Back in December John and I went on a shoot at the new Region of Peel Paramedic head quarters.  You’ve got to think you’re pretty safe shooting in there, with all the Paramedic around you, and we were. We started with environmental portrait of the executive staff, then small group shots of the Paramedic and finally some mockup accident scenes.

I think they were a little overwhelmed when we came out with all our equipment to light up the place. Go big or go home we say! What a great group to work with and a fantastic facility to shoot in. Check out that floor. I can only imagine how action packed a normal day is for a paramedic in Peel. I definitely have a lot of respect for those guys. Check back with us in the spring, we’ll have more action shots with the Ambulance.

About 6 times a year we get to shoot some very creative floral arrangements for Kathy Mustard. There are flowers for EVERY occasion you know? Recently we did some for Corporate Events and Mother’s Day, thankfully not together.

. We created a mini set with wall covering material from a client of ours, Colour & Design. This combined with white panel wainscoting and you have yourself a wall. Shot straight on or angled it gives the subtle sense of a room shot. Have a look at the shots and let me know what you think.

A couple of months ago we were fortunate enough to shoot another Melt Magazine for Tre Stelle, directed by OK&D Marketing. The weather was gorgeous and we were able to utilize the natural daylight shinning into our studio.

The exciting part about using natural light is controlling it with mirrors or cards. The mirrors help add that little extra light where needed, and the cards help block some of the light that is not needed. Basically you’re playing with the light, adding or subtracting where and when necessary. This is a huge and critical part of what photography is all about, making the light do what you, as the photographer wants it to do.

Let me know what you think of the results.

Every floor was a different theme but a consistency in quality amongst all the rooms. Photographing in a hotel is never easy but I like to capture the details that show the quality of the rooms and facilities. In some cases I will use blending software that takes multiple exposures and blends the highlights and shadows in one image. The majority of these shots I’ve used strobe to acheive the results. All in all it took me 2 days to shoot and the client ended up with about 70 different images of their hotel. I’d say they got their money’s worth. Check out some of the results and let me know what you think.

The stylist makes the pizza and pre-cuts the slice, then loads it with cheese, bakes it, adds toppings and bakes it again. When the pizza is brought to the set, the lifter is already in place. The pizza is then lowered over the lifter and the shots taken. Within minutes the shots done. I think we got some pretty good results on this one. Let us know what you think.

Using mirrors and black cards to add or subtract light from your subject makes for a fun experience. Clients are always amazed at the quality and texture of natural light. Nothing beats the sun! As photographers, it is our job to position our subjects to maximize the natural light. Our client, OK&D Marketing Group, takes it from there and puts it all together into the final piece.

Have a look at the results and let us know what you think.

When all was said and done we had taken between 90 and 100 food shots. Averaging about 8 shots a day, now that’s motoring. We still managed to break for lunch, sit outside and enjoy a little fresh air on our picnic table under a tree.

Later in the shoot, we had some fun stylized food shots for the new food court at the Toronto Eaton Centre. I think its opening in the fall of this year. If you’re looking for a healthy choice give Teriyaki Experience a try.

On the surface, the brief sounded simple enough: shoot wine bottles standing on a patio table beside an outdoor pool on a sunny summer day. Upon closer inspection we realized that although we had a patio table, there was no sunny day, no summer and no open pool. We would have had to wait weeks to shoot the real thing.

The client’s preference was for the shot to be composed in camera rather than be a photoshopped construction of elements. I knew I would have to come up with something in studio that was practical to achieve, yet would give Play and Colio a great result.

Many things came to mind. I even considered filling up and above ground pool in our studio. However, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare and it would have been a logistical nightmare, not to mention that it would have added significantly to the budget for the shoot.

It didn’t take long for me to remember a quick concept I had heard about from another client to produce the visual effect of a swimming pool. The approach is that you spread out a few big rolls of blue paper across the studio floor and place plastic wrap across the surface. To create depth I built a small frame to span the plastic wrap across so it wouldn’t be directly on top of the blue paper. I left about a foot of space between the paper and wrap.

I set up the lighting to reflect light off the surface of the clear wrap to match the effect that the sun has on the surface of relatively calm pool water. With the layers of plastic wrap the lighting gave it a “ripple” and “wave” effect.

To finish it off, I placed the table in front of my “pool” and arranged the wine bottles. We spritzed the wine bottles for that refreshing look. As the stars of the shot, the bottles were in the foreground and the “pool” was out of focus in the background.

Play Advertising and Colio were happy with the result. The end use is for two ads promoting a contest for their Girls’ Night Out branded wine beverage in Food and Drink Magazine. The contest starts June 1^st Check it out at www.facebook.com/girls.night.out.wines

Let us know what you think of our simple little shot.