Headshots with Becky

It makes all the difference when we are collaborating with someone on their headshot session vs. an office headshot day. While we also love the latter, with the former we can work more intimately with the subject to create the images that they will be happiest and most confident with. In this case Becky wanted to update various profile photos while also incorporating her love (and part of her job) of biking into her feature as well.

We met up with Becky at our favourite time of day, in the evening close to golden hour, to shoot around the Corktown Commons and then took a ride around Rosedale Valley for more ‘in action’ shots with her bike.

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Portrait Session with Fran at The Guild

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.

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Branding Session with Rebecca Hay Designs

we love lifestyle photos and we love repeat clients!

Learning about a brand / company for 1 shoot is an easy task but learning about a brand, the people behind it, and their ethos after multiple shoots is a different task, and one we really love. The more we get to know Rebecca and her team the better idea we get about who she is as a mompreneur, what her company is all about, and the types of imagery that best speak to both her, her brand, and her audience. Every time we shoot it feels like things get easier and our photos get better, and this session (like our others) is no exception!

We met up at one of her recent projects in Oakville where we focused more on ‘working’ photos than usual. For Rebecca this means planning in her notebook, keeping up on social media, staging the house, and having her own time at home reading, going for a run, and doing mom things like cleaning up. All the things, and photos, that really speak to her and her company.

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Raónraon Creations- Spring Collection

In TRUTH, PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY ISN’T OUR FORTÉ BUT WHEN YOU HAVE PRODUCTS THIS BEAUTIFUL IT’S HARD TO SAY NO TO SHOOTING THEm!

Raónraon is a womxn & Indigenous owned business that creates these stunning handcrafted beaded earrings and when they approached us to photograph their spring collection we were thrilled! With gold accents this collection was inspired by the beauty of nature and made with an abundance of passion and care, so we too wanted to incorporate that with the ‘lifestyle’ photos while still providing a ‘studio’ option against the red silk.

In truth this was our first shoot in a long time given the pandemic and restrictions so we were rusty.. We knew when we saw the earrings in person that a direct, strong, natural light would be best to showcase the intricate features of each earring; the different textures, sizes, tones of gold, etc. We shot against the red backdrop first, which is both a prominent colour in Indigenous cultures, as well as something that offered a complimenting contrast to the gold/warm tones of the earring themselves.

The next ‘nature’ set up took a while to build and was interesting to do (said by people who are better with other people than they are with things lol). We shot at home so we used what we had around which, like so many throughout the pandemic/lockdown, is plants. Fortunately this worked out though considering the collection was inspired by nature! While we wanted to shoot the earrings outside in a more nature-y environment it was difficult to find the perfect spot where we could prop the earrings up while still including a few different other elements to the ‘set’. So we kept it all inside and used what we had to build it up.

The important part of product photography that we had to remind ourselves about while shooting this: shoot as you build! Every element that we brought into the frame we took a photo of; first with just the vines + earrings, then vines, dried flowers + earrings, then vines, dried flowers, dried petals + earrings, so on and so forth. Eventually we got a set up that we really enjoyed and we rotated the earrings out as we made minor adjustments (for propping them up) in between takes.

While we don’t have any plans on switching to product photography full time, this was definitely a fun challenge for us and something we look forward to doing again in the future! Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, Raónroan!

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