Ottawa Commercial Photographer – Bikram Yoga

I absolutely love shooting comprehensive campaign work for my clients. As a commercial photographer, working on images from the very inception of the concept is where I like to be. I was thrilled to receive a call from Claire at Bikram Yoga Ottawa to revamp her images for their new website and other potential ad material. She wanted to work with her current line of instructors, and she wanted the images to be bold and colourful. Perfect; those are right up my photographic alley.

Most Yoga studios wide open with lots and lots of mirrors everywhere, mirrors can be a logistical nightmare if you’re planning to light and shoot the photographs on location. I also envisioned a very-straight on look, consistent, so that we wouldn’t be altering the set for every single shot. Bikram is on the third floor of an old office building in downtown Ottawa with lovely large windows facing West. The early morning light would be easy to blend with a flash exposure, while creating a lovely reflective cityscape as a background; giving these images a sense of place beyond just *any* yoga studio. I thought the windows would be my key to an easier shoot too, no mirrors to Photoshop me and my gear out of every time, no need to shoot it as a composite, just interchange every instructor and run them through their poses. I was kinda wrong…

See all that stuff on the wall? Yeah, I had to Photoshop that out. And since I chose to not shoot the series as a composite (read: on a plain background then moving the subjects into the static studio background), I had to edit the wall, the lights, the distracting elements in the background for EVERY. One. Nineteen photos. That’s my bad. Two different approaches, I chose to take one that ended up being more difficult. The benefit is that we do have variance in the backgrounds. The perspective always changes based on the best angle of view for the pose, and the final series is each one unique.

The extra space on the images will help with various website layouts, creating a good amount of custom commercial “stock” photography for Bikram to use on various pages, banners, and in print advertisements. I’m very pleased with the results, and the final product is a collaborative effort like all commercial photography. The client and I were able to come up with a great vision for the final product, she spent the extra time and money on a more unique photographic setup, as well as details like makeup by Natalie Peachy, pedicures and manicures: you’d be amazed at how much better a person feels in front of the camera after that kind of pampering. Thanks to Cole for assisting on this job, since there was no parking in the building, we had to lug our gear up and across Bank Street.

Posted on Sunday, January 19th, 2014 at 9:06 pm. Filed under: Commercial, Portraits Tags: Athletes, Bank Street, Bikram, Commercial Photography, Natalie Peachy, Ottawa, Portraits, Sports, Yoga RSS 2.0 feed.