Revival Arts is a photography studio based in the Fraser Valley which is known for it’s relaxed portraiture and stunning commercial photography.

I had Bee Keeper Campbell as a teacher in high school when he was formerly known as Mr. Campbell the Socials Teacher. He still has the same ability to weave engaging stories out of daily occurances! For examples, did you know that the boy bees don’t work? They just whine until the girl bees feed them. I also didn’t know that bees can’t see white which is why bee keepers wear white to be invisible.

I think the most impressive part of the field trip is when we went out to the hives with 20 preschool kids and their parents, pulled out some trays (I’m not sure what they’re technically called) and the kids were close to hundreds of bees and not at all scared. They were even able to poke their fingers in the cone and taste some honey. Here’s a photograph Jason took then …

Agritourism is a growing industry in Abbotsford and it’s wonderful to see what farmers are doing to blend centuries old aspects of farming with cutting edge technology. I was impressed with the Campbell’s Gold mead wine and will have to get a bottle for our vacation. And probably some yummy honey. Mmmm. Now I’m getting hungry …

Revival Arts creates custom stock art for businesses to use in their online and print promotions. To see some of our portfolio, please visit our commercial photography website.

The other day, I had him dumping buckets of weeds while I was up on a retaining wall weeding. When I came down and checked the garage, he had been dumping them all in a variety of boxes instead of in the yard waste garbage can. I just assumed he didn’t see it and cleaned it all up properly. Later that evening he asked why I cleaned up the weeds because he was going to photograph them. Pardon? I should be used to it by now but it still catches me off guard.

When I got my hair cut, he came in to make sure that Micaela saved it for him so he could photograph it. When he saw me for the first time with 12″ less hair, he told me I looked great and immediately asked if we saved the hair for him.

The final subject for this project was one of our lenses that died in service. It was always a little bit of a lemon and one day it gave up so Jason pulled it apart to see what it looked like inside. My first thought was “Oh. That’s why they’re so expensive.” Jason’s first thought was “Neat! I can photograph this.”

Like birds are attracted to shiny objects, Jason seems to be attracted to geometric shapes, texture and colour. So if you have interesting junk, he may want to photograph it!

It was taken in a pond on Cortes Island in Gorge Harbour Marina. We’ve lived there for a short week two different summers while meeting up with Jason’s parents who spend as many sunny hours on their sailboat enjoying the west coast. Jason likes how the tree reflection on the left looks like some sort of creature.

Be sure to check back next week as we will be announcing our next 10th anniversary treat which involves a $100 gift certificate to one of our favorite restaurants!

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Our October creative involved Micaela Bartel of A Captured Look, our awesome hairstylist, and Chrissy Lambert of Makeup Infusion who does amazing transformations with makeup. They pulled out all the stops and exceeded our expectations. Instead of having a bunch of models, we had one model, Nalani, who we met doing dance photography this spring, and did several looks with her. She recently won a modeling competition and is off in China modelling.

Here are a few of our favorites ….

Congratulations to Jason on his most recent photography awards! At the Annual Image Competition of the Professional Photographers’ Association of Canada (PPOC), held recently in Mont-Trembant, Quebec, Jason Brown had 3 images accepted and exhibited in the National Print Salon.

This was Jason’s first national professional photography competition so we weren’t sure what to expect. It is an honor and encouraging to have the judges recognize the technical and artistic skills that go into his images. We value being continually challenged to produce better quality work which in turn means our clients have award winning art to display in their homes and to represent their businesses.

This year’s competition received 1047 entries and was judged by a selected panel of master photographers from across Canada. There are over 925 photographers who are members of the Professional Photographers’ Association of Canada (PPOC). With the recent proliferation of photographers, hiring someone who is a member of a professional association such as PPOC demonstrates that they are dedicated to their craft and committed to a high standard of excellence.

Each photographer is allowed to enter four images into the competition. Out of those images, we guesstimate that about half of them don’t even get accepted. There are four levels: unaccepted, accepted, merit and excellence. It is very rare to receive an excellence as it means that the image is virtually flawless. This year there were about 20 awarded to the top photographs entered from across the country and Jason received one of them. At the end of the competition, each judge chooses one image out of the 1047 entered as their favorite. Two judges chose images of Jason’s.

All three of Jason’s winning images were exhibited in the National Image Competition and will be published in a coffee table book. We are printing up samples of the winning photographs and will have them hanging in our studio later this week in the hall of competition prints. If you come through, we’ll show them to you and explain a bit more about the process of preparing an image for competition.

Azure Grandeur
Excellence, Judge’s Choice
Client: City of Abbotsford, The Reach Gallery Museum

Axis of Strength
Accepted
Client: The Goddess Movement

High Voltage
Best in Class – Fashion

Azure Grandeur
Best in Class – Architecture

Both of these entries are examples of our commercial photography work and you can see our commercial photographer website here.

For those of you who are interested in lighting, there’s a spot on the wall to create the red circle plus an SB-800 on either side of the model to create rim lighting. If you know how to do it, it’s very simple and creates impressive results. Here’s the photograph and below is a lighting diagram created on a friend’s iPhone with the strobox app …