Carlie Forsythe Photography

Last Entry?

2010-03-23T19:12:00.001-04:00

This may be the last post I put up on Blogspot. I have since moved over to Wordpress where I can organize my blog space a bit better. Anyways, here is sneak peek of what is now over on the Wordpress account. For those that are interested, visit me at: http://cforsythephotography.wordpress.com/

Families (in Black and White)

2009-10-18T22:22:00.011-04:00

So earlier this week I was asked to photograph my best buddy's sister and her family again (I photographed them last fall, also). My have the girls gotten big! Avery is on the left and Hailey on the right in the below photo. Anyways, we went to the train station (as much as I try not to overuse it, it still makes a great background!), we got some great shots, and I broke part of my brand new off camera flash system (need not fear, the parts are in the mail!) It was well worth it.

The below photo is sort of an idea I've had for a year waiting to use it on Tanya, Kevin, and the kids. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Props go out to my colleague Peter for helping edit several photos!

These girls are way too adorable. Hailey is now 4 years old, and Avery is 2... really, she doesn't look like it.

I loved the lighting on Avery's hair in this one!

And a great shot of the beautiful Tanya!

Just recently I was asked by my Superstore co-worker... I mean, colleague... to do some "family" photos of her, her boyfriend, Steve, and her dog Che Che (did I spell that right?). Anyways, this was my favourite shot of the evening. We went to Waterworks park here in town, and getting this shot I stuck my hand in a thistle, but it was well worth it!

In conclusion, I've decided that I want to focus on families and kids in black and white, any takers?

LOLA Fest - Kaki King

2009-09-19T01:02:00.008-04:00

LOLA fest comes to London, Ontario every year, and plays in Victoria Park in the heart of downtown London. This was my first year attending, and first time trying my hand at live band photography. The artist is Kaki King, she's an amazing amazing guitarist. You can find her site here. We were lucky when we got there that she was just warming up and doing sound checks with only a handful of people hanging around, so we got to watch and find our really awesome spot right in front of the stage, just to the side of where Kaki would be. Anyways, she put on an excellent show, nice set of songs, and some great drum solos to boot. These photos are my retelling of this night. Enjoy!

I definitely ended up loving the shots of Kaki talking to us and to her band the most, so I had to throw in another one of these shots.

And a sort of a fun photo of Kaki, she's huge on making faces. She smiled most when talking to the audience and when the drummer was doing one of his crazy but insanely awesome solos.

New Technique

2009-09-07T23:31:00.003-04:00

So I got my hands on a copy of the Zack Arias One Light Workshop dvd about the multiple uses of small off camera flashes. So today I went out with my girlfriend with my Canon 430ex, and crappy Cactus V2 transmitters to try it out. I think I may try modding the V2's, see if they'll fire more accurately for me, and if they don't, I'm thinking Radio Poppers. Anyways, we went out on location looking for someplace sort of cool looking, so we found this old factory amidst all these weeds, so I have the flash and shoot through umbrella set up and I'm testing the lights, and a police cruiser shows up, asks us what we're doing, as if it wasn't clear, and surprisingly, we didn't get kicked off the property. This was a decent frame I got out of a very small handful. Also, I'm trying out a new watermark logo, what do you think?

Surrounded By Water

2009-08-08T22:16:00.004-04:00

I was asked to second shoot a band by my friend and fellow photographer, Anna. The band is Surrounded By Water, they are local to London, and were super cool to hang out with and photograph. It was fun to photograph them, I hadn't heard of them beforehand, and didn't have any idea who played what in the band and who was the frontman. They said to treat them as equals, so we did. I loved the way these photos turned out, made me love photography again. Thanks guys!

Above photo> from left to right: Carter (guitar), Paul (bass), Jimi James (drums), Moss (vocals), and BJ (guitar)

Above photo> Loved this shot from the set up above. This is BJ.

Wedding

2009-08-08T21:18:00.007-04:00

I finally finished up editing some wedding photos from Mike and Nancy's wedding back in July. It was a pretty fun and very tiring wedding, shot for 9 hours. Nancy's family drove/flew in from Mexico for this event; they all spoke Spanish. It was a pretty cool experience trying to communicate with everyone. Anyways, here are a few shots from the wedding.

Latest Shoot

2009-05-24T13:59:00.005-04:00

Welcome back again! I just recently had a shoot with these two just before their prom on Friday night. I loved working with these two, as they were very sweet together and I loved the way they interacted with one another. I wanted to do something a little different than say, get a group of dolled up teens together at Waterworks, and do plain full body shots. Instead we went to a few different locations around town (Alma College and Train Station), and tried a few things. I loved the way these photos turned out. My personal favourite is the very first one just below.

More Updates

2009-05-20T10:59:00.007-04:00

This week my best friend came down unexpectedly, so we went out and took some more pictures for fun, nothing really serious. I've been feeling really uncreative lately (I partly blame working at Superstore photo studio). We went to the Alma College amphitheater, which is now all weeds and unkept and grown in; apparently people are only passionate about historic burnt down locations right after it happens, and a not a year after. Anyways, so these pictures are of Mike, and yes, he's actually playing the guitar in these (yay White Stripes!). I like how these turned out, nice and crisp and clear, I especially love the way I got some nice sun flare in a couple of them, those are pretty much how they looked like straight from camera, I'm pretty impressed with myself, haha.

