Image courtesy of Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen
Isn’t it great when something exceeds your expectations?
Earlier this year, I was invited to participate in a photography competition called Naked in The Capital. It sounded as though the contest would be tons of fun, very different from anything else I have done as well as being an opportunity to create some new work alongside other local photographers. I’m in!
The challenge, based on Toronto’s Naked In the House series, was to photograph a nude model using only one camera, one lense, available light and one roll of film. All ten photographers met at an undisclosed location (a beautiful house in Gatnieau) where we were each given 30 minutes to work with one model in an attempt to produce the best shot. That’s about 1 photo every 2.5 minutes and as I was shooting on film using a camera with no automatic features that meant I had to be super quick on my feet.
I ran into a few snags during my 30 minutes. First of all, I discovered during the shoot that my focusing plate kept popping out of place and re-adjusting it took up precious shooting seconds. Plus, it ended up being an overcast day and I had to shoot at a very slow shutterspeed to make the most of the medium speed roll of film that I had brought – no time for a tripod! All this and we changed locations four times. I wanted to make sure that my images were all quite different so I moved the model from the entrance, to the dining room, to the bathroom and then the livingroom. I totally worked up a sweat. The shoot ended up flying by much faster than I expected and in the end I actually ran out of time!
Following the shoot, we selected our three best images and with little to no image enhancement printed and framed the photographs for display at arts & architecture. An extra element of mystery was added by exhibiting everyone’s prints without the photographer’s names attached to them so no one really knew whose was whose. On opening night each photographer voted on which three images they felt were best (obviously not being able to vote for our own). This was actually very tough for me because the work was all suprisingly very different!
Well, on November 5th at the show’s vernissage, they annouced the winners: 3rd place went to Ralph Nevins, 2nd place went to Brittany Veinot and I was thrilled to hear that 1st place was awarded to…me! It was such an honour to be selected by my peers – especially since the competition was steep!
If you are in Ottawa and want to check out the photographs, the exhibit will remain on display until November 19th. All images are available for purchase with 100% of proceeds going to the Ottawa Snowsuit Fund so if there is something you like, buy it. You’ll feel good about it.
Oh, ATV did a nice piece on the actual photo shoot giving a detailed explanation of the process and contest. The news clip can be viewed here.
Overall the whole experience with ”Naked in the Capital” was fantastic – I met some great people and had a lot of fun. Plus, this event is sure to spill into some more fun next year as part of my prize is a solo exhibit at art & achitechture in 2010! So stay tuned for information regarding this special upcoming show!
A few months ago we received some incredible news: Ne pas reculer was going to the Cannes Film Festival – the most prestigious film festival in the world! Both Telefilm Canada and SODEC selected the film to appear as part of the Canadian exhibition at the 2012 Festival. With thousands of talented people making films in Canada each year and to be involved with one of the handful of films that are selected to represent our country is so thrilling! A huge congratulations to the team who created this film – and I am so proud of my hubby!
I always find it fascinating to see how other photographers portray themselves. I first became interested in photographer’s self-portraits when I was introduced to the cinematically inspired work of 
