So Chinatown in Ottawa is having an arts festival called Chinatown Remixed. The grand opening is May 18th from 1:30 – 5:30pm. Tonight I did a photoshoot for China Doll’s exhibit, here are just a handful of photos we did in collaboration with many wonderful models, we had China Doll style everyone just like her! It was fun.
This weekend I did a few self portraits.
I was really inspired by movement self portraits by this photographer that does levitation photography
I decided to try movement by “whipping my hair back and forth”. I used a gold vintage belt as a head piece. I like how it looks like I’m under water. Like my hair is floating. I did some film making before with mythology pieces from the arctic as inspiration. There are stories of women that lived in the water and would steal children that would play close to the waters edge. They would take them to live with them in the water.
Tech specks of the shoot:
40D Canon with a f/1.8 50mm lens
iso 100, with a 580ex flash on half power on manual mode.
Pictures shot in RAW and processed in light room. Played with the colour balance.
I shot this in a 12×12 office space so I did bounce flash to have softer lighting.
I put this on a self timer, and of course a tri-pod. I had a lamp in the spot of where
I was going to be so that I could make sure I was in focus. One thing I noticed was that since my f/stop was
a bit lower there was less depth of field. This means that there was a smaller area (plane of focus).
So I found that with my movement I didn’t always stay in focus, but the pictures did turn out great.
I also found that it’s difficult to have a calm or controlled facial expression when making fast movements with your head.
So I had to practice controlling what face expressions I wanted while in mid movement. Props to models that can do this!
So I recorded these tracks at Kevin Komoranski’s home studio. We recorded these tracks live with no edits. This was a test for doing audio recording at Algonquin College. Kevin is a teacher at Algonquin and we ended up recording the song Truth Serum at Algonquin with his students. The funny part about the recording session at Algonquin was I had a photo shoot to go after so I had to be dressed up all glamorous for 9am all the way till almost midnight. It was a long day, but it was amazing! The track wil possibly be shared in the next few months or so. For now, this is what you get. Free downloads!
So I’ve been currently in a home studio laying some rough tracks to record in studio. I will be posting them quite soon. Mailyne from Dream Love Grow surprised me with this behind the scenes edit from the music video “Hibernate”. Thank you Mailyne for this wonderful surprise, you did a great job!
So Mailyne from Dreamlovegrow.com was unable to do live painting as expected. She just announced she is having a baby! I am so excited and happy for her. She may be moving to the same city as me.This will mean more creative collabs. For Ottawa Fashion Week I had Becky Mearns perform with me both nights. It was such a delight to have her with me up on stage. Ottawa Fashion Week keeps getting better and better! The fashion shows are amazing, they have pro lighting on the run way and a lot of amazing designers and artists that come by. The pictures below are from bookthebooth.ca and Ming Wu a local photographer/events blogger! Thank you for the pictures!
Hanging out with my friends!
We tried jumping!
I’ve had this dream to sing and perform on stage since I was a little girl. As I grew up, it became more difficult to perform and feel confident with my performances. I would think about screwing up on stage while performing until I did. I would get the shakes, cold sweats and complete fright.
I’ve been performing live shows now for 5 years and finally after 5 years of performances I do not feel as scared and afraid. I’ve really had to push myself out of having stage fright because performing and music is my passion and I choose not to let something like that get in the way of my dream.
So how do you get over stage fright? Here are some tricks I’ve done.
1. Think of the stage as your home. Make your self feel at home. What would make you feel good? What does it take for you to own the stage?
2. Try performing in a group to start and than on your own. You can feed off other band members (who are more confident).
3. Look at what you are afraid of. Is it people judging you? Is it you judging you? Once you have figured it out, you need to let it go. Also congratulate your self for even being up on stage. I don’t care what stage you are in the music game, I absolutely respect everyone who is on stage because it takes courage to do it.
4. If people are being critical of you, you need to be neutral, curious and look at where they are coming from. Are they coming from a loving place? Is this someone you truly value and love or is this someone being mean to you? I get critics online from this blog, they waste their time commenting here instead of focusing on something more fulfilling. These people have yet to come from a loving place, so I don’t take it personally at all. I feel sad for them because they are wasting their time and energy. Why not focus on being the best you can be and leave others alone?
5. Visualize before the show as if you are there right now. Imagine the pot lights in your eyes blinding you from the audience, the rough black stage floors with black tape all over it, the microphone. Now feel the confidence you want to feel and all the people you don’t know waiting to hear you sing. Think of how you will say “Hi” with love and confidence. When you really are on stage think of that again.
Thank you!
