Thursday, February 16, 2017

Great Ideas | Commercial Lifestyle Photographer

In December I had the opportunity to work with a large commercial construction company who was holding their annual Christmas party at the Aero Museum in Calgary of all places. What a cool place to have a party! Once I got talking to my contact we came up with the idea to shoot a fun stylized portrait setup with each group in pilot and bomber outfits to match the war-era aircraft. It took a bit of planning but my contact Nicole worked hard to find the costumes and with the right lighting setup we pulled it off.

Fun at the Aero Museum in Calgary.
I ended up using 4 speedlites on manual settings. One large overhead softbox to fill in the front directionaly. Then one bare speedlite on either side of the group to give it some hard raking side-light. Then one single speedlite tucked in behind the aircraft to light up the canopy.

Full group setup with large kit in the outside hangar - very cold that night.
I love it when a client wants to do something different and we get to come away with more than just the standard stuff. Looking forward to more of this in 2017.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

New Commercial Work | Commercial Lifestyle Photographer

Recently, local health and nutrition coach Ramona Kossowan approached me for some new image assets for her social media channels and website. Ramona seemed to have a good idea of what she wanted and I was excited to work with her as she had a great attitude and some of the work was going to challenge me in the lighting department.


Like I mentioned, Ramona has a great attitude and it was fun working on the headshots in studio.


Next we setup a very small and portable kit at her training facility. The idea was to get a commercial illustration of the kind of work she does and still maintain good professional lighting. Ramona and her model didn't need much direction so I was free to manage how to control the light in such a large space.


The biggest challenge was finding a location for the kitchen shots and try to give a bright healthy look that made you feel like the room was filled with  sunlight. The space Ramona found was awesome so it was just a matter of pumping it full of light without blowing her out. This was one of my favorite jobs so far this year, exactly the type of work I love to do.