Below are a sample of shots. For a more complete gallery click here.

To see the complete collection click here. Below are some of my favorite shots.

I’ll be bringing some gear up to test out my outdoor strobist technique. The trip is something of a mystery to me; Alanah will serve as my primary guide on this one. I’m really not sure yet what is expected of in terms of documenting the work that is being done. We’ll be around kids, I know that. Seeing as this is all due to Youth Fusion‘s new projects in the reason, the goal will be to document what the YF interns have been up to.

I’ve got an itch to give it a different spin from my last few YF shoots. Hopefully, we’ll be out of doors more and I can get the environment to feature more prominently.

Basketball
I’ve started a new relationship with Kincler Basketball. Ariel Kincler runs a series of leagues around Montreal and asked me to come help polish his companies image. Photographing Basketball is something quite new to me and a very unique challenge. The players move fast, lighting conditions are less then ideal and sight lines are always an issue… but what a great workout for a photographer!

There’s a great deal of drama to catch every moment the players move. To be honest, it can be a bit overwhelming. I realized after shooting the Haiti Relief basketball fundraiser game a few months back for the Bronfman Israel Experience Centre that you need to make choices regarding where to place yourself for a certain amount of time and then stick to your plan. Learn the game, watch the game, learn what players are likely to cause some action and some drama and watch things play out.

These games are faster then pro-ball; often they are done in 40 minutes. The need to read the game is pretty dire if you’re going to pull a few hundred good shots for a client.

I’m pretty happy with my results so far and I’m looking forward to my next go at it. Hell, I’d love to shoot soccer too. And hockey. And… well, sports photography can be pretty addictive.

John Greer races VIR

After 2 days of beautiful cloud-free weather, it seemed as though a shower was inevitable. John Greer, being used to racing in the Pacific Northwest, was not daunted.

But the rain never quite showed up. The sky became dramatic and slightly overcast, but the weather held… and my ideal shooting conditions came through. Cloud cover = good times for photographers. Generally speaking.

My challenge was to try to find a new way to shoot with just a few hours left of races. With just 6 laps to snap the best shots during each race, changing position can be a costly affair. And god forbid your target rider drops out of the race early.

Wait, are we speaking the same language? I apologize, though I am still just a newbie to the world of motorsports (this was my second track weekend) I find it hard not to find myself assuming we all know what happens at a track.

Look at it this way: while I had plenty of good shots of Katie from the last couple of days, I was nervous I wouldn’t have a comparable number of shots of John. Once I pick a position alongside the track from where to shoot, I can either decide to spend an entire race snapping the same photo from roughly the same angle, with a racer being in my sights for less then 10 seconds (if that) or do I decide to shoot, change position and get a different image. Keep in mind that while I run from point A to point B, my racer may spit by once or twice and I may miss a couple good oppurtunities to get a shot. With laps lasting under 3 minutes, you have to race to point B if you want to be sure to get the next lap.

Throw in the fact there are just 6 laps in a race and the odds of you shooting many great shots drops if you decide to switch position. The key is to know what you want by the time the races come up, walk the track in the days preceding the event and pick maybe 2 or 3 spots per race that look different but are within close proximity to one another.

Oh, and find something to ride to speed up your pace between positions. Like a Cruzin Cooler. Thanks to Katie for the loaner.

Katie Bladon rocks the Cruzin Cooler

So how did my riders do? Well, considering this was John’s first run on his Ducati 1098 which required serious tweeking and Katie went in with a broken elbow from a speed skating injury just a few weeks prior, not ****ing bad. How not bad?

John Greer rests between races.

Katie Bladon races by the finish line at VIR

A racer at WERA VIR passes the finish line with the tower shadow over him.

My work is extremely eclectic and I am always grateful. The truth is it is this way because my friends are an eclectic mix and I am even more grateful for this.

Katie Bladon is an old friend that worked with me in Alaska as a Federal Fisheries Observer more then 5 years ago. We met at the tail end of 2001 as we trained in Seattle for the contract work that would take us up and down the Aleutian Island chain for several years.

It’s been 3 years since we’ve seen each other. The last occasion was in Seattle over beers. I met her relatively new at the time boyfriend John Greer and the two talked about what they both loved to do: race motorbikes.

So after searching for any excuse to run into each other again, Katie invited me down to the opening weekend of WERA racing here in Virginia at the Virginia International Raceway. I’m here now with John, Katie, John’s Dad and two very pent up dogs named County and Jefferson.

We arrived on Thursday evening. Friday and Saturday were spent practicing and prepping for today: raceday. Even all the track time before noon has been practice (with the exception of yesterday afternoon’s less glorified Money runs). The pits have become our home as most of the time we’ve spent thus far has been spent fixing, tweeking and assessing the bikes following a race.

