portraiture

So...what do you do?

Ahhh networking...and the, what 'should' be an easy answer, that is actually more complex than you think....

I went to an "Un-Networking" event this week hosted by the oh-so-awesome SMRT Pop Ups team which sought to give local female entrepreneurs a chance to connect, share, and in some cases, just straight up practice answering the question "What do you do?"

The expected/easy answer for me?: We are a photography company that specializes in commercial, corporate and editorial photography.  

Even more broad? Well, we photograph people. People at work, people at play, and people doing the activities that matter most to them and their community.

But after taking some time to really think about it, I realized that still just didn't feel like it fully explains what we do. It felt flat to me, and it got me thinking about the reason we do the work we do...the reason we work specifically with businesses and organizations. 

Now that is because we love getting to the heart of WHY people do what they do.

We understand that we, as a society, crave connection. We crave authenticity and experience, and so when a business or organization wants to engage with their audience, the best way to do that is by personalizing themselves, and creating that actual human connection to their organization. By showcasing employees, or the people behind what you do, you can not only show your audience what you do, but more importantly, WHY you do it. 

As entrepreneurs ourselves, we love to celebrate  businesses and organizations and the people behind them that build our communities, that are providing for their families and that are making a difference in this world in their own unique way. We can connect with their experience, their struggles, and their determination, and so it's our job to then take that connection and create images that can reflect that back to a broader audience.

Needless to say, the event left me thinking a lot about our work here at GBP. About the complexities of it-the human connection and interpersonal skills it takes, the mix of both technical and artistic sides of our business that constantly keep us on our toes. It was a great night to reflect on not only WHAT we do, but the WHY we do it. And it's got us feeling pretty grateful to have such a strong community of entrepreneurs and community leaders that we get to hold up and celebrate.

 

 

GBP Creative 2015 Roundup...

Well 2015 is coming to an end, so as always, we thought it would be a good time to look back on the year and what we got up to...

2015 was a crazy year. We had one of our largest commercial shoots to date, creating a new image catalogue for our local telco company, Northwestel, which took months of preparations, 3 days of shooting, a crew of 12, and over 18 models.

We worked with some of our favourite clients, and also met some new ones as we continued to expand our commercial and corporate work throughout the north. Whether we were standing on top of a mountain, trying to figure out what an MRI would do to the electrical components in our cameras, or filming dance scenes throughout the streets of Vancouver, it was a pretty eclectic mix!

And when we look back at it, although the year had some ups and some downs, overall it was a big year of growth for us, and we are just so incredibly stoked that you guys, our community, give us the ability to do what we do everyday. 

We feel really lucky to be where we're at, and can't wait for what 2016 has in store....Let's make some more awesome stuff together shall we?


Dogs for a Cause...

As many of you know, we put on a special fundraiser this weekend to help raise some funds for a friend of ours who recently lost her home and many of her beloved pets in a house fire.

Although totally relieved she, her husband and their daughter weren't home at the time and therefore were safe, we were heartbroken for them to find out that they lost so many of their pets in the incident. 

This is the family we actually got Bill Murray from, so we know all too well how much they loved those animals, and how much of an integral part of the family they were. SO, the only thing we could think to do was try to raise money to help them rebuild, and we thought what better way, than to celebrate the crazy, hyper, furry, sometimes frustrating, but always loving little creatures well call our pets through a portrait day.

And as always, Yukon, you didn't disappoint. Within 2 hours of posting about the event online, we were filled solid-I didn't even get the chance to post the actual schedule online we had so many requests!

We are SUPER excited to announce, that after a crazy day of laughs, drool, sniffing and one accident on the floor, we raised $ 1400 for a family in need.

HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to participate-it was so much fun.  And another huge thank you to our friend Lyndsey, who helped out throughout the day, and as you'll notice, her baby Gus who helped us do a light test too...(He also fit into the drool category so we thought he should make it into the gallery).

Drools and fur everywhere...the perfect Saturday.


Sarah MacDougall is back...

We've been working with a lot of musicians here lately, so thought it would be fitting to end our work week by sharing one of our most recent sessions with the amazingly talented, Sarah MacDougall!

We recently did this studio session with Sarah and wanted to bring in some darker colours, but still keep the mood light. We used movement in a few of the shots and also brought in some of her instruments to help show the diversity of sounds in her latest record.

We've worked with Sarah quite a few times now, and it's always awesome to see how much she's evolved both in her artistic style surrounding the concept of our shoots, as well as musically. If you haven't heard her music yet, stop what you're doing and head to ww.sarahmacdougall.com... she's unreal.

PS: The 'Portrait Sharing Project" Part 2...

