiser to raise money for the Ste-Justine Childrens’ Hospital in Montreal. Even though I’ve shot quite a few events, it would be my first time shooting a fundraiser. I thought it was for a good cause so I said yes!

So I drove 3 hours to Montreal the night before Continue Reading »

I did a shoot at my friend’s studio in Montreal to boost my stock photo portfolio. I hired 4 models and spent 1 1/2 days shooting more than 1000 images. We had a blast! I made sure we were all well fed and happy. I had my shot lists ready and we didn’t waste much time. I would like to thank Audrey, Catherine, Shamel and Pat for their awesome work!

I did manage to loose roughly 100 images…. yup…. I got a new TopRam 8gb CF card off Ebay and it came with a USB CF card reader (which I thought was quite nifty). Well, during the transfer to my laptop, an error message appeared. Needless to say that the card got corrupted and was unreadable. 650 images down the drain?? No way! Luckly I knew that I had a data recovery program at home. I had some cold sweats anyways but I told myself that everything was going to be alright. I was able to recover almost all images except roughly 100 of them. Luckily I usually take 2 shots of each pose! All I have to do now is to test both the card reader and the CF card to see which one is caput.

Here are some samples of the shoot. Enjoy!