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Ottawa Editorial Portrait Photographer – Governor General David Johnston

GG David Johson

When you’re assigned to photograph someone who is to be addressed as “His Excellency” you expect a certain level of regency and pomp to come along with that individual. Of course none of that turned out to be true, as His Excellency was incredibly friendly, down to earth, regaling us with tales of his youth, his family, staying fit and the need for everyone to take a more active role in their health. This is a man who can still run marathons at 74 while I’m chocking up a lung after a light trot down the block, he could totally kick my ass… which may not be too much of an achievement actually.

The time for this part of the shoot was painfully short, I suppose he couldn’t have all his other important meetings that day in his running shirt and shorts (why not, who’s going to question him?), so a few of the face-forward smile at the camera poses that iRun usually uses was about all I was going to get. When you meet someone like him, you really hope for a timeless formal portrait, something that defines the person for future generations. Luckily for all of us, Ottawa Photographer Blair Gable already has us covered.

You can see the un-cropped, un-text adorned version on Flickr.

Nov 22, 2012 | Categories: Editorial, Portraits | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ottawa Lifestyle Photographer – iRun Feature Editorial

Ottawa Lifestyle Photographer Justin Van Leeuwen's shoot for iRun Magazine

I was tapped by iRun magazine to do an editorial lifestyle photography spread on some new running gear for the fall, winter, and spring season – basically stuff to keep runners warm when it’s cool. The assignment didn’t call for much more than some headshots with the hats, which I accommodated, but I felt they might have needed a bit more context so we set up a lifestyle shoot and, thanks to the power of twitter, we had some lovely models turn out.

The idea is to showcase the product, while still giving space for editorial in the photograph. The Ottawa River was a great location and, ironically, we had an unseasonably warm morning to shoot, which meant nobody got cold.

Thanks to Erin, Steve, and their adorable daughter Willow for bringing the family out for a run, and I can’t forget my good friend Lisa and her buddy Emma for also putting up with my shenanigans.

Nov 19, 2012 | Categories: Editorial | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Ottawa Commercial Photographer – NiceJewishGadgetFamily – “Extreme Family”

NiceJewishGadgetFamily -

The NiceJewishGadgetFamily is a blended family, a single mom isn’t so single anymore thanks to her superman (he’s Jewish, quite nice, and she likes gadgets). As always, the style of my Extreme family portraits lends itself more to my commercial photography, than a traditional family portrait.

You might recognize GadgetGirl from the shoots I did with her fellow foodieprints last year, building image collateral for their website. She’s been gracious enough to share this insight into her family life since it’s been such a bomb-shell week for my “Extreme” Family portraits.

What’s been going on you ask? I guess a few photo editors on some websites needed some content and they were more than happy to feature some of the work I’ve been building over the past few years. The Huffington Post started, Followed by the UK’s Daily Mail, and now BuzzFeed. If you like the photos great! If not, you can join in on the comments on those sites. I’ve had to stop looking because they’re just plain mean. I never said I was the best at what I do, or that my work is perfect, I just like meeting people, and providing them with a photograph that we all believe represents their family at a point of time in their lives, without resorting to boring and cliche’d $20 portrait studios.

“But Justin, this is hardly EXTREME” True, I never really started calling my own work extreme. I give full credit of the term to my friend Angela, she kept saying it, and it stuck, so that’s what it’s called now, but it doesn’t mean you always have to throw a baby in the air. It’s about taking time to get the looks right. To have fun creating an image, involving the whole family, I’m just the guy to capture it and put it all together, but the family gets to choose how far they take things, what they get to include (and exclude) in the image.

In the case of the NiceJewishGadgetFamily, lil’Foodieprints loves to cook, she’s also a teenager and, knowing better, often frowns on the actions of the parental units… her frown is a bit of a smirk, she was having too much fun. Nice Jewish Boy lurves him some Superman, you can’t see it here, but his socks had little capes. What does Gadget Girl love more than gadgets? Wine – obviously – and bubbly, drinking champagne before noon is classy when your’e on a photoshoot. They have that dog… thing…too. They like it, though it looks a bit off in the comp, it was *actually* right there so it shouldn’t look out of place, but it kind of does, maybe because it doesn’t really look like a dog?

Thanks everyone for your support, and if you’re new here I’ve been taking photos for 1,000+ blog posts now, that’s about 7 years, and all the haters who gonna hate… what have you been up to lately?

You can catch me on twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. And if you’re looking for more technical info on how this was shot, I have that over here.

Nov 16, 2012 | Categories: Extreme Family, Portraits | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Fresh Meat, Commercial Photography

Fresh Meat

Sometimes you take on some commercial photography work just because it’s fun. I was approached by the Rideau Valley Roller Girls to do one of the pages of their fundraising calendar. It was the new girls in the league photo, and befitting the “Fresh Meat” they are, the location of a local butcher was used. A challenge for me was that this location was used for the same sort of group photo last year. The space not being too large, it’s hard to fit a group of people in many other ways than they had been before. Of course, this was my “safety” since it was a no-brainer to pull off.

I had the idea to shoot “through” the meat before I showed up, it was the only other vantage, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking the butcher until we had been there a while. It’s important to build a quick relationship with your subjects, or people who have a stake in the photo (like the owner of the business where you’re shooting) but to be careful not to push your boundaries so far that it’ll reflect poorly on yourself or the client you’re shooting for. In this case, he said “Do whatever you want” so I was able to get the shot above. It, in itself, isn’t perfect but for me it’s different enough that I’m happy I was able to put a bit of an extra spin on the RVR’s shoot.

Nov 15, 2012 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fresh Meat, Commercial Photography

Ottawa Editorial Interior – Zellers Family Diner for Ottawa Magazine

In Print - Zellers Family Diner for Ottawa Magazine

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 changed in the family cafeteria over the past 50-or-so years. While vintage seems to be taking over a lot of new restaurants, this is the real-deal, and it won’t be around for long (in fact, at the time of this writing I’m pretty sure it’s gone).

You can even see by the outside that the retail chain has treated it as an after-thought. Broken neon signage, store clearance areas pushed right up to the threshold. But inside was a different story. The patrons all had a familiar feel to the place, they seemed to belong there – regular customers. One man was quite irate that I was taking photographs (even though the exposures would mean he’d be rendered nigh-invisible) while some lovely ladies at right were giddy and flirtatious. This was their comfort zone, their safe-place, and that’s been taken away. As a guy who enjoys being a regular at a bar or restaurant I know the feeling. It’s hard to switch gears, to have something you like taken away – what choice are you left with when all your memories are built over? When there’s nowhere comfortable to grab some scrambled eggs and coffee? Change is hard, and not always for the better of the people it affects.

You can read the full Ottawa Magazine article here. You can also see the title image larger on Flickr.

Nov 12, 2012 | Categories: Editorial, Interiors | 1 Comment »