This is FIRESOUND

As you might know, we consider ourselves to be specialists when it comes to shooting flames, but you could say that THESE guys are REALLY the specialists when it comes to fire.  Last week we managed to hook up with them at the Fire Academy to, well, capture fire.

Firesound is a band comprised of real live fire fighters from across the City of Toronto, this group plays high energy pop, rock, and soul music and probably knows every song that remotely has to do with fire.  You’d be surprised how many of those there are really.

You can learn more about Firesound by visiting their website or better yet, if you have an event that you are organizing and are in need of a band with huge energy, massive talent, and on top of that the heart to perform for charity (all of their fees go to charities such as Camp Bucko, a camp for children with burn injuries) then give them a call and see what kind of show they can put on just for you.

Their next CD will be coming out soon, and will feature the photos you see above. When it is available, we will let you know, so watch our twitter feed.

ScotiaBank BuskerFest in Support of Epilepsy Toronto 2013 – A Recap

As you may know, each year we cover the ScotiaBank BuskerFest in Support of Epilepsy Toronto. This year the festival moved to the Downtown Yonge neighbourhood and spanned the area from Queen St. to College/Carlton. Above you will find scenes from the festival and some of the talented performers who provided Toronto with four days of world class street performance.

In its new home on Yonge Street the festival drew enough people (over 2 million) be be officially recognized as the world’s biggest busker street festival. That’s no small accomplishment, and all of the dedicated and talented people that we’ve had the pleasure of working with on and off the pitch over the past 10 years (this is the festival’s 14th year) have all had a part in making it the biggest, and – we think – the best street festival in the world.  Congratulations BuskerFest!

To those performers (and readers of this blog) who asked us about the staged portraits we usually do, we apologize but weren’t able to do them this year… we hadn’t realized that they were quite so popular, so maybe we will arrange something different next year.  Who knows…?

For now, enjoy reliving the fun of the festival’s best moments – above.

Promo for Pyros

One of the things we seem to have become known for – and in fact Mark has inadvertently become quite an expert in – is fire photography. It takes a specific understanding of lighting and fire, not to mention very precise timing to capture fire the way he does. When we covered Toronto Buskerfest at the end of August we were reintroduced to Pyromancer (David Bolee), one of the world’s best fire breathers and a fantastic performer. He wanted some new promo to showcase the funnier/whackier side of his fire show and so we collaborated to come up with some ideas on how to bring this side of him to light.

We don’t want to toot our own… oh, never mind… but we think we managed to bring out a bit of that fun in the photos above… what do you think??   🙂

How A Master Pyrotechnician Trains His Fire

David Boelee, also known as Pyromancer, is a master pyrotechnician – he is one of the best firebreathers in the world and we were lucky enough to work with him last week on a series of photos for some of his new promotional material. David puts on an incredible show and can adapt his feats with fire to a variety of show styles – but first, to keep things safe, he must train his fire to behave.

Above, an example of how we imagine he might do that.

ScotiaBank BuskerFest People’s Choice Award Winners, Dream State Circus

The winners of this year’s People’s Choice Award at the ScotiaBank BuskerFest in Support of Epilepsy Toronto was Dream State Circus – the multitalented duo made up of  Sophie and Jacob McGrath.  We have shot several of Dream State Circus’ performances in past years – they were also People’s Choice Award winners in 2009 – and this year when they approached us to do a full on promo shoot for them in the week following the festival we jumped at the opportunity.

Apart from being a world renowned acrobalance, fire juggling, and highly synchronized circus act Sophie and Jacob are really wonderfully fun and honest people, they are very open minded and our shoot was a complete collaboration of creative ideas – the best kind of situation that we can hope for when shooting promo.  We shot using a few different locations and were enjoying ourselves so much that it seemed the time just flew by (well, it flew by for US – we’re not sure about Sophie and Jacob who were responsible for doing all the acrobatics required and still had to make the trip to Niagara that night in preparation for another festival that weekend)!

At the end of the afternoon we felt we’d created some material worthy of these power performers –  a couple of samples can be seen above.

We also should take a minute to thank Julie Pilkington and the staff at the Novotel Toronto Centre.  We are becoming known for our fire photography and as I’ve mentioned before, when we shoot fire the fire is real – there is no photoshopping or post production to make it bigger, brighter, or more ‘fiery’ – it comes out of the camera just as you see it in the photos and Dream State Circus does BIG fire. With our assurance that all of the necessary precautions and safety measures were in place (Dream State is also very safety conscious) Julie allowed us a perfect location to shoot uninterrupted, so again – our thanks to Julie and of course to Sophie and Jacob of Dream State Circus. We had such a lot of fun.