Time Off at River Mountain

Ethan has had two pandemic birthdays so this year, with the world in better shape, I (Stef) surprised him with a trip to River Mountain in Everett, Pennsylvania! Listen, knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important and while Ethan is an outdoorsy guy, I (again, Stef) am not lol so I knew glamping is definitely how we can split the difference and both enjoy ourselves.

For a while now we have wanted to invest in a smaller camera mainly for travel and leisure. Something compact, high quality, with the same or a similar amount of control as a professional camera, and something easy to use. Whenever we travel we end up bringing one of our cameras (Nikon D800) with high hopes of taking tons and tons of photos and documenting our time so beautifully, but we inevitably neglect to actually use it because who wants to be carrying around a massive, heavy, camera all day? Ethan came across the Fuji X100V and after some back and forth we ended up getting it. I’ll admit that I was skeptical at first; not full frame, Fuji (we’re Nikon shooters!?), fixed lens? It all seemed liked chaos but after a few months of taking it out here and there it has definitely become our go-to for personal snapshots.

River Mountain was a fun little getaway for Ethan’s birthday, from winter, and before our schedules really begin to ramp up with both wedding season and the possibility of finally getting back to shooting outdoors again.

Here are a few little informal snaps from our time there, click the photos to enlarge and browse through.

PS. Creepy post-apocalyptic scenery brought to you by an abandoned turnpike that felt 10x scarier in person

Branding Session with Rebecca Hay Designs

we love lifestyle photos and we love repeat clients!

Learning about a brand / company for 1 shoot is an easy task but learning about a brand, the people behind it, and their ethos after multiple shoots is a different task, and one we really love. The more we get to know Rebecca and her team the better idea we get about who she is as a mompreneur, what her company is all about, and the types of imagery that best speak to both her, her brand, and her audience. Every time we shoot it feels like things get easier and our photos get better, and this session (like our others) is no exception!

We met up at one of her recent projects in Oakville where we focused more on ‘working’ photos than usual. For Rebecca this means planning in her notebook, keeping up on social media, staging the house, and having her own time at home reading, going for a run, and doing mom things like cleaning up. All the things, and photos, that really speak to her and her company.

Click the photos to enlarge and browse through

Raónraon Creations- Spring Collection

In TRUTH, PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY ISN’T OUR FORTÉ BUT WHEN YOU HAVE PRODUCTS THIS BEAUTIFUL IT’S HARD TO SAY NO TO SHOOTING THEm!

Raónraon is a womxn & Indigenous owned business that creates these stunning handcrafted beaded earrings and when they approached us to photograph their spring collection we were thrilled! With gold accents this collection was inspired by the beauty of nature and made with an abundance of passion and care, so we too wanted to incorporate that with the ‘lifestyle’ photos while still providing a ‘studio’ option against the red silk.

In truth this was our first shoot in a long time given the pandemic and restrictions so we were rusty.. We knew when we saw the earrings in person that a direct, strong, natural light would be best to showcase the intricate features of each earring; the different textures, sizes, tones of gold, etc. We shot against the red backdrop first, which is both a prominent colour in Indigenous cultures, as well as something that offered a complimenting contrast to the gold/warm tones of the earring themselves.

The next ‘nature’ set up took a while to build and was interesting to do (said by people who are better with other people than they are with things lol). We shot at home so we used what we had around which, like so many throughout the pandemic/lockdown, is plants. Fortunately this worked out though considering the collection was inspired by nature! While we wanted to shoot the earrings outside in a more nature-y environment it was difficult to find the perfect spot where we could prop the earrings up while still including a few different other elements to the ‘set’. So we kept it all inside and used what we had to build it up.

The important part of product photography that we had to remind ourselves about while shooting this: shoot as you build! Every element that we brought into the frame we took a photo of; first with just the vines + earrings, then vines, dried flowers + earrings, then vines, dried flowers, dried petals + earrings, so on and so forth. Eventually we got a set up that we really enjoyed and we rotated the earrings out as we made minor adjustments (for propping them up) in between takes.

While we don’t have any plans on switching to product photography full time, this was definitely a fun challenge for us and something we look forward to doing again in the future! Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, Raónroan!

Click the photos below to enlarge and browse through