Canadian Music Week and Speed Control- GBP Yukon Photographer

As we've posted about many times before, we here at GBP love music.  Not only that,  we love working with artists to help them create images that represent their music and their style...images that in one glance, can give you a feel for what that artist is all about.

Over the past year in particular, we've started to do a lot more work within the Yukon music industry, in both still photography and videos. It's the creative/conceptual aspect to these shoots that we love the most as it becomes a brand new challenge with each artist to help create the artistic direction needed in order to really showcase their sound through imagery. 

It's because of this love of the music industry that we decided to attend the Music Summit as part of Canadian Music Week this March in Toronto! We are SO stoked to be able to be attending as part of the Yukon contingent that's heading down to network and learn from some of the best and brightest in the North American music industry.  (Huge thank you to both the Yukon Film and Sound Commission and the Department of Economic Development for your support in this opportunity)  From marketing directors to sound technicians, Music Week is filled with breakout sessions, workshops and keynotes that help provide music industry professionals with the tools and knowledge needed to advance in the field. 

We are so pumped for this opportunity, and can't wait to bring back the knowledge we gain into our future projects both locally and across Canada!  

SO in honour of the fact that we're only a month out from the trip, we wanted to share a few of our latest shots with local band Speed Control! 

And let me tell you...this may have taken the record for the loudest shoot our studio has had to date!

If you haven't already, check out Speed Control at:  http://speedcontrol.ca/site/

Baby in the Studio-GBP Yukon Photographer

Ok...ever heard of the Daily Cute?? Well, AFTER you check out our blog post you probably should...you see it's based around the concept of sharing crazy adorable baby animal photos every day, and I (Brianne) LOVE It.

SO, I decided that seeing as how it's friday, we should do our own daily cute post and show you a little taste of a shoot we did here at the GBP studio recently with a crazy cute baby...

So Happy Friday everybody...let the cuteness ensue.

Cake Smash-GBP Whitehorse Photographer

What happens when you mix an adorable 1 year old with her first ever birthday cake??  Cake Smashing awesomeness....

Fat Tire Ballerinas Shoot-GBP Yukon Photographer

Some of you may remember our GBP Adventure Pants Extravaganza contest we had a few months back where we had people submit stories of their favourite Yukon adventure activity to do with their family/friends...well it turns out there's a lot of people wearing adventure pants around here, and so the job of picking a winner turned out to be a lot harder than we thought...

In the end, we decided to go with the group who made us laugh out loud and left us thinking "yup that's gonna be a fun one to shoot..." And I don't mean to brag, but I think we made a great choice...

So a couple weekends ago when the weather was lovely, we bundled up on a Sunday morning and headed out to do a shoot with the winners, 'The Fat Tire Ballerinas'.  This is a group of girls who love fat tire bikes and head out in these cold Yukon winters year after year.

These are exactly the types of shoots we love here at GBP...getting a group of hilarious people together, all coming from different backgrounds, careers, etc. over their crazy love of something...in this case, a sport where you get decked out in full gear, and then go ripping down a slippery, snow covered hill on two wheels....these ladies were both badass, and awesome in every way!

So thanks again to all of the Fat Tire Ballerinas who made their way out on an early (for some of them, TOO early) shoot and who have now left us both scheming how we can get our hands on a pair of those bikes...it looks too rad to pass up...

Maternity shoot complete with puppies! GBP Yukon Photographer

It's been a while since we posted some maternity shots, so when we heard the awesome news that one of our recent clients had their baby boy, we thought it would be a great way to celebrate by sharing some of their maternity shots with you guys!

One of the things we liked best about these guys (other than the fact they were just super awesome people) was the fact that they really brought the whole family over for the shoot...and if you know us and our newfie Bill Murray, you know we loooove fur children.

So congrats to Ammanda and Ben on the newest member of the family! Can't wait to meet him...

Headless Owl Records Video: Behind the Scenes

Before the holidays, we had recently released our first music video for Headless Owl Records featuring Kyle Cashen...Ever since we've been meaning to do a quick behind the scenes post for you so you can get a better idea of what we did to make the video happen...

Turns out today's the day...

This was a wicked project for us as we got to collaborate with some of our favorite people: Andrew Stratis and Kyle Cashen of Headless Owl Records, and sound magician (technical term) Jordy Walker who recorded and mixed the track.  Having worked with these guys on various projects over the years, it's super rad for us to see how much everyone has expanded their talents and their expertise over time...there was also coffee, food, and tons of terrible jokes flying around so all in all it was a good work day.