Alright, also taken this week, a photo of my wonderful girlfriend, Erin, taken at the train station. She's oh so very cute!

Update

2009-05-11T20:41:00.006-04:00

Recently, I just bought a used Canon 24-70mm f2.8 lens from a fellow photographer, and it is sweet (and extra heavy, I think I may have to start lifting weights to actually use my camera now, haha). Anyways, last Wednesday I finally got meet a fellow friend and photographer, Anna, for a bit of a collaborative photo shoot. We went to Harris Park (since we couldn't shoot inside on-location), it was pretty overcast out, which was alright, I guess. I didn't get too many shots I really liked (hence why none are shown here), but we came across this cute little baby squirrel on a tree. It looked pretty tame, so I walked up to the tree, started to pet his tail, then his body, then I was able to snatch him off the tree. I considered the 'getting bitten factor', but having raised over twenty of these little guys, I thought I could take my chance. Anyways, he was a little antsy and nervous in my hands, but other than that, he never bit me, peed on me, or pooped on me (that's better than some critters I've had!) When I tried to put him back on the tree, he apparently didn't want to leave, so we walked around with him more, took some snaps of him on our model for fun, and finally got him back in a tree. This was him looking down at me almost seeing me off and maybe even wishing me well. I made a friend today.

2009-03-30T21:36:00.002-04:00

On my mom's birthday this year (March 22nd), we had some family over that we hardly see. Since kids grow like weeds, my mom wanted me to take them out for pictures at the old train station (as if I wasn't already sick of it). Anyways, this is a really cool new look to do for kids. I honestly didn't try very hard to get these, and looking at them after I stuck the raws on my computer, I was like wow! these are actually pretty good, and they managed to make it into my portfolio. Yay 50d and 50mm lens (I seriously need a new lens)!

From left to right: Rachel (grade 3), Allison (grade 7), and Ashley (grade 5).

Adorable little Rachel. I love the action I used for this, and the sharpness, too.

Traci Kennedy

2009-03-30T21:29:00.002-04:00

Recently I've had the opportunity to photograph a local country singer, Traci Kennedy (find her website here) with local amateur photographer, Mike Whitman, again at the old train station. We got to borrow two really sweet guitars, a blue Epiphone Les Paul, and a massive Wasburn hollowbody (both of which I played for a bit off camera). These are some of my favourites from the shoot. Enjoy!

2009-03-30T21:16:00.004-04:00

Third year running, my annual reading week photos of my best friend Mike! Taken in late February 2009, on-location at Port Stanley and at the old train station (again), which spanned over two days. I'm so happy that there's no more snow, it's warming up, we're getting actual skies now, not just that really crappy overcast, just wow. Winters in Canada suck!

Not much else to say really, other than the weather sucked! Well, I guess these were taken in natural light, and the very last photo just above this, is taken with my trusty Opus light. Inspiration is low in winter months...

Li'l Rascal

2009-03-30T21:09:00.004-04:00

So I'm such a huge pet lover, and so are my parents, that we offer to 'babysit' my mom's friend's son's (wow that's a mouthful!) hamster. So around mid-March this year we got the little fella for a weekend. On the Sunday, my dad had bought me the Canon 50D we had decided on getting, and I was antsy to shoot something... anything! Since being a big fan of some certain rat photos on RedBubble taken by Ellen, that I had an idea of what I could do to break in the new camera. So, these are two photos from my mini in-the-kitchen-on-the-dining-table hamster photoshoot. Hope you enjoy! Taken on 50D with 50mm, f1.8 lens.

I loved the way these turned out so much that I'm going to start my own pet project of photographing my three pooches, Madison and Delilah (chihuahua sisters), and Sampson (Chinese Crested).

2008 Photos

2009-03-30T20:20:00.009-04:00

Alrighty, photo dump #2, best of 2008. I was in second year this year, and learned how to use strobe lights. My body of work is slowly improving. Most of these were taken on my old (and trusty) Canon Rebel XT, with the nifty fifty, 50mm f1.8 lens (unless otherwise noted).

So starting off here, February 2008, is my ex, Danielle. Although the relationship ended badly (and painfully), better things came of it (ie. Erin), and well, these photos quite frankly. I was also playing around with a new look, you'll see it reoccur throughout 2008.

My best friend, Mike, again, carrying on our tradition of doing photos every reading week. This year in the second year studio with strobes. The same post-processing as the previous set. For being a gay girl, I quite like photographing the boys, hmm...

This is the boy I have to thank for making me have to create and use model release forms. Anyways, we see the reoccurrence of this same editing technique, and that seamless white background paper.

So one day, before my studio use ran out in August, I decided I needed to do some self portraits, with the help of Erin. All in black and white, since I'm such a black and white person, and here we are, these three, all lit, setup, and edited by me, Erin simply pushed the button... and well, centered the camera.