It’s an exciting thing, race-weekend, whether you’re a motorcycle fanatic or no. The buzz of activity, the severity of officials, the authority of the PA system calling riders to the track, the families and friends staking spots for good views and, well, the sheer speed of the racers makes for a pretty dramatic atmosphere. The lineup of on-call ambulances doesn’t hurt either.

And so I submit some shots as we wind down the clock to the most official races taking place after the lunch break this afternoon.

2010-03-18 VIR WERA Racing – Team JRock Colors and KrazyPants – Images by Tristan Brand

My title is a bit thoughtless in its absurdity. I’m referencing Montreal’s Nuit Blanche Fesitval (I can’t call it the Highlights festival).

I’ll be brief. While I did get a gig for the evening, I also sought to make the most of the plethora of art installations to learn how to use a tilt-shift lens… and how to make interesting looking hand held images with the beast.

I don’t own a tilt-shift lens as they are quite a specialized tool and readily available at rental shops. The model I used was a Canon 45mm 2.8. Tilt Shift lenses are used in architectural photography to control perspective; to draw straight lines when looking up at a building for example. They can also be used for portrait work and many other interesting creative applications.

The goal on Saturday night was to get creative. A TS lens is all manual in its focusing and control, so they aren’t for the faint of heart. Notice the selective areas of focus and the occasional miniature effect…

A student from Saint-Henri High School works on their FIRST Robotics competition entry

My ongoing work with Youth Fusion – Fusion Jeunesse has been, of late, some of the most inspiring regular work I’ve been the go-to photographer for. You can’t help enjoying working with kids as a photographer; in general, they present more real and honest reactions, they commit unexpected acts on a regular basis, they surprise you with

Gabriel Bran Lopez started the NGO last January with 7 interns he placed at several at risk [the schools with the highest drop-out rates] in the city. The interns are undergraduate students with a plethora of backgrounds and specialties that start up extracurricular programs, clubs, outings and events with the goal of involving students into the high school after hours. The idea being that a student that spends more time at the school and is more involved in activities outside the classroom is a student less likely to drop out to the sense of ownership and belonging that develops through these extracurricular clubs and organizations. They also present a different way of learning about the community and the students’ potential futures.

At the time, Youth Fusion’s primary partner was Concordia University. At a press conference this past September, the list of partners expanded to include more Montreal University’s, the Provincial and municipal governments and more.

The program was so successful [read: impressive] that at the beginning of the 2009/2010 school year, Lopez announced the hiring of 25 interns that he would place at 4 High Schools (both English and French). His budget had been bolstered by a series of new partners who believed in the project so strongly. You can find out more about them here.

Then came the robots.

Just before the new year, Gabriel introduced me to his latest endeavor within Youth Fusion: he had organized enough sponsorship and partnership to sign up four of his target high school to the US FIRST Robotics competition, a contest pitting students from different schools together in a sport league style competition using robots that the students would build to compete in a zany sporting event designed by the creative team behind the competition.

I’ve spent the last two months rotating between the schools and documenting some of the progress made by the students as they received their robot kits from FIRST, designed and built their robots. Under the tutelage of mentors from Bombardier, CAE and support from the Bank of Montreal and other partners the participants had 6 weeks to build a functioning, remote controlled robot.

On February 20th, all four high schools brought their robots to Loyola High School for a practice bout that featured a fully built field; a replica of the field they will compete on at the regional competition in Toronto during the first week of April.

If you’d like to learn more about Youth Fusion and the work they are doing I encourage you to visit their site and follow my blog. I’ll be doing more work with them over the next few months, including attending the regional competition in Toronto. If you are a student looking for some great part time work, I highly encourage you to look into working as a Youth Fusion intern. The work is rewarding and working with kids is far better then working in a coffee shop or a bar… for you and for the kids.

Hopefully this will make my clients happy and be worth something 3 or 4 people will follow regularly.

It’s been a full week and my sleep patterns are again out of whack. I hope to show off some fancy robot photos tomorrow after I see the first head to head practice between 5 Montreal regional schools at Loyola High School. The practice is in preperation for the FIRST Robotics Competition and my much loved regular NGO client Youth Fusion is responsible for getting four new schols in the competition for the first time.

So I should get some sleep; this is an early morning event and I’m not used to getting up early anymore. Wouldn’t want to sleep through work and the chance to see some smashy-smashy.

To cap this post, here is my favorite shot form the Governor General’s visit to Montreal on Thursday. More on this later.

The Governor General , Michaelle Jean leaves the Sauvé House