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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Landscapes from BC

As a first time BC visiter I (Stef) was asked constantly ‘how do you like it, are you enjoying it?’ and my answer to everyone was, ‘my little city brain can’t comprehend all of this (insert hand motion gesturing to the surrounding area)’. And the funny part is that everyone understood what I meant! I never realized that I hadn’t been around mountains until the first time we were in France, driving in Provence through mountains. Suddenly I was like, ‘wtf is all of this, these aren’t just big hills!?’ and BC very much felt like that but x1000. Being a city gal who’s countryside experience is just going up to the cottage for a handful of weeks a year, having the easiest access to waterfronts, to beautiful scenery, to be able to simply say ‘let’s watch the sunset from the top of the mountain tonight’ and to only put a minimal amount of effort to get there (some spots even in peoples backyard?!) was really astonishing to me!

So of course we had to document it. We’re always on the fence about what gear to bring, if any, when we travel. A couple of years ago we invested in a Fuji X100V to be our dedicated every day / travel camera; it’s light and compact, great quality, and still allows you to shoot in manual mode. Our biggest hang up about having cameras when we travel is that our serious gear is big, is heavy, is clunky, and no one wants to be lugging that around all day, but the Fuji is so slim it easily fits in a sling bag that it feels like there is no excuse to not have it on us at all times.

Since we were doing a couple of actual shoots in BC we did bring our serious gear (a whole packed Pelican, actually) so some of these photos are actually taken with a Nikon Z6II, some with a Fuji X100V.

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Junior Cadougan for Marquette University

This was, hands down, one of our favourite shoots of 2023! Junior Cadougan, is a former professional basketball player, and currently runs Cadougan Elite. This past summerJunior drove his team down to his alma mater, Marquette University in Milwaukee— “If you are looking for someone to believe in, believe in Junior Cadougan, who drove all night to show a group of ninth graders what is possible beyond what they can imagine.”

While there the team got a few phone snaps but didn’t have a chance to take better photos, which is where we came in. Julie, from 508 Creative, reached out to connect us with Junior and assigned us the task of photographing the team back in Toronto. They were looking for photos of the team, of Junior, and of the kids playing and goofing around, ‘kids being kids’. We met up with them at a practice one night at a gym for rent where music was blasting, everyone was sweaty, and in the neighbouring court a volleyball game was happening. The energy was immediately palpable. Kids are always fun to shoot and often letting them do their own thing is where the magic really happens, like during their formal group photo when we prompted ‘ok now stay in the same position, but interact with each other’ and they immediately turned things up 110%.

The action shots of everyone playing was where we felt most apprehensive of this shoot; we’re not sports photographers by any means and this felt very out of our wheelhouse, but turned out to be our absolute favourite part of the night! We set up a big light for the group shot but knew it wouldn’t be realistic to use (or to even plant in 1 optimal location) while everyone was moving around, so we opted for on camera flash. Direct flash isn’t something we always use, but something about the high energy, grit, and passion oozing out of everyone made it feel appropriate. Knowing that we weren’t going to get the kinds of photos that would best encapsulate the team from the sidelines something in my mind said, get in the way, so that’s exactly what we did. Right in the middle of the action, constantly getting someone falling on us, and occasionally a basketball right to the lens (that’s what insurance is for right lol?), but it was so worth it!

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