Kevin Thom - Hamilton, Toronto, Ontario Photographer

In the last couple of years, I’ve been on a quest to be more conscious of the food I eat. To me, this meant adopting the paleo lifestyle, and eating local, organic food as much as budget and availability allows. I have also tried as best I can to sort fact from fiction when it comes to nutrition. It hasn’t always been easy, but in the process, I’ve lost a lot of weight, gained lots of energy, and leveled out my moods. I also feel healthier and look much younger than I did before I started this.

My latest adjustment was to investigate grass-fed beef. From what I can gather from the Internet, grass-fed beef is healthier and more humanely-raised than the traditional grain-fed stuff.

My hunt for locally-raised grass-fed beef led me to Ivan McIlroy and his Wallace Springs Cattle Company. A while ago, I arranged with Ivan to buy a quarter cow of his grass-fed beef. Today, the day finally came when I could pick up my order. I hopped in the car and headed to the farm in North Perth, Ontario to meet the meat, so to speak.

Ivan was great. He gave me a tour of the farm, introducing me to his animals and showing me how they live and what they eat. It clearly takes a lot of work and costs lot of money to raise cattle this way. The price I paid for my quarter cow was extremely reasonable. In fact, as Ivan explained to me, it’s not a sustainable price when compared to what it costs to raise the animals. I believe that many people would pay more, especially if they’re given the opportunity to see the farm and learn about how their food is grown.

After spending about an hour with Ivan and his cows, I headed to the meat packer’s to pick up my order. There was an astounding amount of beef. The order included about 70 lbs. of ground beef, four short rib roasts, two shoulder roasts, nine blade steaks, fifteen rib steaks, and a brisket. There was also a big box of beef bones to be used in soup. I’ll be sharing this order with my dad, but still, it’s a lot!

I really enjoyed my trip out to the country today. I’m naturally a city boy, so it always seems a bit exotic to visit a farm. Have a look at my gallery of snapshots with captions below.

The lead-up to Valentines Day is boudoir photography season for guys like me. It’s when I’m most often called upon to take “sexy” photos for women. It’s always my goal to produce an image that my client finds sexy, even if she’s doing the photos as a gift for her husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend, life partner, whatever.

That’s why my friend Zura’s recent blog post Sexy vs. skanky or How to photograph sexiness caught my attention. I commented on that post about how I approach photographing sexiness. In this post, I’ve expanded on those comments.

So, the first question that arises is, “What is sexy?” The answer is different for every single person. I can only answer it by discussing it with her, observing her, looking at example images that she brings, etc. to get an idea of what is sexy to her. Then, I can coach that out of her through posing, expression, lighting, wardrobe and mood. We look at the photos as we go along and mutually decide what’s working and what needs adjustment. If she feels that she is coming across as sexy, then she’s more likely to be emotionally committed to the process, and I’d never want to be as arrogant as to unilaterally layer on my own visual language.

Zura’s post compared two advertising posters from the Montreal Metro. One of them showed a woman on silk sheets, with a sort of sleepy come-hither look that Zura found offensive because to her, it says, “I’m not terribly aware of what’s going on right now, maybe it’s a good time to take advantage of me.” In my experience, some women find the half-lidded, sleepy look sexy, and that is their personal expression of sexuality. Some might even find that expression to be empowering because they feel it radiates their sexual power and intent. Because it’s authentic to them, it ends up being inherently sexy. Others are more aggressive, or kinky, or explicit, or any number of flavors of sexuality that personally suit them.

Anyway, I think that first image is mediocre. It’s stiffly posed in order to position and highlight various products that the image is designed to sell, rather than trying to convey an overall message of sexiness. The expression is pasted on the model and doesn’t look natural or particularly authentic. I think it fails just because it is poorly conceived and executed, not because it’s sexist. The second photo is of a woman wearing an elaborate lingerie outfit, standing provocatively and addressing the camera directly with her eyes. To Zura, this communicates, “Hey there tiger, I have some hot ideas about what I’d like to do to you and have done to me, how about it?” I agree that it’s a better photo. However, I believe this photo could be construed as sexist too, because of the obvious Photoshop body modification done around the waist to make it crazy skinny. Some may argue that the woman in the first poster represents a more healthy body image than the woman in the second poster. Personally, I’m not adverse to doing this kind of modification on photos when my client requests it. Photography, particularly the boudoir kind, is illusory anyway, and if she feels it adds to her allure, then why not?

