Architectural & Interior Design Photography, Corporate Commercial Photography, Advertising & Portrait Photographer | Ottawa | 613-558-7585 | justin.vanleeuwen@gmail.com
April was a whirlwind month of mixed interior, commercial, portrait, and editorial photography, with almost daily shoots and tight deadlines. One of my long-time favourite interior design clients, Turnbull Design Consultants, recently had a complete brand makeover with Ottawa-based creative firm Cinnamon Toast. Parallel 45 is the same great team, with a fresh new brand […]
Since starting interior photography for Grassroots Design & Build I’ve been documenting their projects almost weekly. Not every renovation is a full home, in some cases it was just a single bathroom, or a kitchen. The above image is from an older home in the Fisher Park neighbourhood of Ottawa. It was a dark and […]
The spring issue of Our Homes Magazine Ottawa is out, and with it a whole new slew of stylish and custom renovated homes and interior photography. I was surprised when I found out I’d be photographing local restaurateur Ion Aimers’ new (old) home in New Edinburgh – around the corner from his latest food venture […]
My second interior design shoot with Emma from Grassroots Design & Build was another caring project that helped incorporate the age of the home and function of the space with a small three-person family. Like the last shoot, Grassroots stuck with the original space, only removing an obstructing centre unit that kept the kitchen cramped […]
You never know when you’re going to get your next great client. Emma Doucet’s youngest daughter and my youngest son both go to the same daycare. Normally you spend your time making trivial kid-based chit-chat about poop and food and growing out of clothes, but after a year your’e sure to learn something interesting about […]
The latest issue of Our Homes Ottawa is out and again I get to snag the cover with a great custom renovation designed by Shiva Gupta of 7j Design. The great thing working as the interior photographer for this home is that it is a bungalow and everything was all laid out in front of […]
I had the honour this year of serving as the official photograph event sponsor of the 2013 Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association Housing Design Awards (GOHBA Awards, or… GOHBA…A?). What does an official sponsor do? Well, he works his butt off as an event photographer for the night, taking photos of the best builders, architects, […]
I was pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call from Sarah Hoy, editor of Our Homes for the City of Ottawa and they had a great project for me: a home by renowned Ottawa architect Christopher Simmonds.
About two years ago I wrote a post about working for free, for pay. As a new photographer in Ottawa, I was looking for clients, and for some projects, I had no portfolio to show to get the work, so I did the work on spec – but still charged if the client wanted to […]
Another great interior project I photographed for my clients Turnbull Design Consultants Ltd.. It’s a new medical clinic above a Shoppers Drug Mart out in Manotick. I definitely appreciate a clinic that invests a bit in its design. How you enter something so… “clinical” certainly affects how you will experience it. It’s user interface in […]
Working with Margot Johnston on an editorial photography shoot for Ottawa Magazine’s 2013 Interiors issue was a real treat. Mrs. Johnston’s father was the director of the National Gallery of Canada during a period that many consider an artistic Canadian renaissance. She had interactions with Prime Ministers, and many, now, famous artists. Apparently, having these […]
With us firmly into the holiday season, a lot of my corporate clients have shut-down for the holidays and editorial photography is mostly due out in the new year. It’s an interesting lull, where I find myself with time I didn’t have before. Obviously the end of the year provides us with a time to […]
Some of my interior photography clients aren’t builders, but designers. Not to take away from them, designers are involved from the ground up, before the ground is even there. Layout, materials, aesthetics flow, they pick materials and colours and accessories. A good sense of design will end up photographing itself, in a way, they’ve accounted […]
Ottawa Magazine brought me on to photograph the Zellers Family Diner or, at least, what was left of it. Zellers (a Canadian national retail chain) has had some turbulent times lately, and it’s final resting place seems to be a corporate takeover by U.S. big-box retailer Target. But, as you can see, not much has […]
While the bulk of my photography encompass’ people in places, sometimes I just photograph the places. Interior photography is a great change from my editorial work, and helps keep my eye sharp for compositions in unique backgrounds and spaces. One of the builders I work with, RND Construction, recently won a series of awards at […]
While much of what I photograph is editorial and portrait driven. I do have a good side-line on custom interior photography as well. This house (I didn’t shoot exterior, but know it looked like a typical suburban cookie-cutter house on the outside), was completely opened up by the addition of a glass central staircase. Where […]
The past few months have been the busiest of my relatively short career. This is good, it means I’m growing and building new things, finding new clients, and pleasing old ones as they return. The above photos are of my new bathroom. Nice, yes? We had the reno’s done by Ottawa’s RND Construction, who I […]
I was extremely fortunate to have been commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada to produce a number of panoramic interior photos of their various gallery collections. For those who have been to the gallery, you already know that photography inside the areas with art is prohibited, and there’s always a keen security guard watching […]
I live in a part of Ottawa known as Hintonburg. Anyone following me on Twitter will know I’m strongly community oriented; so, along with lots of photography related stuff, I chat to and about those in my neighbourhood. The gentrification of the main strip of Wellington West in Hintonburg is nothing new to folks who […]
Here’s a recent home renovation image I did for a client. Actually, the renovation wasn’t new, but my client needed a different approach to the space because they really wanted a single image to display how open they had made the space. As you can see, the kitchen in the back seamlessly opens into the […]
Canvaspop Over the past few years I’ve come to know the guys and gals at my local-international canvas making company
Working for “free” gets a bad rap, of course it’s also often misinterpreted in what free involves. A few months ago I was contacted by the lovely folks over at Local Tourist Ottawa to write a blog post that included a good selection of my personal work from the Ottawa area. Now, I do believe […]
I was recently contacted to shoot a very unique space: Bikram Yoga. Bikram, as I’ve been told, is the progenitor of “hot” yoga. Which seems like a steamy mess to me but, Yogi’s be damned, you gotta make something tricky even harder. The space is an old building at 71 Bank, you take this rickity […]
As chance would have it, I’ve been picking up some work lately taking real-estate photos. Pictured here is my sister-in-law’s house which she’ll be selling, on her own, through grapevine here). This was the second shoot I did in the past month and I felt I improved over the first a lot. The learning curve […]
