MAX+GNA

Finally! You get to see some of the stuff we shot with Arabelle...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:29:28 -0400

Finally! You get to see some of the stuff we shot with Arabelle Raphael while she was in town for the FPA’s.

We spent some time shooting at the Gladstone today for their...

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:53:28 -0400

We spent some time shooting at the Gladstone today for their pride programming, and got this awesome shot while testing. The rest of the shoot (which will look quite a bit different) should be coming at ya soon. Till then, just keep staring at this. Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to Mr. David Cyr for assisting (http://www.flickr.com/photos/froghammer)

grabbed this shot on set for a cover shoot for @xtra_TO. love...

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:42:30 -0400

grabbed this shot on set for a cover shoot for @xtra_TO. love these guys. the rest of the shoot will be on your newstands in less than two weeks!

Test shoot time! shot as a lighting test of a new series...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:11:19 -0400

Test shoot time! shot as a lighting test of a new series collaboration with @langnaomi. ANIMALS! these are our guys.

Another set from this weeks Xtra! The folks behind...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:53:57 -0400

Another set from this weeks Xtra! The folks behind tits&toques, Ailsa and Krystle. Read the article here, or pick it up before the 20th.

Charles Pavia for Xtra! Magazine. Sometimes when you are a...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:54:08 -0400

Charles Pavia for Xtra! Magazine. Sometimes when you are a photographer for a newspaper you go to photograph people who work in your industry but are not getting photographed because of that work. This was one of those times, and it was awesome! Charles is one of the team over at Judy INC, as well as one of the “it” guys in the party scene here in Tdot. Also, a dream subject. Read the article here or pick up this week’s Xtra! to see the photos in print. There’s a few more in there by us also, so do that.

Next up in the confessions series - DRASKO BOGDANOVIC! we...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:35:00 -0500

Next up in the confessions series - DRASKO BOGDANOVIC! we finally got around to shooting one of the video session and grabbed this shot part way through. Drasko is a fellow photographer and video play around with-er. he’s dirtier than we are, so be warned, but check his shit out! www.draskobogdanovic.ca/

video clips/previews coming soon. till then, enjoy some dirty preist goodness.

We’re on a tumblr roll! Meet Andrew, handsome, stylish,...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:25:24 -0500

We’re on a tumblr roll! Meet Andrew, handsome, stylish, manly (well, kinda)! Shaving with my fathers old hunting knife. He’s an architect and part of the ideatank collective.

check his work out:
http://www.ideatank.ca/
http://www.andrewchoptiany.com/

Two more from our shoot with Lizzie Renaud. She rocked this...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 20:58:33 -0500

Two more from our shoot with Lizzie Renaud. She rocked this shoot. For real, theres nothing more to say about how great she is. Love them!

Gotta keep that creativity up, so we’re starting a new,...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:02:37 -0500

Gotta keep that creativity up, so we’re starting a new, ongoing project. As of right now it’s still evolving and if we’re luck it will continue to do so. That’s the nice thing about maintaining personal work, you’re allowed to start something and have no idea where it’s gonna finish. So we give you the confessions series, starting out with this shot of our dear friend, Bailey Davis. We think its off to an excellent start! Stay tuned for more (including a potential video component). Cheers! M+G

Finally got our shit together and did a shoot with Lizzie...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:55:54 -0500

Finally got our shit together and did a shoot with Lizzie Renaud, the beast behind Speakeasy Tattoo and Pinky’s Nails. We love her. LOVE!

This is the first, but not the last you’ll be seeing from this shoot.

Our new show opens this Thursday at The Mascot! 1267 Queen St W....

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:35:57 -0500

Our new show opens this Thursday at The Mascot! 1267 Queen St W. 8pm. Jan 17th. rsvp on FB here.

About the Work:

‘the referent always adheres’ -Barthes

what makes a photograph? Some of the greatest brains of the 20th century have spent their best academic years pondering. most photographers don’t care (just like most people don’t care what academics spend their lives pondering, we just live it). we care only that we know it to be something worth pursuing. in the digital era the question becomes further complicated, as one idea of a photograph could mean simply an arragnement of data, pixels, that a computer processes to give us a final visual. it is with that in mind (as well as some help from a funky iOS app named decim8) that we started being interested in this question. and with that ponderance in mind that we created these pieces. are they less a “photograph” than other works of ours? does status as “photograph” require a recognizability of subject? does this hold up when you know that the ‘manipulation’ applied to these was at time much less than that applied to most published ‘photography’. Speaking of the digital era, Google tells us that the colloquial reference of ‘tapestry’ means ‘an intricate combination of things’. which in combination with the words of barthes (one of the aforementioned brains), seems to us to be the most succint idea of the ‘photograph’, or it could just be a good sentence for this show - an intricate combination of things with which the referent always adheres. we’re not academics, sue us.

