That was Product-ive.

We had an assignment to do some product shots for school. Our instructor had this really epic/fancy setup that he showed us, complete with a fancy black synthetic surface to shoot on, and a table-top mini studio... OR a massive scrim tilted 45 degrees away from a big window, all of which I don't have at home.

So, being the thrifty daughter of a home economist that I am, I got creative. I stopped by Home Hardware to buy some veneer (wood, black or otherwise) to shoot on. They had none. They did, however, have white sticky drawer liner. It was sold in a 9' roll for $6. How could I resist?

I had to move fast because the assignment was due the next day and I was quickly running out of daylight. I figured I could use the drawer liner as both a scrim and surface to shoot on. I ended up sticking one half to a table that I placed in front of my window, and stuck the long end up the window (so it ended up like a studio backdrop would look, but miniature sized.)

Thank heavens for photoshop, because I was getting raindrop shadows on my background and tiny bubbles on the 'ground,' as it were.

Here they are:

A necklace, shot with daylight


My Grandpa's (my) 1955 Leica M3



I won't quit my day job, but if I need to sell stuff on Ebay, I may use that again.

Fresh (prince of Bel) Air.

I spent Thursday evening and all afternoon Saturday snapping photos at Jordie Lunn's fantastic new dj course. He held a rider-judged competition called Fresh Air, sponsored by Blackbox Labs.

There were lots of other photographers there, including Adrian Marcoux, Ian Hylands, Dan Barham, Baxter Redfern, Reuben Krabbe, Mike Reid, and many more. Check out their sites if you get the chance.

Jordie and the boys.


The winner, Brandon Semeniuk



Some other snaps





Okay that was fun. Again, again!

My teacher stole my bike, so I shot him.

This week was action sports week at Western. Ian Hylands, a mountain bike photographer, enlightened us to the secrets of sports photography. I finally got my pocket wizards working so I played with flash + action + outdoors for the first time. It was fun.

We didn't have anyone willing to ride the muddy trail so Hylands ponied up and did it, on my bike. He's 40lbs heavier than me and kept mentioning that he was bottoming out my fork. The bike is good though, I went for a ride after class and it was working fine.

I am aware that one of them is crooked and the rider is sketching out on the corner. oops.




Afterward we checked out the new dirt jump course in jordie lunn's backyard and I sniped some shots:

So, you got my back and everything, right?

"Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter."



"Take a look at what I'm wearing, people. You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys? Forget about it."

Architecture, Omaha, and Bill Gates.

So last week was fairly eventful. After returning to Victoria from Tofino, I had 1.5 days of classes then a quick turnaround to the airport for a weekend adventure. At school we went to the provincial Legislature building to snap some shots, as seen here:






Then, on Thursday evening I flew back to Calgary to say hi to Mum and Dad, then Dad and I woke up at 3:30am to head to the airport to fly to Omaha, Nebraska. We had a stopover in Chicago and arrived in Omaha in the early afternoon. The airport is ridiculously close to downtown, and we were at our hotel within 20 minutes of landing.

We looked around and checked out the Old Market and Durham Rail Station, then my older brother and sister flew in from London (via Chicago) to meet us.

The highlight of the trip was going to the Woodstock of Capitalism, the Berkshire Hathaway AGM, where I sniped some photos of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Both of them are, undubitably, righteous dudes.







That curvy shot is a bridge that crosses the Missouri River, which divides Nebraska and Iowa. We walked to Iowa and back. It was thrilling.

Look mom, I joined a gang!

I got forced to miss Festivus in Whistler last weekend. Bummer, I know.

Instead, I got dragged up to Tofino (Canadian surfer's paradise) for the weekend. I had to be there for class on Monday and Tuesday, so my surfer friend Logan picked me up in his VW camper van and we hit the road. I'm not a surfer and only really like to be cold when I'm in my ski gear, so I stayed on dry land and shot for five days straight. It was fun. Tofino is cool. The swell was virtually nonexistant and I sadly don't have a 600mm telephoto lens:

Logan... action sucks but the colors are nice.


