Geddie
12
Jan
Colour Correction – The Search for the Holy Grail
- By admin
Terri Weeks, Brock University Varsity Women’s Curling Team, and enthusiastic curling instructor.
We’ve been struggling with getting colour correct in some pretty ugly shooting environments – arenas that are lit with sodium vapour, or fluorescent or some other synthetic, albeit efficient light source.
Yeah, sure, the camera has colour white balance settings, but even then we find ourselves fiddling with the white balance on every single selected photo in post. Surely there’s a better way? After reading a lot of on-line resources about white balance, grey cards, and other scary exotica from the world of colour correction, we came upon the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport. This lovely little plastic folder and software CD provides a grey-scale and a colour target to shoot on location, and a Lightroom plug-in to read your colour spectrum from the location photo that you capture prior to your shoot.
We tried it on a photo shoot with the Brock curling clinic last weekend and the above photo of Terri is corrected with X-rite. Believe me, everything has gone from overall yellow to something resembling correct skin tone. Shooting in an ice arena is horrible enough with all the light bouncing off the white ice surface. Easy over exposure. And the red everything in the Brock uniforms creates another challenge. But I think this looks good – the whites are white and the skin tone, hair colour and splash of freckles looks pretty good to me.
But then, who knows what monitor you might be viewing this on? The challenge never ends.
05
Nov
The Beauty of Niagara
- By admin
There are a few country roads, just outside of the city, that are little more than laneways. This road, meandering along beside a stream in Short Hills park has always captured my attention on bike rides. It was an overcast day when we took this photo, but the darker light only intensified the colours and added a moodiness to the scene. We’ll quickly add this photo to our other Images of Niagara.
20
Aug
Isaac Brock Wants You to the Archives
- By admin
David Sharron, Brock Archivist and Doug Geddie hold the original artwork used in the Isaac Brock Wants You recruitment campaign.
The Isaac Brock Wants You campaign of the late 1970’s was an attempt to add personality and history to a young Ontario university. It was a fun and aggressive promotion that helped position Brock as a viable educational choice.
We kept much of the original artwork from that campaign, and as Brock is entering it’s 5oth Anniversary year, it seemed like an appropriate time to donate Isaac and his friends to the Brock University Archives.
The whole story about the donation and the development of the “Isaac Brock Wants You” campaign can be found on the Brock University News site, here.
15
Jul
Unique Portraiture
- By admin
The positioning of the model is paramount to capturing a memorable portrait.
The new trend in portraiture is natural-light, environmental photos. Put the subject into an environment that explains their reason for being.
The photo above was shot by Wayne Riley, a photographer with a new baby in his busy life. It captures your attention because of its uniqueness and differentiates this baby photo from the many others.
We recently had the pleasure of having Niv Shimshon shoot our daughter’s wedding. Niv is a new photographer with a fabulous style and the ability to place his clients into settings that are far more memorable than the old family wedding photos of old. Check out Niv’s new website for samples of his work.
If you have to get new photos for an annual report, a family portrait or any other reason, speak to us. We might have some ideas on how your photos can be more memorable.
27
Nov
University Rankings
- By admin
The annual Canadian ritual of university comparisons has returned.
Every November, Maclean’s magazine releases their university issue, comparing and ranking all of Canada’s universities. They’ve been doing this for 23 years.
In the beginning, many Canadian universities squealed in horror and shock with the rankings. They were mostly the ones that didn’t fare so well. The top-ranked universities were delighted, and used the rankings in all their promotional materials.
Over the 23 years, the rankings have changed considerably, have been re-categorized and in other ways refined. The one definite thing is that they aren’t about to go away. Like it or not, the rankings have an impact on how the public, prospective students, and your stakeholders perceive your university.
Geddie Advertising, and our head of consulting, Arthur Stephen, have made a life-time study of the rankings. Arthur was instrumental in convincing Macleans to make some of those “refinements” in the early years. And he was also astute in making sure that his school, Wilfrid Laurier University, was a winner in the comparisons.
Today, with Arthur Stephen on our team, Geddie is prepared to assist Canadian universities in the “rankings war.” We have data. We have tactics. We have inside knowledge. Maybe we can help your university improve your positioning, sharpen your identity. Give us a call.
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