it’s been such a long time since we’ve had a no pressure, casual, photo session

So when Fran approached us about shooting we were so excited! We had a few ideas of location but narrowed it down to The Guild as it was somewhere both sentimental and familiar to her. We worked on a few other logistics like outfit changes and then later popping back into her house for a few extra indoor photos, but overall it was a hang out with a camera more than an actual formal photo session. This was something that we didn’t know we needed and was a really great refresh to our creative juices.

When we planned this session we didn’t know for certain what the weather was going to be like. We had actually planned to shoot more in summer but kept (unintentionally) scheduling on days with severe heat warnings that we felt just wasn’t safe, or comfortable, to be outside in sunlight for a couple of hours. We lucked out on this day in that there wasn’t any end of summer storms happening, but it wasn’t a crystal clear day either. We worked with what we had though and shot with the ambient, sometimes overcast light. We did not have a permit to shoot around The Guild so we opted to not use any off camera lighting in case we had to pack up and quickly leave.

See more photos down below, click the photos to enlarge and browse through

A FUN PART OF WORKING WITH THE SAME COMPANY OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS BEING ABLE TO BETTER ACQUAINT OURSELVES WITH THEIR STAFF

We go into Imagine Canada to shoot their staff headshots (for new staff and anyone who wants an update) a couple of times a year and every time we shoot it feels like we’re getting better and better; better at our workflow with them (as they’re generally quite pressed for time) better with recognizing who’s who, and even better with knowing how comfortable they are in front of the camera.

For these photos we actually went to their HQ to shoot and given that it was such a beautiful day out we decided to take to their patio to shoot. Being so high up gave us a backdrop mixed with sky and greenery so we opted out of our usual backdrop set up. The patio was either covered in shade or exposed to high noon sunlight so we (obviously) opted to shoot in the shade. As we tested we found that fully natural light photos were too flat so we added in some soft fill light to brighten people’s faces up.

See more photos down below…

PS. Staff are asked to select an adjective that best describes themselves which we later add in post, in English & French.