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

EVEN THOUGH THIS SHOOT WAS A WHILE AGO, I ALWAYS THINK BACK ON HATEL AS BEING ONE OF THE KINDEST PEOPLE WE’VE EVER MET

We met him at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa early one winter morning to photograph him for a feature for the RNAO about Registered Practical Nurses’ (RPNs) going back to school to become Registered Nurse (RN).

Hatel was so honoured to be featured he told us all about himself- his life, working 3 jobs (on top of being a student) to support himself and his family, how excited he was to graduate soon- and even showed us around his school, taking us into his classrooms and demonstrating a few moves for us, and he even booked out his “favourite lecture hall” for us to shoot in!

We don’t usually have an inside man/producer to help us with these kind of logistics, especially when the locations we’re shooting at are outside of the city, so generally we’ll arrive an hour or so before we begin to shooting to walk around, scout things out, and test shoot in a few different spots but Hatel had it all figured out for us!

It was a bright and sunny day when we shot (one of those blindingly bright days actually) so we ended up shooting all natural light. The lecture hall had this beautiful streak of light that was shining through the windows and there were floor to ceiling windows in the little stairwell that we shot that was too bright and beautiful to pass up.

See some photos from this shoot (+a couple behind the scenes phone snaps) down below