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Ottawa Interior Photographer – New Toilet!

New Toilet!

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 happen to do work for. Finding the right contractor was easy. I’ve photographed enough of their work, and worked with them on-site, to know that their commitment to quality and their customer was exactly what I wanted when we needed our space renovated.

It’s kind of funny how these things turn out, actually. Since the owner of the company first hired me on spec after seeing one of my Canvases hanging on a wall in a restaurant – a failed attempt to sell some prints – which turned into a regular gig for me, and then another job for him. It’s good to support those who support you – what goes around comes around.

Jul 03, 2012 | Categories: Interiors, Personal, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Ottawa Editorial Portrait Photographer – Michael Tayler, take two

Ottawa Portrait Photographer Justin Van Leeuwen

Ottawa Portrait Photographer Justin Van Leeuwen

Actually, this was take one, but the previous image was the first to go to press – so I showed it first.

Michael seems to be a natural model, along as a highly skilled athlete, he had no problem shooting off his own “blue steel” and rocking this shot. I would have loved to have seen this as a two-page spread in a magazine, though the centred subject is working against me here (rule of thirds works well for editorial photography). As it was, it got cropped down:

That’s part of the game though; it’s a collaboration and while we work to create the best images possible for our clients, sometimes their needs are a bit… restrictive? At least I got to shoot it the way I wanted, and at least I get to show it off – there are certainly worse scenarios – and worse crops – out there. Have you ever run into this with your own work? How’d it make you feel?

You can check out a BTS image of this shoot over on Flickr.

Jun 15, 2012 | Categories: Editorial, Portraits | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ottawa Editorial Portrait Photographer – Dylan Wykes – Team Canada Marathoner

Dylan Wykes - Team Canada Marathoner

The latest issue of iRun magazine should be out today featuring some work I did for Canadian Olympians Dylan Wykes and Michael Tayler (Michael, you’ve seen before).

Both were incredible subjects – there’s something about athletes that make them great for photography. Likely their fierce determination and resolve, but definitely their peak physical shape. While you always anticipate a human eliment, you never know what you’re walking into; some people are vain, rushed, or have a sense of importance that can really turn a shoot sour both Dylan & Michael were none of these. Dylan was so generous with his day that I ran out of ideas for shots before I ran out of time.

I packed fairly light for this shoot, opting for a single Ranger Quadra unit using the asymetrical dual ports (so two lights on one pack) which created a unique set of problems, one being the length of the cables as a limiting factor of a light setup. Just out of frame you’d see a strainging Assistant booming a softbox left while trying not to pull a gridded light on a stand at camera right… I may have also asked him to position himself awkwardly for the shot above.


Thanks Quinn!

You can also see a larger version of the header image over on Flickr

Jun 04, 2012 | Categories: Editorial, Portraits | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Adorkable Undies

Adorkable Undies

I love it when a plan comes together.

I worked with Nadine early last year, hers

was my first planned composite family portrait outside of my own kids. This paved the way for an even more planned out shoot when

she approached me to re-launch her blog “Adorkable Undies” to keep focused on her work in sexual education and discussion (the

later being the open part – keeping it open helps us all break the taboo’s of dirty terrible sex).

The tag-line in her re-launch was the obvious theme for the shoot “Keep your pants off!” Now, knowing Nadine, I knew we could

do the pantsless shoot, but I didn’t want to take it so far to be something like a boudoir shoot (many of which I see as failed

attempts at portraying sexyness and sexuality), and play a bit more with her fun-loving theatre side. They would be pin-up in

style, but modern, and clean fun – no nipples.

I brought the talented Catalina Bloch on-board to style the first day of shots. A welcome departure from her lace balloons and other crazy photo-stylist doings; she got

to mess up Nadine’s kitchen. We then moved up to the bedroom (heh) which was bathed in soft natural light, which I tried to

replicate in the “daytime” blogging from bed shot.

While I had planned for the In Bed at Night blogging shot, the actual arrangement of how I produced the lighting was a bit of a

happy accident from the hair-light and computer light used to light her face in the daytime shot. All we had to do was turn off

our two huge octa-boxes at camera left & right and we had night (even though it was actually around 1pm)

We needed a sunny day for the lawn shoot, so I came back one warm Friday morning and we knocked this one out just the two of

us. At one point I tried to get her to suck on some popsicles but, uh… well we won’t show those.

I’d love to hear what you think! Sound off in the comments about which image is your favourite and maybe a few thoughts on how

you would have spun off this idea for even more pantless photoshoots.
You can also see all the above images larger over on flickr.

May 31, 2012 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Ottawa Race Weekend

Ottawa Race Weekend

Rare is the time that I’m not assigned to take photographs of some sort of goings-on in the city. While some may take it as a sleight when iRun decided to go with their tried-and-true Ottawa Race Weekend Photographer Ian Murchison out of Toronto (fiend!), I took it as an opportunity to explore a personal project I’ve been meaning to get off the ground.

Blatently ripped off Heavily inspired by Dave Delnea’s cyclist portraits in BC, I wanted a crack at capturing athletes in motion using a strobe. Lighting them helped keep the background dark helped isolate the runners. I’m truly amazed by the marathoners. I have a hard time running down the block, so how these athletes do 42+ Kilometres I have no idea. It reminds me of movies like Conan or Lord of the Rings where running is how people transported themselves (without horses or Camels to punch).

I set myself up just shy of the 9k mark which is, conveniently, blocks away from my home in Hintonburg. Runners would be well into the run, but not deathly exhausted. I was surprised at all the peace signs and thumbs up I received – which I wasn’t looking for to be honest – I wanted to capture a sincere moment of someone engaged in a devoted exercise, focused, with resolve. I think I captured that here.

Let me know what you think of the images, it was my first time panning runners with my camera, and the weight of my telephoto lens definitely wore me down after the first 300 shots… though I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as running 42KM 😉

May 28, 2012 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: , | 5 Comments »