Last winter, I was contacted by one of my clients, TINCUP Whiskey with a unique project. They asked me to be in a TV commercial that was filming in Chile. I had the chance to co-star with some great talent including Renan Ozturk, Sam Elias, Max Lowe, Isaac Johnston & Nathan Martin. We filmed for a few days in the high alpine near Santiago. Check out the commercial below :
shayd johnson
Blundstone X Pilgrimme
Blundstone Canada sent me to my favourite restaurant to photograph chef Jesse McCleery & his partner Leanne Lalonde a part of their Blundstone Ambassador program. Pilgrimme restaurant is a unique farm-to-table experience, where Jesse brings unique and interesting techniques and flavours to the table from foraged wild berries to fermented and dehydrated vegetables. Each dish we sampled was unbelievable, I can still remember the flavours to this day.
Over the course of 2 days, we booked a cabin at Bodega Ridge, explored the island, including a hike with Jesse & Leanne to forage for some secret ingredients near the beach. I chose to shoot 2 rolls of film on this shoot as Blundstone provided me with creative freedom to capture a profile of the restaurant. Here are a few shots, enjoy!
Finding second-hand gems
Ever since I shot my first roll of film in 2009, I have been obsessed with finding old film cameras. Sometimes I get lucky and a relative or friend will drop off a box of old cameras for me to rummage through, but often enough, there aren't any treasures.
As the technology advances, and digital imagery becomes more popular, it's becoming harder and harder to find what I'm looking for. There's really an art to keeping film alive, and one of the best ways is the second-hand market via Kijiji.
Kijiji is nice and easy to use, I was able to search for various cameras and quickly find what I was looking for... this was a surprise as the cameras I am after are becoming more rare. I was able to set up a deal for the camera and a lens at a fraction of the price of finding one at a used camera store, and the best part was picking it up off a seasoned photographer who was retiring and had bought the camera brand new.
The treasure I found is a high-end film camera from the 90's called a Mamiya RZ67Proii. This camera was often used by celebrity photographers like Annie Leibovitz and remains a sought-after film camera for artists and professionals looking for a high-quality image with the beauty of film.
Here are a couple of shots from the first roll of film I shot down at the beach.