Often a music video is created by playing the pre-recorded, studio produced song out loud and having the musicians play along with it.  Headless Owl wanted to do something a bit different.  They wanted to have that 'live' feel to this release and so actually wanted to record the song right there in the location during the shoot.

In order to do this, we set  up the first shot in terms of camera angle, etc. and then Kyle ran through and played the song a couple times until he and Jordy were happy with the audio.

We then played that live audio back in the more traditional video sense with him playing along to it so that we could have a few more angles to play with in the editing of the video.

All in all, it was a full day of shooting/recording, but the process had really just begun...

Jordy Walker then takes the audio back to his studio and fine tunes it, and then outputs the final audio file to us.

At this point, we get into editing mode which is the forgotten, but oh so important role of both photography and video...and video has a whole other realm of software/processing techniques separate from the photography world.

The audio gives us a baseline to start aligning our video to, by cutting in the different angles to create a flow, as well as tweak colour, ensure timing is matched, etc.

In the process of all this, rough cuts are sent around to the various parties involved to ensure all of our visions and expectations are met.  These projects are always a truly collaborative effort as it takes a variety of very specific skills to make it all come together.  And let's get serious, with this particular group of crazy perfectionists, a few drafts did float back and fourth...

But we think, in the end, it was worth it.

SO, hope you guys enjoyed the video, and we're stoked because we have many more video projects coming up in this new year...

Again, big thanks to all involved and to see more from everyone check out their links below:

Produced by Headless Owl Records
http://headlessowl.com

Written and Performed by Kyle Cashen

Sound Recorded and Mixed by Jordy Walker
http://www.jordywalkermusic.com

Kyle Cashen - Think it Over from Headless Owl Records on Vimeo.

GBP's Faves of 2012

It's the last day of 2012...so we decided to round up a few of our faves from the year!  Turns out that's a really hard task, and we both have different favourites, so there's a bit more than expected, and even at that, I know we missed some...

BUT here's what we've got...looking forward to 2013 and HUGE thanks to all of our clients, family and friends who support us in doing what we love to do...you guys = the best.

Yukon Music: The Lore

This past Saturday night we had the pleasure of covering a CD release concert for local Yukon musicians The Lore.

This was the third time we've worked with The Lore, made up of Lauren Tuck and Kelvin Smoler as we did a promo shoot for them this summer, followed by a conceptual shoot for the cover art on their new album, and now this live show.

We've gotta say, that the conceptual shoot we did with them for their album art is some of our favorite work of the year...we had a great team working with us which makes things go all that much more smoothly: Katelyn Smolne was the hair stylist and Akiko Allen was our makeup artist, both incredibly talented ladies at what they do!  It also just so happens that  Lauren and Kelvin are always incredible to work with. Talk about two people who put everything they've got into their projects...and the show on Saturday night was a perfect example of that.

SO, we figured, in celebration of their CD release we'd release some of the images from their Emergence shoot with all of you! BIG thanks to the Takhini Hot Springs for allowing us to use their great facility for the shoot...i'm sure Lauren and Kelvin were both very grateful for being in some beautiful hot springs vs. an icy Yukon river for this one!

And if you haven't yet, check out The Lore and grab their digital download here:
http://kelvinmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-lore-emergence 

Yukon Music: Boyd Benjamin

2012 has been quite the year for us in terms of working with musicians, which has been something we've always loved to do.

We've worked with artists covering the genres of Hip-hop, rock, indie,  Fiddle music, and even collaborated with Yukon's newest record label, Headless Owl Records, over the past 12 months and we're already planning more music projects well into 2013!

So on that note, we thought it was time to feature some shots we did with the amazingly humble and talented Boyd Benjamin...

Boyd was fantastic to work with, as we're finding most of the Yukon musicians we work with are, and we were stoked to be able to help him really blend both traditional and modern looks into his shoot...

Looking forward to working with you more over the years Boyd!

In the studio: Family/Maternity Shoots

Alright, so the weather got a little crazy there for a while... -35 can be a bit trying, but we do live in the Yukon after all, so we're not complaining....and really, it just gives us even more excuses to do some work in the studio, where it's warm and coffee is always a flowin'...

So here's a few shots of one of our recent family shoots we did here in the GBP studio.  Matt and Michelle's adorable little guy (come on look at those baby blues!) is about to turn two and as you'll see, he's also got a little brother or sister coming along as well!

The beauty of working in studio with kids is that it gives them a good chance/space to get comfortable and just start to play and let their energy and personalities really show, which is our favorite part of working with these little guys.

So, hope you enjoy, and if you're ever looking for us during the next cold snap, you know where we'll be...