So sometimes the universe doesn’t just gives you subtle...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:21:43 -0400

So sometimes the universe doesn’t just gives you subtle hints, it bashes you over the head with a baseball bat yelling ‘CHANGE!!’. After our website broke earlier in the month (yes its possible for it to break, and it did), we took the hint and decided to do some reformatting. We made it bigger, cleaner and more in tune with our branding. It now features a full sized portfolio section, a better ‘about us’ section, and a pretty wicked landing page. All in all, we are pretty chuffed with the results. Head on over and have a gander at our new look! Comments always welcome.

We love seeing our photos in print! So were super pleased to get...

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:11:10 -0400

We love seeing our photos in print! So were super pleased to get an email this week with our copy of the latest issue of the london fashion mag, Magpie Darling. We were even more pleased to see that we made the cover! The shoot featured is called blotch and features Ethan from B&M Models. Head on over to magpie’s site to download a PDF copy or buy a print issue!

bringing back the DIY - The ole tilt/shift

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:18:09 -0400

i recently found all my old DIY tutorials and i thought it might be fun to bring them back! first up, the DIY Tilt/Shift Lens. made on a trip to BC a few years ago. enjoy -

So, as would seem natural, i arrive in BC and what”s the first thing zeebo and i do? figure out how to build shit we can”t afford. i would so happily spend the $2600 on a real nice piece of tilt/shifty goodness, but that doesn’t really fit into the starving artist budget (feel free to sponsor me and send one over!). ever since i got my hands on one (and shot these…) i have been in love whit the tilt/shift effect for portrait photography. after attempting freelensing to various levels of success (photos coming soon) , i looked into it and found a really great resource for building you own tilt/shift lenses. i should say that these really focus on the tilt and not the shift, seeing as we aren”t building in the plates to shift properly. whatever, the shift is the fun part anyway. and i saved $2580…. warning, this will be a long blog post, so get in it for the long haul! i should also say, these are all versions of the bendycam feature on this site.

Materials.

Bicycle inner tube, cheap old lenses, zip ties, body cap. tools needed are a small screwdriver set, scissors and an xacto knife.

Step 1 - take apart your lens and drill a whole in the body cap.

i tried three different lenses (well 4 but the last one was crap so didnt use it ever). in the picture above, the two outer lenses have been completed stripped of all non glass related casing. the center one allowed me to just take off the back and keep everything else attached. it is important to get a smaller back end (heh.) so that the inner tube will fit around. each lens is different, so we just started taking out screws and pulling apart as much as we could. as far as the body cap goes, we took out as much as we could to give ourselves a good amount of space to line the lens up. if you don”t know how to take apart a lens (as i didn”t) , you”re just gonna have to dive in a try it out (or ask someone i suppose). each lens is different, so we just started taking out screws and pulling apart as much as we could. if you don”t know what you are doing, you”re just gonna have to dive in a try it out (or ask someone i suppose). if you go too far, you”ll end up with this….

which is a pain. putting a shutter back in place = frustrating 30 minutes. if you can avoid it, do. ideally, you will get one of these two:

easy! and depending on the lens, you may retain control of the aperture (the little fork thing…).

Step 2 - Cut your tube and attach it to the body cap.

stretch the tube around the body cap and attach a zip tie. you wanna make sure you cut of all excess tube from behind the tie so that the cap will still screw in place.

Step 3 - attach the lens and screw that shit on!

just pull the other end of the inner tube over the back of your lens. zip tie it in place if you want it to be secure (i didn”t at first cause i was trying out a couple different options)

i know i know, insert phallic reference here… unfortunate looking, but fun none the less (i know, i know)… So this is as far in the tutorial as i got, and is also where i learned some shit. lenses are configured to be a certain distance from the sensor, and the farther you pull them away, the more macro the focus gets. which is cool, and obnoxious. the set up in the pictures above as are actually completely useless for anything other than macro. the way to get around this is to pull the lens back in towards the sensor. one of the lenses i bought actually ended up being significantly larger (and sharper) than the others. it was a haiou 64, which means nothing to me except that it was $10 at a pawn shop. the good thing about it being larger? it fits almost perfect, with one layer of tubing, into the whole cut out the body cap, which gets it nice and close to the sensor. warning: do this at your own risk, the closer you get in there the more chance you have of hitting the mirror when it flip (which i did a couple time) and it in no way is a safe thing to do to you camera. i”m gonna assume that if your into this stuff you”re gonna say fuck it, but you were warned.

i”m going to attempt to figure out a way to make it stay there, as it isnt the most secure thing in the world, but the proof is in the pudding right? so here’s the pudding, taken with all three lenses:

So there you have it! there are varying levels of grain and sharpness happening, from both the cheapness of the lenses and the low light conditions, but there it is. some more real worldly applications, including a video of the focal effects below. oh, and all told, i spent $40 on 4 lenses, $6 or $7 on each body cap and had the inner tube and zip ties already. $17 a lens! how can you go wrong.