In our camping spot in Bella Pacifica Campground, we couldn't help but notice the amazing tunes going down at the camp just across from ours. We could hear a plethora of instruments and a song about Silence of the Lambs. Intrigued, and a bit creeped out, we headed across to introduce ourselves to these guys (and their friends.)

Eric and Mark. Members of Deathpedal the bicycle gang. Three nights of uproarious campfireage ensued.



Logan making the best of a bad situation



... and finally in class on Tuesday morning I had to shoot some tide pools at rosie bay. It was interesting I guess.

Best day of my life. Basically.

So today I woke up at the leisurely hour of 9:30am. I peered outside of the Batcave and saw some absolutely disgusting weather outside. Batman, however, was somewhat optimistic about the snow report. He told me there were 7cms of fresh waiting up there to be skied. I saw rain. I dawdled. I missed out on some decent turns first thing in the morning, I think.

Batman and I headed up Blackcomb and ran into Jenn and Hojo on lap 1. I skied Diamond while the others had a delightful time skiing down Ruby. We lapped it again, this time Jenn and I skied one of our favorite chutes into Diamond. It was delicious, kinda like Diamond Shreddies probably are.

Unfortunately on the ski out Jenn hit a gap to flat (or something,) tweaked her back, and they had to head down. By that time, however, Batman and I had met up with the littlest Treadways and the owner of Biglines.com so we had a fantastic shred posse for the rest of the afternoon. Tessa and I got some tasty turns in Secret Chute and Purple Haze, and then it was time for lunch.

I enjoyed a yummy cod fajita. Cod, odd, I know. Next we headed up to catch the Horstman t-bar. All this time it was puking. Magically the clouds parted right as we arrived at the top, so we all headed over to Chainsaw Ridge to see what was waiting for us. There was maybe one track in the entire bowl. Tim pulled out his video camera and we dropped in- the snow was perfection. Since we couldn't go into the high alpine anymore, the day was finished off with some cafe cliffs to Jersey Cream lift line laps!

Erica and I went for sushi at the new restaurant at the Blackcomb base, and it was AWESOME. Then, all that blathering above is leading to this... we had a very quick photo shoot outside her house, cause that's what the cool kids do on Friday nights.

Springtime at Lake Lousy.

Last week I headed home to AB for the 2009 Lake Louise Big Mountain Challenge. I picked a line where I could charge all my drops but alas, on drop #2 there was a sizable dent in the snow I was planning to land in and it chucked me onto my hip. I carried on my merry way but the little hiccup in my run was enough to knock me out of qualifiers since the other girls skied more cautiously (a good idea since the conditions weren't very desirable.)

I was stoked though, because it meant I got to shoot photos the rest of the time!

Slideshow of my images:


Lake Louise Big Mountain Challenge 2009 from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.

Enjoy. The song is 'Walking on a Dream' by Empire of the Sun.

First, survive. Next, take people on an adventure.

This coming July, I will be going on a 13 day adventure from Calgary down to SE Oregon to kayak the Owyhee River. The trip is organized by Mikey and Bonnie Lang, founders of Survive and Thrive Adventures Inc. Mikey has just finished treatment for Hodgkin's stage 3 Lymphoma, which manifested itself as a grapefruit-sized tumor in the middle of his chest. Interestingly enough, it was when a doctor asked Mikey if he was feeling itchy, that cancer became a possible diagnosis for the asthma-like symptoms he was suffering from.

Mikey and Bonnie are really positive and optimistic people, and they want to expose the struggles of young adults with cancer, so they are taking 7 other young adult cancer survivors kayaking for the first time. The challenge of kayaking in whitewater needs to be faced in the same way that cancer should be: with optimism and courage.

I'm really excited to photograph this journey, and just today I got a sweet new pelican case to keep my camera gear dry while kayaking down the river. I met up with Mikey and Bonnie today to take some photos, here they are:

Gnomely.

Done the project, uploaded it on youtube... and it looks like garbage. The photos are now not in time with the music... but you'll get the idea, nonetheless.

Enjoy:



Many thanks to the gnome in my kitchen for being such a good sport. He's in a better place now.