This photographer does not have to say "smile!" to his subject when he takes a portrait of them!

It is a prolific day for Freelancer Vachon. I have today 5 pictures published in two different papers.

Yesterday, I was at Le Colisée for The Montreal Gazette to photograph the return of Patrick Roy behind the bench of the Quebec Remparts, his first game since the alleged incident in Chicoutimi. They used the picture of the standing ovation just before the game.

They also publish 2 pictures of the owner of GV Snowshoes (I like this one best) and a portrait of Joe Juneau.

The National Post used one of my pictures of filmmaker Joanne Marcotte. They did not use the one I prefer, so here it is.

Yes, that's 3 minutes, 19 seconds. Two set ups, travel time between sets, everything. And, the client has dozens of images to choose from.

Anatomy of an Assignment at Photo business news & forum

In the last few weeks, I worked a lot. I often work with freelance journalist Mark Caldwel. He works with many different publications, and he helps me get jobs with them. He is into in depth feature and profile, so many of my recent work is not published yet.

One of the heated debates amongst photojournalists is the one about crooked horizon pictures. Many think that if the picture is not good at first, tilting the horizon will not make it better. I attended Peter Power’s feature picture workshop at the last GWNW. At the workshop, Power defended his use of the crooked horizon by saying he use it only when that helps him filling his frame.

Before the workshop, I was personally not a big fan of tilting. I tried it only once with, I must admit, an interesting result.

However, Power’s words stayed in my mind and I decided to give it a try when I photographed Industry minister Maxime Bernier. The National Post recently made an in depth profile on him and they wanted a candid photo of him interacting with people in his ridding. Bernier is pretty tall. At least 6 feet tall. I was lucky to catch him chatting with the Mayor of St-Georges, the biggest city of his ridding of Beauce, 100 KM south of Quebec City. The mayor is pretty short. Maybe 5 feet 5. The picture looked awkward. A lot of empty space above the mayor’s head was making the picture look odd. I tilted the camera a bit, and got a picture with so much more impact. As Edmonton Sun photo editor Tom Braid would say: “taking picture is easy. Just fill your frame with valuable content, and light it!”

As I write this post, I realize how quickly we become rusty with a second language. I feel I write in English like a 10 years old kid would. Lucky me, there is a good chance my friend Natalie will pay us a visit from Toronto this weekend. That will help!

I love Salt Lake Tribune photographer Trent Nelson's blog : Fly on the Wall. You really get into his head as he tries getting the best picture. The guy in a chair is a perfect example of how he get around pretty well with a very dry subject.

13 photographs that changed the world. I think it is a bit USA-biased, but it's still a very good reading. Maybe Toronto Star photographer Steve Russell was thinking the same when he started a Canadian iconic photo thread on the ECNPA board.