On the wall. Powerhaus, glad day bookshop, today till oct 23rd....

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:38:58 -0400

On the wall. Powerhaus, glad day bookshop, today till oct 23rd. #art #photography #photo (Taken with Instagram at glad day bookshop)

We like making new friends. Since launching the business in the...

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:34:33 -0400

We like making new friends. Since launching the business in the winter, max and I have hermitted ourselves away (willingly) to set up shop, get our priorities and life straightened out in such a way as to support this business as fully as we can. And its worked, we are doing well, getting our name out into more circles, having more people view the work, all great news.

Except we lost touch with our friends. Which made us realise that maybe in addition to getting back in touch with those old friends we should be fostering new relationships with people who are in similar life situations, freelancing, straddling the art/buisness side of life. Great! Awesome! Game plan ‘revamp social outlets’ in full effect….

Or not. See the problem then becomes how to meet new people? Its not like in our line of work we are tapped into an automatic pool of social capital like we used to be while in school, or our differing work places, etc. We work for ourselves, in our house, 8 hrs a day. How do you break out and meet new people?

I still dont have an answer for you. Its an ongoing process of networking and socializing. But I will say is that sometimes you are fortunate enought to have a life situation happen that makes it so that a really cool artistic person moves into your already awesome house in parkdale. Yup, we have a new neighbor, and he’s pretty great! A very well known tenor internationally, this guy is only 24, and already sang for the Queen, and the Emporer of Japan, not to mention some pretty spiffy people in Hollywood. He’s currently working for the Canadian Opera company and it going ot be recording his first CD sometime in the next year. YAY artists! But of course, in addition to all this, he loves our dog, eats my food (brave), can carry on a lively conversation with us for 7 hrs and volunteered to pose for us for one of our notorious midnight photoshoots. Keeper.

So without further ado, our followers, we introduce to you to Dustin Hiles. He’s on twitter and facebook, so get on that.

Its hard to believe its the end of summer already... but its...

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:55:58 -0400

Its hard to believe its the end of summer already... but its kind of impossible to ignore the fact living in parkdale, as the annual air show as part of the CNE shoves the harsh reality of impending fall in your face at G3s. Our poor dog. 

I (gna) have never been to the CNE before. I grew up on the east coast, where we had the smaller watered down version, the ANE, and the last time I went to that the Spice Girls were still number one on the charts. max decided she needed to take me, so we called up a couple of friends (who you will see volunteer for our photos very often), and off we went. 

Max decided to bring a camera, which I am very glad and grateful for. She is not the type of photographer that brings along her camera everywhere we go, and because we don't own a digital point and shoot, we are usually stuck capturing personal moments through instgram, or not at all. But luckily we decided that not only did we want pictures, we wanted fun ones. So the D700 joined us on our date. 

These are not anywhere near close to being the most technically sound photos, but I think thats why I love them so much. They are just superior photos of friends having a great time. Casual candids from two people who usually are more meticulous and planned. But when summers over, and you are having one last hurrah, who cares. Take photos of those you love.

You know whats an awesome feeling? Walking down a street and...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:09:00 -0400

You know whats an awesome feeling? Walking down a street and seeing your photo on the cover of a magazine every other block or so. No really, stand on the corner of Yonge and Carlton, and just watch the number of people that go past that are either willing or subconciously checking out your photograph. Its nuts!

We shot the most recent cover for FAB Magazine. Which is exciting because we have wanted to for a while. Checking off the ‘want to’ list is stayisfying for us freelancers. Its double exciting as this was their relaunce/rebrand issue. Phil Villeneuve really took charge from his position as editor, and it shows. A streamlined, sleek magazine where form and format count for as much as well realised content. Its refreshing, especially as a photographer to have your photos respected by layout editors who work with your work, not to its detriment. And it is thridly exciting because we got to shoot the hilariously awesome Kids on TV, who are in the process of finishing up a new album. Honestly, cramming that many people into our small apartment has never been so much fun. We adored every second of it, and look forward very much to working with FAB again and again in the future.

So pick up your copy - its free - at your nearest FAB/Xtra! newstand. See our pictures, and read a magazine that its worth your while in supporting.

Check out the shots on our site here.

Doing some websites updates! and now that the play has had its...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:50:21 -0400

Doing some websites updates! and now that the play has had its run we get to release the images we shot for Ajax (por nobody). It was a great time, and we are so so pleased with the results. blood, water, make-outs, all the good stuff! feel sad if you didn’t get to the play, we went twice, and honestly (not just saying this cause we’re involved) i haven’t enjoyed a piece of theatre that much in a long long time. so head on over to the site to see the final images -

http://www.maxandgna.ca/home/portfolio/ajax-por-nobody-summerworks-2012/

we should also note that it hasn’t sucked to see these images all over the place - The Grid, Blog TO, and most notably on the cover of the entertainment section of the Toronto Star.