Love & Good Melodies
~ May-Jun
So I’m apart of the China town Remixed. This is when artists collaborate with China town in Ottawa and have local art in many stores as well as performances. This year I will be posting self portraits in a store as well as performing. This is a sneak peak to what is to come.
The photography concept is letting go of the idea of who you think you are. This means to me letting go of the idea of defining yourself by what you do, where you work and what you have. This is my expression of letting that go.
I’ve been very inspired by other self portrait artist/photographers. My friend Richard Desmerais recommended some female photographers that are absolutely stunning. Here are there links for you to enjoy.
www.rebekkagudleifs.com
www.missaniela.com
www.sheispretty.carbonmade.com
www.parkeharrison.com
My favorite of them all is Rebekka Gudleifs.
I do photo shoots professionally. I have a great list of credentials and experience for photography and encourage you to take a look at my new website.
Some of my credentials include: I have a photography diploma, I’ve shot weddings overseas, worked for many established magazines, and much more.
I’m currently booking overseas weddings, local weddings, portraits and architecture shoots.
Other exciting things that are coming up are:
I’m doing traditional inuit throat singing for Canadian Future Achievers
If you want to see my Inuit throat singing collaboration watch the video below:
Canadian Future Achievers is a great organization to donate to. This is mostly private funded non for profit that gives money to minority youth that are doing an exceptional job at school. They provide financial incentives as well as other incentives to be supported in continuing their education.
I have a modelling gig in Toronto this coming month for http://www.davidscott.com/
I will be doing a head shot with cupcakes!
This is what he has been doing so far for his body of work.
I have also modelled for other commercial photographers such as Richard Desmerais, this is what came of the shoot we did together.
I really enjoy both modelling and photography. I enjoy them both for different reasons, but truly feel lucky that I get to have fun on the job.
Love and Good melodies
~ May-Jun
1. Make a date with your self for half a day and go some where you have never been or barely go. Some where close to home hopefully a place that is inspiring. Like a museum, a restaurant and or park.
2. Make a themed night out, my friends have Where’s Waldo Karaoke night.
3. Break a rule, eat dessert first and breakfast for dinner.
4. If you order complicated Starbucks drinks, just get a coffee, if you order plain coffee drinks order something ridiculously complicated like a half sweet, mocha late, that is skinny and with a touch of whipped cream?
5. If no one is home, make sure you have a dance party wearing the most ridiculous out fit ever and put on your favorite music.
6. Instead of watching TV, try laying upside down on your couch talking with someone you love. See how funny and vast your conversation can be.
7. Have a home cooked meal with someone and than dare to talk about your experience with being successful. Even if you don’t consider yourself successful, you can be a success for something and talk about it and enjoy it!
ps: image credit http://sickoner.deviantart.com/art/J-ai-pas-d-inspiration-78934058
Ottawa Fashion week is a 3 day event that happens at the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. It was a beautiful experience performing at this venue. There is a huge walk way (like a ramp) that has several hundred foot high ceilings all made of window. The length of the walk way is quite long. I was at the bottom of this walk way on a stage with Mailyne doing live painting. Once the fashion show was done, there were hundreds of people walking towards me and moving around the stage getting wine and taking pictures. It was a really beautiful site watching this mob of people slowly come to me and than kind of disperse. Mailyne did a beautiful painting job. The last day was a charity fashion show and we donated the painting with one of my CD/DVD compilations to help raise money. Here are some pictures from the show! I was so grateful that Mailynes partner in crime Kyle took video and photos of the performance and Ming Wu a talented local Ottawa event photographer took some great photos of the event too!
photo by http://photogmusic.com/?p=13450
photo by http://photogmusic.com/?p=13450
photo by http://photogmusic.com/?p=13450
photo by http://photogmusic.com/?p=13450
photo by http://dreamlovegrow.com/
This band MTL played as well. They were super awesome.
photo by http://dreamlovegrow.com/
photo by http://dreamlovegrow.com/
photo by http://dreamlovegrow.com/
photo by http://dreamlovegrow.com/
So these past few weeks I’ve been acting in a children’s tv show. I did Inuit throat singing and I also acted as an alien. The funny thing was I was painted green for 8 hours and when we had a lunch break, the server treated me like having a green face was totally normal, like it was just as normal as brown eyes! The video shoot went really well and it was a great experience! By the end of the day I was really dirty and felt like a 5 year old because I gave up on caring how dirty I was….Tomorrow I’m preforming at the National Art Gallery for Ottawa Fashion Week. I’m having Mailyne from Dream Love Grow do live painting while I sing for the fashionistas of Ottawa!
