I got to do my first client product photography shoot today – as the photographer. It completely took over my dining room… Good fun!

We used my dining room table for the most part. The exception to this was a some jackets that required a crazy assemblage of plywood and bedsheets to present properly. After looking at the price of proper studio lighting, I went to Canadian Tire and picked up $35 worth of work lights, which did the trick just fine. I splurged on a 28″ Cameron Digital Photo Box which definitely made the small object photography a lot easier as it evens out the lighting nicely and eliminates most of the hot spots and glare. There were still some challenging items (silver-plated bowls and spoons), but the box really made a difference. It also packs down flat so it’s easy to store. If you’re thinking of setting up a little DIY studio, I’d recommend it.

Now comes the really labour-intensive part: retouching and extracting the objects from their backgrounds.

I attended the opening of Thomas Bartlett’s Transformations at Luz Gallery on Thursday night. It was packed so it was a little hard to appreciate the work, but I’ll be going back for a more relaxed viewing as it was beautiful. Even the mounting technique (rare earth magnets) was lovely and minimal. If you haven’t been to the gallery, this show is definitely worth checking out.

Transformations runs until May 1st. Luz Gallery is located at 977A Fort Street.

All moderenized and shiny, the new oculusdesign.ca has launched at last.

The original site still looked good but it was getting mighty old under the hood and I wanted to test a bunch of new tools & techniques to see if they had merit for client work. The result was a mixed bag (no surprise there) that I learned quite a bit from.

It was also an opportunity to update the site for modern browsers, add a blog and some social networking links and seriously overhaul the portfolio section (as well as add new work). Please have a look through and let me know what you think.

Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to Mike Lathrop over at Big Mike Studios for bringing this to fruition.

If you’re in the Cook Street Village, please drop in at Wineworks and check out some prints from my Luminara and Doors series. Jon and Frances have a terrific little shop and it’s well worth a visit.

(I also designed their new identity and signage – fun project)

Hot on the heels of my recent exhibition at Dales Gallery, some of my work is now on display at Antonieta D’Introno’s studio/gallery, located at 532 1/2 Fisgard St., Unit 8 (in Dragon Alley) in Victoria. It’s a small but lovely space where Antonieta works and also sells hard-to-find books on design and architecture (yummy titles with gorgeous photography from Phaidon, Taschen, and other publishers) as well as an assortment of extras like business card holders and mechanical pencils.

Please stop by or call Antonieta at 250 381 4950 to arrange a viewing.