One of our favourite shoots of the year is always with the Ontario Principals Council. It is always a joy working with the same team over the years, and in this case we always have a new face to photograph. The acting President of this year is Ralph Nigro, who we photographed at OPC housing HQ in downtown Toronto. Principals come from all around the province and with OPC’s office based right beside the Eaton Centre they have a condo unit for those who spend their term working in the city.

It can be a bit difficult working in the same space year after year and finding something new to do. Our last few sessions have been on the same rooftop but I think we have lucked out with having such an amazing view of the city from that high up that using the same backdrop over and over still looks as beautiful as the first time. Ralph was warm and welcoming, and very generous with his time. It’s no secret that photographers will often say “ok just 1 more thing” and then think of one more thing to do, and one more thing, and one more thing, and Ralph was incredibly patient with this. We had a beautiful and bright morning on our shoot day which ordinarily would be great but in this case was just a biiiit too bright for anyone to open their eyes all the way so we used a scrim to diffuse as necessary.

Click the photos below to enlarge and browse through

WE WERE QUITE EXCITED WHEN REBECCA REACHED OUT TO US ABOUT SHOOTING HER NEW PROJECT…

And even more excited to hear that it didn’t involve professionally shooting the interior (that’s not our schtick), but rather shooting the real life work that goes into bringing a new space to life. She wanted photos that captured her and her teams efforts by documenting their hard work, and the overall meticulousness of putting all of the final touches- unwrapping furniture, cleaning countertops, putting out flowers and filling jars with fresh coffee beans- on how to truly make a house a home.

This project was a condo right in the heart of downtown Toronto all the way up on the 60-something floor! The team had a lot to do, contractors were still cleaning up all of their tools and things when we arrived, and to be honest it was a little difficult to imagine how everything was going to be ready for later that day.

It was fun being a fly on the wall for a couple of hours and seeing how other people work and become so focused and enveloped in what their doing (I wonder if we look like that too as we shoot?). The condo was a corner unit so it was flooded with a ton of natural light coming in from the floor to ceiling windows and doors, despite it being cloudy outside.

Ethan shot wide throughout the day which was great for overall room shots, and because there were so many people in tighter spaces, and I shot with a fixed 50mm lens, focusing on tighter crops with a shallower depth of field.

See more photos throughout the day down below, and see the final condo here!