portrait series

Hey Yukon...What's your recreation?

Pulling up to a stop light the other day, I looked over and saw a bunch of familiar friendly faces smiling back at me, lookin’ photo shoot fresh…Perhaps you’ve seen something similar in the past few weeks?
That’s because the Lotteries Yukon Recreation Campaign we worked on is out in full force, including a bus wrap, featuring just a few of our awesome models!

Thanks to Sue Gleason for the photo of the bus!

There’s nothing better than the feeling of seeing a project, which was a year in the making, come together and be released out into the wild. We were lucky enough to work with the amazing Amanda Leslie of Mosaic Communications on this campaign, the goal being to both explore and celebrate the wide variety of recreations that Yukoners do, from across the Territory, and at every age.

What we always loved about this concept was how inclusive it was of the variety of different recreations that we’re all so lucky to have access to here in Yukon. From berry picking and hiking, to lawn bowling and pickle ball, and everything in between, we got to work with real Yukoners, out experiencing their communities throughout every season.

It was one of those feel-good projects, as no matter the weather, people were getting out and doing activities that were good for their bodies and their minds-staying active and connected to others.
Shout out to all of the awesome people we met and worked with along the way-you’re all pros both in front of the camera, and out doing what you do best!

Turns out birding is awesome...

Being commercial/industrial photographers, we have gotten to experience a lot over the years in terms of learning about different industries, programs and organizations. That’s one of our favourite things about our job is that we are constantly learning new things and getting to meet the awesome people that make up our community.

BUT one thing I can say that we have never come across before is Birding…until NOW that is!

We are so stoked to be working with Lotteries Yukon and Mosaic Communications on Lotteries’ new “What’s Your Recreation” campaign, which was just launched! Throughout the course of the year, we get to work with Yukoners around the Territory and get portraits of them out doing a variety of recreational activities

And you know what guys? Thanks to Tedd here, our first model of the series, it turns out we learned Birding is CRAZY COOL.

Like did you know Woodpeckers tongues are so long, they actually wrap around their entire skull to help protect their brains from concussions!?

LOOK AT THIS DIAGRAM IT’S INSANE:

And that’s just the start of it…Immature Eagles have longer wings than adults because they act like “training wheels” and the Arctic Tern (which we do get here in the Yukon) has the longest migration of any animal in the world!

BIRDS! Fascinating creatures…

All this to say, my world view on birds has been changed. I now get excited when I hear them. I’ve caught the birding bug….

Huge thanks to the awesome team behind this exciting campaign! It’s always so awesome to see our images “out in the wild” with design and we are so excited to see what else we get to capture along the way!


T1D. A Portrait Series

Earlier this spring we were lucky enough to be asked to do a portrait project for an amazing local organization called the Yukon T1D Support Network.

This organization provides peer supports, education, and advocacy for Yukon citizens diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, many of which are children. 

As part of an awareness project, the organizers wanted us to create a series of portraits of various community members who are either diagnosed themselves, or are family members of people who are living with T1D. 

We were so honoured to be able to work with such an inspiring group of people and were so excited with how they turned out.

If you, or someone you know has T1D and is looking for more support, advocacy, information or just a place to connect with some pretty amazing people-you should check out the Yukon T1D Support Network! 

 

 

 

Dogs for a Cause...

As many of you know, we put on a special fundraiser this weekend to help raise some funds for a friend of ours who recently lost her home and many of her beloved pets in a house fire.

Although totally relieved she, her husband and their daughter weren't home at the time and therefore were safe, we were heartbroken for them to find out that they lost so many of their pets in the incident. 

This is the family we actually got Bill Murray from, so we know all too well how much they loved those animals, and how much of an integral part of the family they were. SO, the only thing we could think to do was try to raise money to help them rebuild, and we thought what better way, than to celebrate the crazy, hyper, furry, sometimes frustrating, but always loving little creatures well call our pets through a portrait day.

And as always, Yukon, you didn't disappoint. Within 2 hours of posting about the event online, we were filled solid-I didn't even get the chance to post the actual schedule online we had so many requests!

We are SUPER excited to announce, that after a crazy day of laughs, drool, sniffing and one accident on the floor, we raised $ 1400 for a family in need.

HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to participate-it was so much fun.  And another huge thank you to our friend Lyndsey, who helped out throughout the day, and as you'll notice, her baby Gus who helped us do a light test too...(He also fit into the drool category so we thought he should make it into the gallery).

Drools and fur everywhere...the perfect Saturday.


PS: The 'Portrait Sharing' Project.

Well it's the start of a new week, so we thought, why not start a new tradition? 

Portraiture has always been at the centre of what we do, and why we fell in love with photography in the first place. We think it's rad that in a single image, you can tell someone's story, create a character, or set an entire scene. They can be super simple, or crazy elaborate. But no matter what, a portrait tells a story and that's what we love most about them.

So, because of our love of portraits, we thought it would be fun to start looking back at some of our favourites and share them with you guys each week, including some background on the inspiration, why we did particular styles, lighting, etc! 

This idea came to me when I was going through the archives and came across this portrait of one of our favourite artists, the lovely Rosemary Scanlon! It made me think of all the times we take shots for a particular client (in this case, a magazine profiling her work), where often the client only needs one shot, but we end up with quite a few that we love...

SO, what better way to to look back on some of our favourite shots, than to share them with you guys? And while we're on this sharing train, we thought why don't we keep it rolling and get you guys involved?

We thought it would be rad to see what you're creating too! 

Now, anyone who's taken our courses knows one of our favourite sayings is that "the best camera is the one you have on you." So we don't care if you're taking your shots with an iPhone as a hobby, or have the newest professional gear on the market-you can get creative with anything! So if you have an image you think fits the theme of the portrait we've posted, share it in the comments section of our Facebook post and let's see what everyone is creating! 

Note: This isn't about critiquing or judging who's doing what, it's just about sharing images you're proud of, so the only rule is to keep it positive! The internet has enough negativity on it, so we want only supportive comments and postings! 

And with that, welcome to our new tradition- PS: The 'Portrait Sharing' Project

For this first week, let's talk environmental contrast.

For this portrait in particular, we used an old forest fire burn site as our location to create a nice contrast between Rosemary's polished look and her surroundings. One of Gary's favourite things is when there is a stark contrast between the subject of the image and the environment. A space that isn't what you necessarily normally see the person in, adds an extra element to your image. The key is making sure that the background doesn't become over distracting and take away from your subject.

So with Rosemary, we really wanted to do something a bit different than having her portrait done in her studio which you might normally expect for a feature on an artist. The burn site actually ended up being a perfect location as it was an interesting backdrop, but still incorporated a lot of the tones and colours that she happened to have in her work at the time. Her water colour paintings included a lot of darker backdrops, and stark trees mixed in with incredible colourful details. If you haven't seen her work, do yourself a favour and check out her website at: http://rosemaryscanlon.com

For the lighting we kept it simple and used one Octa-box camera right as it was a cloudy day, so there was already great light for what we were looking for. 

And speaking of contrast, Gary is not only a fan of it in terms of storyline/backdrop, but also in terms of the dark to light ratio in his editing process, which you'll also notice in this image.

And here you have it! 

We're stoked to go through the archives and find more  to share with you guys over the next few weeks! 

Rosemary Scanlon