Welcome!

Hi my name is Stefan Chirila and I am a Kitchener - Waterloo portrait photographer. Thank you for visiting my blog and for your interest in my photography!

Below you will find entries regarding my photographic activity as well as insight into my day to day life.

Using the menus above, you can take a look at my various galleries as well as contact me in regards to setting up a photoshoot or just to ask a question or two. My e-mail address is stefan@stefanchirila.com

I hope you enjoy your stay at my blog!

Stefan Chirila

Saturday, August 15, 2009

New BLOGsite + Promotion August 2009

Hello folks! Welcome to the new StefanChirila.com blogsite. You may have noticed the new look and been wondering "What on earth is different?" Well, here comes the answer!

In a world divided between bloggers and those with web sites, I decided to settle for nothing less than the best of both worlds. In a comfortable blog-like interface you do not have to sacrifice the convenience of a web site's features. So feel free to try out these following links:







And because this awesome news is making me super excited and puts me in the mood for some celebration, I decided to indeed celebrate with the rest of you! During the next week, between the dates of Sunday August 16th 2009 and Sunday August 23rd 2009 booking a portrait session with Stefan Chirila will get you 2 free complementary 8x10inch prints per session! So read on to find out how to take advantage of this great opportunity!

How to take advantage of the 2 free 8x10inch prints offer: - easy as 1,2,3!



1 Decide which type of session you would like to book! Check them out here: Sessions
2 Leave a comment on the blog to let me know you are interested! and Email me at stefan@stefanchirila.com
3 Meet up with me for an awesome portrait session!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Celebrating ALYSSASCHROEDER.NET+remember Woodstock 1969+lost and scared puppy

Last minute, I decided to go uptown Waterloo and photograph this event on renewable power sources. So around 6pm I headed out of the house on my bike headed to Fairview mall where I would catch a quick ride to Waterloo on the iXpress bus. Seemingly quite the ordinary day. But today was going to be full of Unexpected Occurrences. Here they come!

Unexpected occurrence 1: 'Meeting Elsa'
At the mall I met up with an old friend, Elsa, whom I had not talked to in almost 3 years. I found out just the other day that we have a common acquaintance, my friend Marko who let me borrow his flash for the wedding I photographed a few weeks ago, and today I found out that she had published a music CD! Buy her CD online here (or on iTunes under Elsa Jayne):



My bus having arrived, I got on it and I was on my way to Waterloo. The ride was short and enjoyable. The bus was speeding through the lively city with a melancholic sunset as its backdrop.

Unexpected occurrence 2: 'The white puppy'
Once at Market Square in Waterloo I decided to cross the street in style, not at the traffic lights but along the railway crossing King street some 70feet north from the intersection. As I was about to do so, I noticed this most adorable little white puppy tied up to a garbage bin looking scared out of his wits! I was not the only one who stopped to look at him. A bunch of passers-by did as well and this one man warned us saying how the puppy looks scared and thus may be very likely to bite out of fear.

Of course I acknowledged the words and chose to proceed with confidence feeling free to ignore them. Well ...I did so until the puppy made sure to let me know, through a most decisive bark that he wasn't joking around! Feeling somewhat silly jumping at the barking, thinking to myself the words that were for sure going through everyone else's minds, "he told him not to get close..." I got up and shot some images of him/her from a safer distance. Here he/she is.






Unexpected occurrence 3: 'the Woodstock celebration public concert'
Without being harmed by the most terribly dangerous seeming little white creature I just photographed, I proceeded across the now-harmless-seeming King Street. I was going to get on my bike and head over to the Waterloo Recreational Centre when I noticed a bunch of guys setting their instruments up and a few dozen people sitting on the square steps eager to hear them play. Since there was still enough light to get decent shots at a reasonably low ISO setting I adventured off my previously intended path and took some images of the acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, violin, guitar case-in-stead-of-a-drum-set and some other kitchen utensil as percussion instrument, band getting ready for their performance. I soon left in favour of attending the event at the recreation centre though.

I soon enough noticed, as soon as I got there, that I pretty much missed the entire event at the Rec Centre, so I mounted my aluminium horse (my bike) and headed back to the guys playing in public. It turned out to be a small celebration in honour of the concert that rocked the world for three days straight 40 years ago, back in 1969, Woodstock! Here's a taste of what the original Woodstock concert was like:



This one was a little different. Here's the images:




Unexpected occurrence 4: 'Alyssa officially launched her new BLOGsite http://www.alyssaschroeder.net'
As I was on my way back home I texted fellow photographer Alyssa Schroeder and I found out that she launched her new site while I was gone in town. So get clickin and visit her new site! I can say without any doubt that she is one of the very best photographers around.







