Francis Vachon Photographe

August 31, 2008

Pat Retro

It was recently the Celine Dion’s show on the Plains of Abraham for the 400th anniversary of Quebec city. In many interviews, she mentioned her special relationship since 20 year now with the restaurant Pat Retro and their famous “Pain à la viande”. Before the show, they had 40 or something of them delivered for their crew.

So the La Semaine magazine sent me there to photograph in detail the place, some of the item on the menu, and particularly the pain à la viande.

Pat Retro
Interior of Pat Retro’s restaurant
Technical: Canon EOS 20D, 1/80 at f3,5 with a 24-70 at 54mm – ISO 400, two remote flash aimed at the ceiling to pimp the ambient light.

 

Le Michigan du resto Pat Retro
Pat Retro’s Michigan
Technical: see below

 

assiette Caruso
Pat Retro’s assiette Caruso
Technical: see below

 

Pat Retro
Pat Retro’s Piment Fort burger
Technical: see below

 

Pat Retro
Pat Retro’s poutine italienne (I had to taste it. I must say that this is a real and serious contender for Ashton’s poutine. It is THAT good.
Technical: see below

 

Pain a la viande de chez Pat Retro
Pat Retro’s famous Pain à la viande, beloved by Celine Dion and René Angelil.
Technical: see below

All food where shot with the same setting. I used my 20d (my Mark II was about to be sent to repair, and my Mark III was not arrived yet) with a 24-70. Why this lens? For food, you usually want to get real close, almost like a macro shot. The 24-70 has a very short minimum focus point, allowing me to get real close and personal.

The food was put inside a light tent to diffuse the light coming from the two flashes. This allowed me to shoot at 1/250 (to kill the ambient light) at f18
Here was the setup:

food shot setup

Are you ready for some football?

I covered some High school football yesterday. It was my first sport assignment with my Mark III. And now one thing is for sure: the dreaded autofocus issue does not affect mine. It worked flawlessly, with only a handful of out-of-focus photos – far less than what I had with my Mark II.

All photos shot with it my Mark III, a 300mm and on Aperture priority mode at f4.

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August 29, 2008

Camera bag

As a photographer AND father, I can relate :)

Source: What the Duck

August 27, 2008

Pictures soon

Not a lot of pictures posted here recently, right? It’s just because I worked mainly for magazine for the last 2 weeks. This Friday, with the new edition of La Semaine, I should be able to post 3 assignments I did for them

August 20, 2008

How much should you charge?

So you are following my blog for a while now. So you read me about micro-stock, about standing you ground when it comes to negotiate. And now you want to start charging a fair price too. So where do you start? How much do you charge? How much is a fair price?

It all depends of the usage the client wants.

You see, you don’t actually sell a photo. You sell a license to use a photo. That’s pretty different, and it is pretty important because you can resell the same photo over and over again to different clients. Or even to the same client when the license is expired.

The standard for stock pricing is fotoquote, from Cradoc fotosoftware. From a series of drop down menus, you tell the software the usage your client wants, and it tells you back the price you should charge.

For instance, If a company wanted to buy me a picture for the front page of their annual report, up to 10000 copies in Canada, the price would be 1300$

A 1/4 of a page editorial use in a consumer magazine that sells up to 100000 copies would fetch 300$ for the same image. Slightly more that what Time magazine paid recently for their cover

Still the same photo, but this time for advertisement on a billboard , more than a hundred of them, for a 3 months campaign? That would get me 2800$

And if the same client would also use the image in a magazine advertisement, that would be on top of what he paid for the billboards.

August 19, 2008

Shameless brag (2)

Thank you, Jonathan Roy. After your “show” in Chicoutimi, CBS’s Air Farce bought me a picture of you. And now that you will face the court for your action, one of my photos of you is featured in… Sports Illustrated!

Since the photo was sold thru the Canadian Press agency, I don’t know yet how much this sale will get me yet. It might be only a square inches in size, but there is one thing for sure: that will get me more money than the guy who sold a photo for a recent Time magazine cover

August 15, 2008

For sale: Canon 70-200 F2.8, non-IS *sold*

Edit: Lens is now sold

Canon 70-200 F2.8 for sale. This is NOT the IS version. On the photo below, you will notice that their is no tripod collar. It’s just that I don’t use it and I forgot the put it back for the photo. But it IS included. UV filter is included to.

The glass is pristine. The lens itself has some paint wear, but is otherwise perfect. I only sell it because I’m upgrading to the IS version.

Price is 950$ plus shipping. Buyer pays Paypal fee if applicable (3%)

email me at info(at)francisvachon(dot)com or at 418-805-3840

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Another TV crew attacked in Georgia

After Gorgian and Canadian journalists, it’s now a Turkish TV crew that experiences the pleasure of being shot at in Georgia. This one is very scary; you can see the bullets flying by as they try to escape.

August 14, 2008

Covering Georgia-Russia war

A Georgian reporter is shot at while doing a live, and a Radio-Canada (French-Canadian CBS) crew have their car and everything they have but a camera stolen at gun point a checkpoint.

Photographers’ geek time

Here is a photo pit at the Beijing’s Olympics. Others have counted 38 Canons and 45 Nikons. And 3 females.

Also, check out this NFL Maden 09 video game trailer. Look at the sideline. You will see a lot of photographers, and some of them are even chimping!

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