The Marriage of Matt & Marie

Below is another wedding I shot this past summer.

The Wedding of Jason & Marcia

Here is a small collection of one of the weddings I photographed this past summer.

The Hunt For A Red October (or How To Get Happily Published Before The Year's End)

(You can get an online view of the entire book if you scroll down)

So the hunt is on to get Immaculate Perception conventionally published... or traditionally published... or legitimately published, or whatever the hell they call it when someone other than me steps up and handles all the finances and headaches and responsibilities involved in creating an actual book. And that someone also finds someone else whose job it is to make sure there is an actual book, with pages and pictures and page numbers and everything else, stacked in neat little piles on big wooden tables at the local Chapters.

That's what I want.
That is my dream.
It's not outrageous or anything, is it?
It's not crazy or out of this world or a dream that can never happen, is it?
I don't think it is.
The book is good.
Immaculate Perception is a powerful look at downtown Toronto.
It isn't a collection of pretty pictures of the city, but a series of revealing moments in the life of the city.

I just don't want to self-publish anymore.
No more me footing the bill for everything.
It takes all the fun out of it.
Sure it's fun the first couple of times, but then it becomes glaringly obvious that the only person I'm making happy are the rich fat-cats at Blurb.com.

So the hunt is on...

It's not an easy task, although no one ever said it would be.

But the one thing I did learn is that "getting published" isn't some miraculous God-given honour bestowed upon the chosen few. Perhaps it is the chosen few who actually make any money out of it, but it seems to me, from all that I've read about it, is that anyone can get published, it just takes a while to find someone willing to fork out the big bucks for your work.

So far: Publishers Contacted Who Responded - 3
Immaculate Perception - 0

Immaculate Perception is Hot off the Press!!

I realize that no one is reading this, but I figure I should write it anyway, since I'm so damn proud of myself that I could scream and throw things at the wall!

That being said, my right arm is kind of sore from patting myself on the back all weekend, and I think I might have put my back out as well, but hey, I'm very pleased with what I accomplished this past weekend, so a couple of days in the hospital is a fair price to pay.

So what exactly did I do? Well, after six long months of focused, time consuming work, Immaculate Perception finally went to press on Sunday, 21 March 2010!
If you have a moment you should really check the book out. I think you'll agree that the results are pretty amazing!

I've never really thought of myself as having a particular style of photography, I've always just shot the things that interested me and left it at that. But when I looked through the book for the very first time, I was completely taken by surprise that a very recognizable style quite literally jumped off the page at me.
So that's pretty cool in my books

Anyway, I've already begun work on assembling Immaculate Perception Volume II, but I don't expect that book out until next year at some point

If you have any questions, all of you non-existent people who AREN'T reading this, write to me.
Or better yet, send money!
Hahahahahahahahaha!

Oh, before I forget, here is a link to the actual book.

Talk to you later, crocodile.

C

Immaculate Perception by Cameron MacMaster

Welcome to the New and Improved Froz'n Motion Website!!

www.froznmotion.com


So finally, after nearly 4 years of trying, my brand new website is up and running for all the world to see!

But I have to tell you, this has been no easy task. It has been an uphill battle the entire way, one frought with the kind of trials and tribulations that would normally cause a grown man to cry, if crying weren't such a social stigma and so heavily frowned upon by a society that likes its men tough and cryless.

For nearly two solid years I dedicated myself to the task of trying to design the site myself. I bought every single book and magazine I could lay my hands on trying to educate myself on the ins and outs of web design. But for some reason, the things I read about and tried to apply to my site never looked anything like how I actually pictured that site in my head. For some inexplicable reason the two processes kept moving further and further apart until they were about as far apart as two things are capable of being before falling off the edge of the earth. Now, when I think back on it, I can't remember if it was one thing in particular that made me lift my head and remark to myself, "Hey, I have no talent whatsoever in designing websites," or if I just got fed up with the whole mess and moved on to something more promising. But either way I stopped trying to do it myself and set off trying to find someone to do it for me, which, incidently, became its own adventure in itself and took almost the same amount of time I wasted trying to do it myself.

I had people asking to do it, I had people practically begging me to do it, I even had people whom I promised to pay handsomely to do it and who swore up and down that they would do it, but when it came down to the nuts and bolts of actually doing it, no one ever did. It was as though my little "website" project was cursed and carried some kind of disease, judging my the swiftness at which people ran away from it.

