It probably doesn’t surprise you to read that this isn’t a single exposure from my camera. This single image, which will be hanging in the museum starting September 10, is actually a composite of more than 30 separate photographs, selected from over 1000 exposures (probably closer to 1500 but I’m not going to count). That’s about the extent of my technique that I’m going to reveal, except to say that in every way, I have never attempted anything like this before. Yes I’ve done photo composites before, but usually a single location, with 1 or 2 people, and 1 or 2 photographs merged into one.

I did two composites earlier this year (not knowing I would use, nay stretch, the technique into this one made up of three locations, 17 people, and 30-plus photos). Cake, right? My computer didn’t think so. (Warning: I’m going to geek out once more for a bit here) Before this project I thought Macs and Photoshop (a legit CS4 version on an 8-month new 27” iMac i7 with 8GB RAM) were fast and stable systems. That is until Photoshop starts saving your files automatically into the “.psb” format (not .psd for those who know what I mean). That means you’ve gone past the maximum file size that .psd can handle into this other realm known as “Large File Format”. It begins to happen around 2GB. When it gets up to 5 or 6GB, that’s when your (my) previously stable system begins to crash and reboots to reduce crashes are the norm. Saving your progress takes 5-10 minutes when you’re working with a 6GB file. Opening a 6GB file takes 5-10 minutes. Then there’s visually inspecting 200 million pixels to make sure there aren’t any defects… and fixing the defects you find (I hope I found them all). Let’s just say it took a whole lot of time to do the post production on this image.

Which brings us full circle. Back to the print lab. I’m still here, in my third coffee shop today, blogging this verbose retrospective. The proofs for my print will be ready to view tomorrow, and the mounting material, aluminum, has been ordered. It’ll then take the better part of the remaining 1.5 weeks before the show to print, laminate, mount, and transport (Does your car have room to move a 9.5 foot piece of handle-with-extreme-care metal from Vancouver to Burnaby? Mine doesn’t) the photo by September 9, in time to be installed for the September 10 Opening Party.

If you can’t make the party it will be on display in the museum until November 27. Hope you can make it out to see it! Oh did I mention the title of the photograph is ‘Dispossession’?

Oh, you want to see it here? Well, maybe I’ll post something after the 10th.

At this point, time was not on my side but I’ve never been one to give up a project I believe in. It could be done. It would be done, one way or another. Call me foolishly ambitious. Two things I had going for me: 1. I wasn’t a stranger to the neighbourhood – I [...]

The idea for this photograph was not mine. It was my brother’s. My brother, Dr. Jeff Masuda is a professor of human geography at the University of Manitoba now, but three years ago, we both coincidentally ended up moving to Vancouver within a month of each other. He was doing a post-doc at UBC, researching [...]

I delivered the file to the lab… I should mention that this is no Costco/Superstore/London Drugs lab we’re talking about – this is a pro lab that caters to high end fine art and commercial jobs where they produce prints for some of the most famous photographers in the world… and it’s just a little [...]

It’s been almost a year since Beth Carter of the Japanese Canadian National Museum called me to ask if I would be interested in being a part of this show. Now, as I sit in a Café sipping a coffee, typing on my laptop, waiting for the lab to open so I can deliver my [...]

Almost a year ago, I was asked by Beth Carter at the Japanese Canadian National Museum if I would create some original photography for a group exhibition, along with Mark Takeshi McGregor, Natalie Purschwitz and Miyuki Shinkai. This was quite an honour so naturally I accepted her invitation. I have created a new photograph called [...]

I’m just helping to promote an event for The Documentary Organization of Canada BC Chapter (DOC BC), one of the organizations that has been instrumental in keeping me informed about the documentary film industry, and one whose workshops I have been attending since before I went to film school. DOC BC will be hosting a [...]

So here’s a second attempt at a timelapse and I’m still learning so please forgive the imperfections. The biggest bother in this one are the jumps in the image 4 or 5 times in the sequence. I was shooting with a much longer focal length, about 110-120mm vs about 16mm before and I believe I [...]

I have been a professional photographer now for over a decade, but until last fall, I had not considered making photographs for the purpose of exhibiting them – besides a small amount of personal work, my photographs were made strictly for clients. Then last November I was hired to work on a documentary film about [...]

Yesterday I was pleased to volunteer as the documentary photographer for the camera handout at Hope In Shadows photography contest. Hope In Shadows is produced by Pivot Legal Society, and provides residents of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side an opportunity to photograph their neighbourhood from their perspective – showing the lighter side of an area that [...]