Black Swan is the Ugly Duckling

"Oooooh I'm so edgy, I'm so creepy and sexual and different. Not. I'm actually just re-telling Girl-Interupted with feathers and leotards. I'll even cast Winona Ryder."

What is the point of creative cinemetography and beautiful special effects, when at the end of the movie I still want my 2 hours back?

Darren Aronofsky, nice try, but next time don't be the world's biggest cop-out.

Sorry Portman, this time it's not your fault. I just expected your director to not fall asleep at the reel when it was time to deliver an ending that met the expectations of all the over-zealous foreshadowing. Either that or AT LEAST not make the simple premis SO OBVIOUS and make us expect the unexpected, just to have it RIPPED out from under our feet with the incredibly anticlimatic truth that, no, there was actually no more story to tell.

MY BABY TO BE

I thought it was a great camera. And then I researched even more and discovered it's a GODLIKE camera. It is worthy of my worship.

I love Ken Rockwell. He was reviews on EVERYTHING and pretty much answers all my questions. This is his HUGE indepth review on the D7000.

The D7000 has a max ISO of 25,600. 25,600. I can't friggen believe it. And the grain is almost non-esistent. No one even needs an ISO that high. This is a picture taken under MOONLIGHT on the d7000 with an ISO of 6,400. HANDHELD. HAND-FREAKING-HELD. Goodbye tripods.

See that dot in the top left? THATS A PLANET. A FREAKING PLANET.

I am also torn. I kinda want to get a new lens. Either the 16-85mm, which would be beautiful for instant wide to portrait zoom transitions. Or the 18-200mm, which is the same idea, but with way more telephoto then what I would likely need for a portrait shoot. I'm not sure would be best to shoot video with. Probably the 18-200mm.

This is a video of the a guy named Chase Jarvis who was hired to make a short film for Nikon before the D7000 was released. A 'roadtest' if you will. It's pretty wild.

My family got me a gift card for Kerrisdale Cameras for Christmas, who are selling this puppy without a lense for 1,200. They paid 85 % of it. I can't freakin believe it. I literally cried when I opened the gift. I am so. stoaked.

A Very Potter Musical

I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO DO THIS MUSICAL WITH MY FRIENDS. HOLY CRAP I WISH I COULD BE UNEMPLYED AND DO NOTHING BUT MUSICAL THEATRE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Long live Harry Potter.

I miss musical theatre. I will do nothing but watch this all day now. lol.

Don't pretend to be surprised I'm a nerd. Someone who likes computers, film, reading and musical theatre? Come on, I was born this way. I thought it was just a faze....

Don't feel sorry for me. Nerds have WAY more fun. I mean way.

Love love

Dead Like Me: A Vampire Transformation

The Brief:

A stoic, apathetic vampire gives his young, ardent mate the gift (or curse) of immortality.

Models:
Robbie Piercy
Mark Edwards

Makeup Artistry by Anthea Kuan

For the full album of these photos, please visit my My Facebook. If you aren't my friend, and you can't, I have most of them on my My Website. Which is pretty cool, so you should look at it. I'm so dope.

Anyfang, here are some of my favs.

Many thanks to Anthea for offering her fantastic make-up services! And of course endless gratitude goes out to my talented models, who worked under extremely cold circumstances!

Hope you enjoyed!

TTFN

Up Coming Photoshoot...

Kisha was BEGGING me for a teaser, so here it is...

I only just started editing them, but they shouldn't take long. They aren't that many and the editing should be nice and simple :)

Ciao for now!

New Things in Life

So, my Lifetouch stint has come and gone, which is a sad thing, but not as sad as it could have been, had i not found the job I'm in now.

By some beloved miracle I stumbled across a job where I am now working as a Media Technician in the MultiMedia Services Department at Royal Jubilee.

 (My ID card makes me feel important, haha)

So far my job entails things like OR (Operating Room) and Morgue Photography. I know what your thinking. Sunshine and rainbows.
I was showed how to scrub in and prepare for shooting in the operating rooms, which was pretty sweet and made me feel like I was on Grey's Anatomy.

I also have to film the nurses, maintenance crew and other such people in training for when the new facility opens in January. So far that part has actually been pretty fun. I got to learn about all the fancy-dancy high-tech equipment the staff will be using (although, to be honest, I'm not sure how they will manage considering people keep seeing me with my video camera and microphone and asking me what I'm taking pictures of).