Today really ended up being quite an eventful day!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Kitchener Blues Festival 2009

I went out into town today to photograph the Blues Festival. I already missed the beginning of it and was glad it was still going on today. I also got to meet up with a fellow Kitchener photographer, Sarah Lisk, http://www.saralis.com/, which I haven't done in a very long time and recently I wanted to make a point out of networking and getting to know some of the photographers in the area. Well today was definitely a great day for it!

But let me start off with the small details. I got to see Kitchener in a way that I haven't seen it in a while ...it starts to look a lot more like Waterloo than ever before, since City Hall put its mind to making the downtown area more pedestrian-friendly. Most of it is done and it is LOVELY! People were swarming King street oscillating between purchasing memorabilia and foods of all kinds from the tents set up in the middle of the formerly busy and car-stuffed King Street.

Eventually I met up with Sarah, her husband and their son and a frantic photoshooting campaign started. I am so glad I got a chance to capture some very unique facial expressions, as you will notice below in the images. One things that impressed me a lot was this: As I was photographing some people dancing and swinging to the music, as well as a puppy on a leash next to a wheelchair (don't ask why, the puppy looked adorable), I noticed a man(who later turned out to be Stefan Myles http://fandyphotography.ca) in a beige shirt photographing, at his eye with the viewfinder of a camera of admirable size, attached to which there was a lens of comparable size. I might also want to add that on his shoulder there was the strap of yet another large camera, with equally a large lens mounted on it. So I took his portrait and smiled at him, then returned to capturing unique expressions in the public. He made his way over to me and smiled at me telling me not to worry too much about the large cameras, there have been people making millions with small tin ones. The words he said may not have been exactly these, but nevertheless I felt encouraged.

As I felt that I need a new location to shoot from, I left Sarah behind squeezing my way through the seats, bothering many people while doing so and begging their pardon ...all in the name of photography. I eventually noticed that there were photographers beyond this metal fence right in front of the stage and that one could enter there through the side. So of course that is where I headed. At the entrance there were two persons armed with imposing and authority inspiring green shirts who told me that since I had no pass around my neck I would not be allowed to go any further. I nodded in agreement and turned around to head away when... the same gentleman with with beige shirt tapped my shoulder and as I turned around he put this pass around my neck saying "you've got 5 minutes" pointing towards the restricted area. I went in there and got as many images as I could, then returned to him when I felt 5 minutes may have been up. I shook his hand in gratitude, thanked him verbally and asked for his name. The man looked through his pockets and eventually with delight informed me that here was his last card. And he gave me his business card. To that I replied by handing back the pass along with my own business card and let me tell you I was glad! The photographer is Stefan Myles http://fandyphotography.ca

Another surprise followed, as I was going to leave, the gentleman in the green shirt who formerly informed me that I could not enter without a pass, let me know that now it's ok to go back. So ...gladly I returned and got some more images, to Sarah's delight and admiration who eventually joined me in there.

This is today in a nutshell. Pictures shall follow! OH! and let me tell you that as I left the concert it didn't take long for a huge storm to brew up and for it to start raining just as I was on the bus home. It did not take more than the 5 minutes I had from the bus station to the house for me to get soaked through and through! It was good fun though! and somehow, miraculously, neither my mp3 player nor my camera got wet or damaged. Today was indeed a gift from God!

Alright, alright, I'll post some images now! Enjoy!









When photographing this gentleman I thanked him for letting me take his picture and for some reason one of his friends told me, "don't worry you will see him again, at the gates of hell". I walked away but then realized I should have saved him the dissapointment and have told him that due to a certain event that I believe happened about 2009 years ago, I will not be there to meet him.


How appetising!



When will acoustic fans stop trying to compete with the electric,,,


David Clayton-Thomas began his amazing journey as a homeless street kid and developed into one of the most recognizable singer/songwriters in the world, to date selling over 40 milion records. In 1996, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and in 2007, his jazz/rock composition “Spinning Wheel” was inducted into his country's Songwriter's Hall Of Fame. - http://www.davidclaytonthomas.com/


A fellow photographer. I love the look of concentration!





The Photographer: Stefan Myles http://fandyphotography.ca






Saturday, August 8, 2009

unexpected Cambridge bike ride+Galt Collegiate stage

Today I went out with my bike thinking I would shoot some nature pictures and I met an old friend at Fairview mall that I haven't talked to in almost 5 years. Andreea joined me for a bikeride that ended up taking us to downtown Cambridge.

On the way there we stopped at Galt Collegiate Institute and found out that behind it, there are stairs going to this stage. It was a bit creepy because there was a dead mouse there as well, but don't worry I won't post images of it!


The walk down from the school


The view from above


The view from the stage

An evil spider that I had a non-violent and non-physical confrontation with. Click HERE to view.


This is Andreea when I was demonstrating high angle portraits to her

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