There, finally the girl I've been talking about a bit; my beautiful girlfriend, Erin. She likes to remind me that I need to do more photos of her, and since the weather is nice, I have a few ideas to try of her and us together, stay tuned!

Taking a break from studio work, I did co-op with a local photographer. She mostly did weddings, and I second shot them with her. This was taken on a 5D, and the 24-70mm (I think...). I love this image of the bridesmaid overlooking the wedding party.

Who doesn't like baby photos? This is little Vivian (the first two photos were of her when she was just two weeks old, and the third, maybe a month old). In the first shoot (first two photos), I had rented the muslin and a set of lights from the school. So I had gotten the muslin set up in their living room, hanging over an armoire; plugged in the lights, light meter out and everything, tried testing them. Nope, didn't work. Changed batteries. Nope, didn't work. Ok, so my lights weren't working, it was around 4pm in about February, dark soon. Alright, so I'll just use their massive front window for light. I turn on my camera, but wait, it isn't turning on. I had checked all my gear before I left for their house, and the night previous, batteries were full. Thankfully I remembered about the attachment to the battery grip where you can put 6 AA batteries in, so I found 6 AA's, and ran my butt back over to their house to shoot. So now my camera was working, we had gotten little Vivian on the muslin and propped nicely on her dad's arm, and what does she do, she pees all over his arm, all over the borrowed muslin. So in the photo you see there, it's all cropped out. It was a crazy shoot where just about anything that could go wrong, did. But do I ever love the results, even using window light, and my 50mm lens wide open at 1.8 or 2.8, I can't quite remember.

Alright, now onto my most favourite family. This is my best friend's older sister, her husband and two simply adorable children. So over Facebook Tanya contacted me to do family photos for them, so I drove out to their house and got these. And just wow, they're such a great looking family and super easy to photograph! Keep an eye out for more of this wonderful family in the near future!

So Erin is absolutely wonderful at getting me photography jobs. This is of her longtime friend, Laura, and her fiancee, William. This was my favourite photo from this shoot.

Alright, and finally, this here is Jayson. This was taken in December 2008, just when I was getting pretty sick from a bad cold that had been circulating around work, when I got a call from a friend of mine, photographer Mike Whitman, that he had gotten the inside of the train station to photograph in, and that we'd be photographing Jayson. So I sucked it up, and went out in the freezing cold station and took these, except that from being sick, I really wasn't cold... awesome! These were the last photos of 2008 that I've seriously taken.

- Carlie

Alma College Burns

2009-03-30T20:11:00.004-04:00

On May 28, 2008, in the city of St. Thomas, Ontario, there was a protest to keep the hundred-thirty-three year old heritage site, Alma College, from being destroyed by the city. Around 12:05pm, Alma College was set on fire by a few teenagers (who aren't even being penalized). Around 1:oopm on May 29, 2008, the ruins were then fully demolished, just a pile of rubble and bricks. Why do I care about what happened here? Well, I went to school here for kindergarten. Most people in this town feel very strongly towards this building.

With that written, while I didn't photograph it actually burning (so many people captured that, me, I just slept through it all), I did go around 7:00pm that evening and captured these photographs in memory of this historic monument to St. Thomas. I hope I did her well!

2007 - Photos

2009-03-30T20:00:00.004-04:00

So welcome to the first photo dump, I guess you could call it. These are some favourites taken way back in my first year of college (Fanshawe in London, Ontario), in 2007.

This first image is of my best friend, Mike. We spent six hours in the first year, tungsten light studio, just playing around with different lights and lighting techniques. This was more back when I didn't fully understand light. Anyways, this image is called 'Corkscrew Semantics', and remains to this day one of my favourite photographs.

These next two are wedding detail photos from one of my first weddings I've shot with a friend. As a sidenote, I usually really hate gimmicky things like colour in black and white photos, but this is the one example I'll pretty much ever post of it.

This is Steve, he's a great guitarist; he also plays drums, and who knows what else. His recorded stuff is really decent. We met really randomly in first year in quite possibly the nerdiest place in the college, and, breaking out of my shell a little, I offered to do a shoot of him and his guitar. This is one of my favourites from the set, and recently re-edited (and greatly improved) version of the original.

This is my best friend's older sister, Tanya, and inside that baby bump is little Avery (you'll see more of them later, I promise!) Anyways, I wanted to be a little different with these maternity photos, so I had her drive up to Fanshawe, and I just used one main light, with barn doors narrowed, and positioned almost behind her. Totally love this shot!

Welcome!

2009-03-30T15:57:00.000-04:00

So welcome to my new blog here on blogspot.com, what else is there more to say, this is all a pretty cliche first posting.

Anyways, I decided on a photo blog because I kind of wanted a new start to my photography. I'm really working on changing it, improving it, making it cleaner, etc. My inspiration is from watching critique videos on http://www.zarias.com

Plus also having the new Canon 50D. I want to try to use it to its full extent. I've been using the Canon Rebel XT for about three years now, and finally got a worthy update. Photos to come pretty soon, I'll post some older ones, some newer ones, all favourites so far, then I'll start with the posting of new shoots when they happen.

- Carlie