Ralph Nigro for Ontario Principals Council

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.

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Headshot Day with Kasian Architecture

We were excited to have gotten a call from Kasian Architecture to photograph updated portraits for, and at, their Toronto office. Most of their staff were still on WFH at the time so for a lot of folks coming in, this was their first time back since pre-pandemic. To make the most of everyone’s day in office they also planned their staff party for later that evening so everyone was all dressed up and ready to go for both photos and a party (leaving us with good looking ppl with upbeat, celebratory, attitudes)!

With a huge team spanning the country they wanted their photos to match other existing ones; giving a relaxed but professional feel and specifically meeting design requirements of being right justified to fit their site and internal formatting. Being an architecture firm there was no surprise that they have a beautiful and bright office space in Liberty Village. We opted for shooting the more formal headshot set ups in the lobby area as well as some staged ‘working’ / in action photos in the conference room with folks efficiently bouncing from Stef to Ethan for their sitting.

When people think of headshot day it always reminds them (even us) of picture day at school, but we love making it something better and giving folks a profile photo they can feel happy and confident about!

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Headshots with Becky

It makes all the difference when we are collaborating with someone on their headshot session vs. an office headshot day. While we also love the latter, with the former we can work more intimately with the subject to create the images that they will be happiest and most confident with. In this case Becky wanted to update various profile photos while also incorporating her love (and part of her job) of biking into her feature as well.

We met up with Becky at our favourite time of day, in the evening close to golden hour, to shoot around the Corktown Commons and then took a ride around Rosedale Valley for more ‘in action’ shots with her bike.

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Imagine Canada Summer Headshots

A FUN PART OF WORKING WITH THE SAME COMPANY OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS BEING ABLE TO BETTER ACQUAINT OURSELVES WITH THEIR STAFF

We go into Imagine Canada to shoot their staff headshots (for new staff and anyone who wants an update) a couple of times a year and every time we shoot it feels like we’re getting better and better; better at our workflow with them (as they’re generally quite pressed for time) better with recognizing who’s who, and even better with knowing how comfortable they are in front of the camera.

For these photos we actually went to their HQ to shoot and given that it was such a beautiful day out we decided to take to their patio to shoot. Being so high up gave us a backdrop mixed with sky and greenery so we opted out of our usual backdrop set up. The patio was either covered in shade or exposed to high noon sunlight so we (obviously) opted to shoot in the shade. As we tested we found that fully natural light photos were too flat so we added in some soft fill light to brighten people’s faces up.

See more photos down below…

PS. Staff are asked to select an adjective that best describes themselves which we later add in post, in English & French.