But today was actually the first time I shot on the construction site. So I have to sport a reflective vest and a hardhat, along with steel toed boots, and then follow the maintenance guys around while they are being trained on all the electrical and plumbing equipment, etc etc.

It's strange actually, because the job is in my field, but has actually exposed me to things I never thought I'd ever see or be in the middle of. I get a behind-the-scenes look at the hospital and how it runs, as well as the complicity of the construction of such a huge site.

So far, things here are awesome. I'm getting paid more than I ever have before, to do things that I love and that I'm good at. That's pretty much the life.

Oh, also, I feel the need to show you this picture of what we call The Robot. It's actually called a duplicator, but it burns and copies dvds, then labels them, and it has this little robot arm that moves the discs around to their corresponding locations. SO INTENSE.

ALSO, I FINALLY spent some time putting together a new FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY SITE!!

 The system of my old site was just WAAAYYY too inconvenient for updating my photography portfolio. I'm doing so many shoots these days, that I need to be able to update my site easily and efficiently, and my old site just wasn't cut it. So I'm still using my old site, (www.maelinadegrasse.com) but my photography page now links to an outside webpage. It's pretty, efficient, and easily updated. And I'm super excited because now I can hand out business cards without feeling guilty about having to tell them that my most recent work is only available on facebook. lol lameness.

AND YOU CAN VISIT IT HERE (HINT HINT)

Okie Dokie,

Until next time!

Lurve Meena

Teaser...

A shoot I've been coordinating for a few months. Shot it just this Monday. HUGE success!

Here's a sneak peak...

Makeup by Anthea Kuan

This is Why I Love(d) My Job

This is why I love(d) my job...

Let me explain...

I started a new job in September with Lifetouch Photography, a company that does school portraits, as well as some studio stuff as well. But my job was doing school portraits. A LOT of early mornings, getting up at 4:30 or 5 to drive out to Duncan or Lake Cowichan or even Youbou. This may or may not come as a surprise to you, but it's possibly the most fun I've ever had at a job, (Okay, except for the Olympics, because not much can beat that haha). And since it's working with a photography company, and thousands of kids, I can't use any of the photos in my portfolio or anything, so I don't have much to show you. I can, however, get away with keeping this photo as my own personal memorabilia of my time with Lifetouch, since technically this student is relatively unidentifiable. (By the way, that board he's holding is our start/room board. I have to take a shot of it every 60 shots or so, and sometimes I like to get the kids to hold it for me.)

So, as much fun as I'm having, it's unfortunately a seasonal job, so in the next couple weeks, it'll goodbye Lifetouch. I'm already on the hunt for a new job, so hopefully I won't land myself in the poor house AGAIN this year.

Caio for now mi caros!

SHAWN SLAVIN: An Inspiration

So a few months ago, a University in Spain called UVIC, made a lipdub (a lipsyncing/audio dub video done in as few shots as possible) that mistakenly got attributed to the Uvic students of VICTORIA by none other than Perez Hilton.

When Slavin discovered this, he decided that Uvic (Victoria) should do their OWN lipdub sensation. He spent months organizing, had dozens of businesses donate their time, money, or product to the cause, and the proceeds of the event were to raise money for the Children's Hospital.

Incredible donations included Red Bull providing crates and crates of energy drinks for the students that were on site at 7 am, some of which stayed until 8pm that evening. Aclara Promotions volunteered their time and efforts and produced the whole video free of charge. Alibaba's and Hot House Pizza donated 5000 dollars worth of Pizza. And of course, BC Transit donated a bus. Okay, well the lent the bus.

Slavin and his cause appeared all over the news, in television, radio and print, did countless interviews, and even went to Vancouver to contact Michael Bublé's manager to get copyright permission for the song. I understand that Bublé was even supposed to make an appearance in the video, but with the life of a popular recording artist, I guess it didn't work out.


The Spain Lipdub consisted of 400 some-odd people, and Slavin was hoping to beat the Guinness world record by getting over 1500 people involved. (I think that's the number, I may be wrong.) In the end, he had almost 1000 students show up that morning to participate. 


The argument as to whether or not Victoria's Lip Dub was better than the Spain's Lip Dub, is a bit of a moot point. Because Shawn's goal was to bring the community together in a fun, once in a lifetime event, and I believe I speak for most of us, that it is astounding how much he accomplished. Most Lip Dubs are organized by media programs, or film schools, but this Chemisty-Psychology Double Major student decided to take the bull by the horns and coordinate his own.