Well after a crazy few weeks of travelling for work, we are back in the studio doing some editing on this rainy day...so we thought while we're at it, we should put out another edition of our Portrait Sharing Project!

This week, we want to focus on "Reflections". We don't mean you have to get deep and find a photo you took that analyzes life...we straight up mean, show us your photos that you've taken that have used reflections in cool/artistic way! (And of course, if it happens to also connect with pondering the meaning of life we're keen to hear about it!) 

Firstly, we decided to share this shot we took of our friend Stratis of Headless Owl Records.  Originally, we had been asked to do a portrait of him for a local magazine, but we wanted to do something a bit different and not just have a traditional shot for the editor. This was simply taken with him looking out of his front window, while Gary stood like a creeper in the bushes outside, shooting in...The neighbours may have thought something weird was going on, but we were stoked with the result.

When using reflections in your shots, especially when they are darker,  you need to create a space for your subject within the reflection itself. In this case, Gary found a gap to place the subject in between the trees. It's a bit gritty, and moody, which we liked for this particular project.

And not gonna lie...Gary loves to use reflections...Here's a couple more examples to check out!

Sometimes it's just a matter of stopping to take a look at your surroundings, and trying something different...have you used reflections in any of your shots? In water, on metal, on glass, etc? 

If so, let's see em! Same rules as last time...just post your shot in the comments section of our FB post, and only supportive comments allowed! Let's help make the internet a friendlier place shall we?

PS: The 'Portrait Sharing' Project.

Well it's the start of a new week, so we thought, why not start a new tradition? 

Portraiture has always been at the centre of what we do, and why we fell in love with photography in the first place. We think it's rad that in a single image, you can tell someone's story, create a character, or set an entire scene. They can be super simple, or crazy elaborate. But no matter what, a portrait tells a story and that's what we love most about them.

So, because of our love of portraits, we thought it would be fun to start looking back at some of our favourites and share them with you guys each week, including some background on the inspiration, why we did particular styles, lighting, etc! 

This idea came to me when I was going through the archives and came across this portrait of one of our favourite artists, the lovely Rosemary Scanlon! It made me think of all the times we take shots for a particular client (in this case, a magazine profiling her work), where often the client only needs one shot, but we end up with quite a few that we love...

SO, what better way to to look back on some of our favourite shots, than to share them with you guys? And while we're on this sharing train, we thought why don't we keep it rolling and get you guys involved?

We thought it would be rad to see what you're creating too! 

Now, anyone who's taken our courses knows one of our favourite sayings is that "the best camera is the one you have on you." So we don't care if you're taking your shots with an iPhone as a hobby, or have the newest professional gear on the market-you can get creative with anything! So if you have an image you think fits the theme of the portrait we've posted, share it in the comments section of our Facebook post and let's see what everyone is creating! 

Note: This isn't about critiquing or judging who's doing what, it's just about sharing images you're proud of, so the only rule is to keep it positive! The internet has enough negativity on it, so we want only supportive comments and postings! 

And with that, welcome to our new tradition- PS: The 'Portrait Sharing' Project

For this first week, let's talk environmental contrast.

For this portrait in particular, we used an old forest fire burn site as our location to create a nice contrast between Rosemary's polished look and her surroundings. One of Gary's favourite things is when there is a stark contrast between the subject of the image and the environment. A space that isn't what you necessarily normally see the person in, adds an extra element to your image. The key is making sure that the background doesn't become over distracting and take away from your subject.

So with Rosemary, we really wanted to do something a bit different than having her portrait done in her studio which you might normally expect for a feature on an artist. The burn site actually ended up being a perfect location as it was an interesting backdrop, but still incorporated a lot of the tones and colours that she happened to have in her work at the time. Her water colour paintings included a lot of darker backdrops, and stark trees mixed in with incredible colourful details. If you haven't seen her work, do yourself a favour and check out her website at: http://rosemaryscanlon.com

For the lighting we kept it simple and used one Octa-box camera right as it was a cloudy day, so there was already great light for what we were looking for. 

And speaking of contrast, Gary is not only a fan of it in terms of storyline/backdrop, but also in terms of the dark to light ratio in his editing process, which you'll also notice in this image.

And here you have it! 

We're stoked to go through the archives and find more  to share with you guys over the next few weeks! 

Rosemary Scanlon




Women of Wisdom

After we finished one of our biggest commercial shoots yet to date last month, we took a full week off, away from the studio, and holed up in a cabin out in Tagish. We felt like we needed some time to relax, to unplug (sometimes it’s so therapeutic to not have the internet), and to reflect on where we’ve gotten to over the past few years.

