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