Finally a friend who owned a coffee shop in Toronto agreed to do it and posted a neat and tidy little website for me that showed my photographs off beautifully. The only problem was that I had no control over the content of the site. I couldn't publish new photos onto it or take the ones down that I no longer cared for. Plus no one could contact me through the site, which was a huge problem. The site became like a beautifully crafted "ship in a bottle" that stood majestically upon my bookshelf. People could look at it and praise its beauty and craftsmanship, but it didn't really do anything except sit there and look pretty.

For all its problems that particular site stood there as my offering to the world for almost a year and seven months.

But it wasn't right.

And as my photography business aspirations grew, the site obviously didn't grow along with them.

So it had to be revamped.

So I did what every red-blooded Canadian does when they need something done in a bad way and done quickly - I posted an ad on Craigslist for a web designer.
And I sat back and waited.
And I waited a little longer.
Finally a few offers trickled in and so I took the most promising one of the batch I received.
It wasn't until a few weeks after I agreed on a designer that I discovered, much to my horror, that my spam box overflowed with nearly 150 responses to my Craigslist ad!
And I didn't see a one of them!
I was a little shocked, to say the least. But by that time a designer had already been chosen and money had already traded hands.
I was stuck with who I chose.
He was an affable guy who seemed to know what he was doing.
So I let him do what I imagined he did best.

To say it was a frustrating process, as it turned out, would have been the kind of understatement you read about in books about earthquakes and tidal waves and volcanic eruptions.

Three months later a rickety version of the site finally went live, only, it turned out, no one could access the website with an older type web browser, or who possessed a computer with a smaller screen - like the size of screen you have when you own a laptop.

Things weren't boding well at all for my new website.

My estimate was 1 in around a hundred people could actually access the entire site. For those other 99 people who tried to access the site, all they got when they opened it up was the first page and that was it.
It didn't go anywhere and it didn't do anything.
The web designer said it was an unfixable problem, that the world needed to wake up and get the newest web browsers available on the market, or just be happy with the first page of the site.

My wife went ballistic.

She finally contacted a web designer friend of hers an a country far, far away who agreed to fix the site.
And, three weeks later, the new site came alive once again.

And here it is!

From Between The Stone Feet of Shiva

from between the stone feet of shiva by Cameron MacMaster

Here is my first collection of photographs from India.
It was published in 2008.

Clicking People Portraits

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.
~Paul Strand


I've had many people ask me how I engage the people I photograph and get them to relax in front of the camera, and really open up to me. They want to know if it’s difficult for me to approach absolute strangers and what I do or say to them to get them to agree to be photographed. And they want to know how I respond when a crowd starts to gather around me while I’m photographing someone.

The Boy in the Orange Shirt




To be honest, I never really gave it much thought until so many people began asking me how I did it. I think my big “secret” (which really isn’t much of a secret at all) is that I love people. I’ve always been very friendly and outgoing and I’ve always loved interacting with just about everybody, especially when I travel. And for me, the best way to convey this joy is by simply being friendly and smiling around the people I am interested in clicking. Smiling is the one universal symbol that everyone understands. And when they see me smiling, they automatically smile back. Try it sometimes. Smiling never fails to disarm and engage strangers.

The Little Banjara Girl




I believe that friendliness and interest in people comes through in my candid portrait work.

Badnaith - The Chikki Wala




Some things to remember however, is generally ask people if you can click them. Even if you don’t speak their language, there are simple ways to make your intentions known. Plus it invites them in and allows them to become an integral part of the whole photographic process. It also removes any tension that might develop if you click someone without their permission and they become offended by the intrusion. The last thing you want is a group of angry locals chasing you down the beach threatening to beat the crap out of you for photographing their grandmother when she asked you not to.

Eyes of Fire




To get more intimate shots, I always use my 17mm-85mm lens, instead of a long telephoto lens. I’m not a big fan of ‘sniper’ shots at the best of times – when you are so far removed from your subject that the people you are photographing don’t even know that they are being clicked. What I like is being up close and personal.


The Little Boy With Owl Eyes




I’ve also developed my technique of ‘shooting from the hip’, whereas I never hold the camera up to my face, but literally fire from hip level, which, for a small person, is at their eye-level or below. What this eliminates are the typical small-person-looking-up-at-the-camera shots and, while you are clicking that way, you can continue to engage your subject, which I think gives you a more natural, informal portraits.

Feeding Time at the Taj




Little Girl and Child at the Train Station




Boo!