One of the things we quickly realized, was how awesome it is that so far, this year especially, a lot of the projects we are being asked to work on are really meaningful, not only to our clients but to us personally. I think in any job you can find yourself at times, falling into a daily routine, plugging away, but the projects we’ve done so far this year are anything but routine. 

One of those meaningful projects, was working with the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre on a portrait series that was displayed at an event called “Survival Through Our Own Lens” during Victims Week last month.  The goal of the event was to challenge stigmas that society often creates around victims of violence, and along with the portraits, the women of the group created art and music to showcase their stories.

We wanted the portraits to showcase these women’s strength, their beauty and their individuality, and seeing them up on the wall in print was a pretty powerful experience.

So thank you to each and everyone of you for being a part of this project and sharing your stories. It was an honour to work with you!

Portraits of Yukon's Most Awesome...

We were SO stoked when the most recent issue of Yukon North of Ordinary Magazine came out because we've been waiting to share some of our favourite work we've done yet this year which is featured in our photo essay!

Also, we were so pumped how this cover worked out...Raven looks so rad!

So, we often talk about how our favourite part of our job is the people we get to meet along the way, and the stories we hear, so it only  made sense when we thought up the idea to do a specific portrait series which highlights some of the people in our community who we think bring next level awesomeness to what they do...Each person in this series has an incredible story and makes our community such a unique and supportive place to live.  The magazine article has write ups on each person so be sure to check out the full series! (I know they have copies at Mac's Fireweed) 

In the meantime, we wanted to share some of the images, and send shout outs to everyone who was involved.  You guys are literally why we do what we do, and it was a total honour to have each of you in our studio. 

Featured: 

Wolf Lady and Raven of The Oh-So-Amazing Dakka Khwaan Dancers

Darryl Tait-Adrenaline machine, and best Instagrammer out there

Kate White-Baker, Biker, and Advocate

Leonard Gordon Sr- Crossing Guard, Elder, Safety Machine

Myrna Kingscote- Costume Maker, Small business owner, and Rendezvous Royalty

Stephanie Dixon- Paralympian, Advocate, and Beam of Sunshine

Val Pike- Health Professional, Volunteer Extraordinaire, Women's health advocate

Garbage Truck Santa (Wayne Henderson)- Spreader of joy, Christmas Spirit, and Yukon charm

 

 





Portrait Photography

Of all the different types of shoots we do, portraiture is definitely one of our absolute favourites.

We got into this business because we are both "people" people. We love getting to work with the variety of individuals we do, whether it's someone with a modelling/acting background who is comfortable in front of the camera, or someone who hates the thought of it, and shows up at our studio full of nerves...we love being able to take the time to work with each person, ensuring they are comfortable enough to relax and have their true expressions come through.

To be a portrait photographer, you have to be able to first and foremost be able to engage with your subject, and create a friendly, chill atmosphere. All the gear in the world, doesn't mean anything if your model isn't able to relax and have fun with it.

Even if you need us to play your secret favourite music that you don't normally admit to (let's all just agree to stop lying to ourselves and admit that we love Taylor Swift already) we are game!

 





If an artist goes into the forest...

I was going to try to start this with a terrible joke, but I think it's best for all of us if we skip that part. It's like i'm turning into Gary or something... (Anyone who's taken our Available light or Lightroom courses knows he's the king of terrible jokes)

ANYWAYS, we're SO stoked to finally be able to share these portraits with you guys! We did these earlier in the summer for an article that just came out in the most recent copy of Yukon North of Ordinary Magazine on the crazy talented artist, Rosemary Scanlon.

Now Rosemary is the best, which was proven yet again when we asked her if she wanted to drive 2.5 hours out to the Carmacks forest fire burn area to do the portraits, (a bit of a trek for 5 images) and she was totally in, without a question!  We started the day off doing the portrait session, and then spent a few hours rummaging through the forest looking for morel mushrooms (photos of which, you can check out on our past blog).  Also, Gary discovered "F'Real" milkshakes at the Carmacks gas station which really made his trip....(see photos below)

But I digress....The reason we wanted to shoot Rosemary's portrait out in that area was the fact that we thought it would be an awesome contrast to have her dressed up, sitting amongst a dark, empty backdrop like a burn site. I had gone out there a few weeks previously and having never been in a burn before, was blown away by the stillness, the emptiness and just the general feel of the area...it was like we were on a whole different planet. 

It also fit really well with the colours and feel of  Rosemary's current work that the article was featuring, so in the end we were really happy with the way the images turned out.

So, we hope you like them, and to learn more about Rosemary's work, you can pick up the latest issue of Yukon, North of Ordinary, or go to her website here: http://www.rosemaryscanlon.com