 

I really want to congratulate Shawn. I'm sure he's heard it a thousand times, but I can't stress enough what an incredible person it takes to accomplish something of this grandeur. I'm impressed and inspired and know for a fact that this kid will go so far in life, and that this is only the beginning of his accomplishments.

I had to make it quite small to fit it here on my page, so watch it in full screen, or better yet, go to the Youtube page to watch it!



So please share this with as many people as you can, and help Shawn make this video go viral!!!!

CLICK HERE to watch it on YOUTUBE and comment, like, and share it!

Cheers,

Meena

For Harry Potter Nerds Only.

This is so dumb, it's funny.



Draco likes face paint...do do do do do....

Sorry, only those blessed to be nerds will enjoy this. Sorry to the rest of you. Yay nerd power.

The First Wedding and Lifetouch

Rather self explanatory really... to be honest, weddings so far, have been a pain in my ass. I'm sure the more I do, the better I'll get, etc etc. But my God it's a lot of work, and sometimes people can be really unappreciative.

But on the bright side, this was only my first wedding, and I have a lot of improving to do, but I feel as though I have learned so much already. There is a lot to learn, and I think the second wedding that I shot on the 14th, had a considerable amount of improvements already.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding on the 8th:

Sorry, these are a little small, and blogger is compressing them pretty poorly, so sorry about that. but oh well, what can you do. Stupid narrow blog format. haha. SO click on them to view them larger if you want, they are easier to see.

Well that's about enough of that. Obviously that doesn't cover all the photo situations of the wedding, but I just wanted to post some of my favs.

ALSO, I've started my new job as a Lifetouch Photographer, for school portraits. I was going to tell you all about it tonight, but it's been a long post, so I'll tell you more about it later. I start my 3rd day tomorrow morning, (I have to be up at 5:30...blarg). But I'm excited and I pretty much love getting paid to hang out with cool people, setting up studios with my own music playing, and taking pictures. Radness. It's just training right now, so there will be a lot more driving later on (which I get paid in full for which is awesome) as well as hair pulling stress when I actually have to photograph 500 kids a day, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Peace, Love and Photobugs,

Meena<3

I Heart U Telephoto Lens

So, while I was in Mexico, I got this email from Lois, one of my ACP advisors, and it was about a volunteer opportunity doing a newsletter for something about batman baseball. (Okay, so that's not what it said but it went in one ear out the other because it had very little meaning to me at the time, so if you had asked me, that's probably what I would have said.)
Anyway, during some of my valued 50-peso-an-hour minutes, I read this email and thought to myself, oh my, another volunteer op.
Oh volunteer ops. You are the bane of my existence because, one that seems to be all that's available for students (and all the paid jobs seem to be out in the interior - like, screw the interior,) and two, because you are so god damn useful that I feel wretched when I don't have the time or money to do them.
So I was beginning to feel disgruntled at my loss of a networking opportunity, and great portfolio pieces when I realized, hey I'm not in school anymore, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to catch up with ACP's absurd amount of work (I mean, for 2 years it practically takes your soul that place.)
So I responded and expressed that I was interested. Suddenly 5 months later I was booking time off work for something that I still was kind of unsure of what the name was.

THE 2010 BANTAM GIRLS CANADIAN FASTPITCH CHAMPIONSHIPS

(see? It's a lot to remember)

If I can think of one word that would some up my time there it would have to be....

RAD-TABULOUS

(I couldn't pick between rad and fabulous. And no, I don't know where the T game from)

Seriously, what's not to like about these things:

1. Girls that can windmill the shit out of their arms and throw a ball so hard it would probably kill you if it hit you in the face.
2. Free burgers
3. 7-8 hours of direct sun a day - hell ya i'm a Brownbaby.
4. Getting to take pictures of sports all day and interview coaches and then get to tell people it's your JOB. (okay sure it was only my job for 6 days, and I didn't get paid for it - but it was my JOB to get the JOB done. So there.)
5. Walking around with a media pass and feeling special.
6. Experiencing an amazing National event where hundreds of dedicated girls get together to show their talent of have fun. 

Yeah. Pretty awesome.

Celebration After a Grandslam

Celebrations After Winning Gold

I now have a new respect for fastpitch soft ball. I had a fantastic time learning about the sport and I left not only with some terrific photography and publishing portfolio pieces, but also with a feeling of inspiration. It really is touching to watch girls and coaches who have worked so hard and come so far, putting their hearts into their game.


Congratulations to all the teams who traveled to Victoria for the nationals. You all deserve it.


<3