In my opinion, “sexy” and “sexist” aren’t one-size-fits-all. No matter how you shoot something, there will always be people who find it sexy, and there will also be people who are offended. The best approach is to find what is authentic and appealing to their intended audience and go with that.

I’ve included a gallery of my own photos below that I think express a range of various expressions of sexiness.

Today I spent some time thinking back to my trip to Thailand in February, 2005. It was just a couple of short months after the giant tsunami hit the southern parts of the country on December 26, 2004, causing massive devastation and a heartbreaking loss of life.

I was inspired by how Thais in Phuket reaction to the event. Despite the daunting destruction and chaos, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work repairing the damage. Rubble was swept into neat piles and cleared away, flowers were replanted, and construction got underway to rebuild demolished structures. Tourists, whose money is the lifeblood of the region, stayed away from Phuket in droves, and the normally bustling resorts were nearly deserted. So much had been swept into the sea. Almost everyone there had lost friends and relatives to that giant wave. Instead of lapsing into despair, Thai workers did what needed to be done, and then took to the beaches and played joyful games of soccer. The joy and energy was infectious, and that evening as I stood in the soft sand and panned my lens across that scene, I captured one of my most personally meaningful photos.

I’ll always remember the Thai way of adapting, flowing and rolling with the punches. If you can take this to heart, you’ll always land on your feet with a smile, no matter what the universe throws at you. This approach can be very useful to photographers. We’re often at the mercy of weather, equipment failures, financial limits, wardrobe, client demands, and other uncontrollable factors. Often, our intricate pre-made plans get demolished in an instant. Having learned to stay in the present and to observe its many opportunities has made a big difference to me. Although I always hope for ideal conditions for every shoot, I feel confident that I can adapt to create compelling photos in nearly any situation. Try it some time. Whenever you catch yourself bemoaning what you perceive to be a negative turn of events, re-examine the situation to see if it contains any hidden advantages.

One thing that’s been rattling around in my head is a philosophy relating to the composition of Chinese gardens. I read it on a sign in a museum in Suzhou.

So sparse as to let a horse walk. So dense as not to let breeze in.

This principle can also relate to the composition of a photograph, and describes a balance I’ve always tried to achieve in my own work.

I was thinking today about the concept of gratitude, and how important it is in creating your own reality. If you’re like me, and you believe that you create your own reality by choosing what deserves your attention, you can see that this concept makes an easy hop over to the world of photography. Photography, after all, is the creation of a specific reality. Although we use the term “photo-realistic,” photography can not capture reality. Even photojournalists will agree that a photo is wholly inadequate to capture the entirety of reality, simply because it is a fragment of time, constrained two-dimensionally within the bounds of its frame. As photographers, we must decide what fragment of time to capture, and how to represent it within that frame.

This is where gratitude comes in. Sometimes things just don’t work out how you might have expected. Perhaps it’s raining, or you forgot to bring the lens you need, or delays force you to shoot at a time of day that’s not ideal. There are a lot of things that can go “wrong.” Sure we could stew about these so-called problems and work ourselves into a negative, distracted fit. But, is that really going to help you get the shot? Believe me, it won’t! Instead, is it possible for you to find ways to use these mishaps to your advantage? Take a look around for things to be grateful about. Maybe the clouds are creating drama in the sky. Maybe the rain has forced people to bring out their colorful umbrellas. Maybe an “unattractive” foreground object can be used to add interest to your composition?

Being grateful is not about being unrealistically optimistic. It is about being powerful enough to decide for yourself what the outcome will be, no matter what external circumstances arise.