Product Photography, Yukon Styles!

January 05, 2015

Guys, we've discovered your next pair of boots...

We worked with the fine folks at Wayfare Woollens for both a model shoot, and a product shoot for their line of boots last month, and Brianne may or may not have left with a pair on her feet.

Our models were absolute troopers-willing to stand outside on a very cold day with us, but at least we knew their feet were warm! We did a number of different scenes throughout the day, and then finished off back at our studio to do the product shots.

If you want to check out some of their items (and we highly recommend them), go to: http://www.wayfarewoollens.com

That's a wrap! The Best of GBP in 2014!

January 01, 2015

Well 2014 has officially come to an end, so we thought it was only appropriate to jump on the "Year in Review" bandwagon, and share some of our favourite images and videos from the past 12 months!

It's always sweet looking back, as it was a crazy busy and diverse year for us work-wise, and it seems like forever ago that some of these projects even happened.

We hope everyone had a safe and awesome new years celebration last night-whether that was hitting the dance floor hard, or binge watching Netflix and going to bed by 9:00...2015 has some exciting projects on the go already for us and we can't wait to have you along for the ride!

Photos

Video

'Love Actually' gets me every time....

December 23, 2014

Full disclosure: We watched Love Actually last night (for like the 20th time) and I cried a total of 3 times. (this is Bri talking...thought I should clarify that)

Why am I confessing this you ask? Well friends, it's because i'm a sucker for feel-good stories, and i'm not afraid to admit it. And because anyone who knows me, knows that I am physically incapable of holding back my tears. (I've also cried while watching Sons of Anarchy this week, which for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of watching the biker gang drama series, it's a very different storyline than our beloved Love Actually)....But what can I say? I'm an emotional creature.

And what the hell does this have to do with our photography you ask? Well, because i'm a sucker for feel-good stories, it's no surprise that one of my favourite types of shoots we get to do are engagements.

Hence we wanted to share one of our most recent sessions we did with Liz and Mike! Although they aren't in a biker gang, they do love motorcycles...

Congrats guys!

Green Needle Records

November 27, 2014

We've been working with a lot of local businesses over the past few months, getting shots of both the employees at work, and the spaces themselves.

Green Needle Records was one of our favourite spots, because a) Jim Holland, the owner is the best, and b) his new space is unreal!

We actually shot our very first video at Green Needle Records when it was first being built! This little ditty of Kyle Cashen, recorded and mixed by Jordy Walker! It's amazing to go into the space now and see how far it's come! (Also, hilarious to look back on our very first video, including our old logo)

Needless to say, Green Needle is an incredible space for both local musicians, and artists from outside to come and do a yukon retreat to write and record albums.

So artists, if you're looking for a space, check out http://greenneedlerecords.com

It's Business Time!

November 21, 2014

It's no secret that we love where we live, and that a lot of that has to do with the awesome community we are surrounded by here. One of those communities we are really proud to be a part of ourselves, is the local business community. We have an incredible group of talented, hardworking entrepreneurs in the Yukon, so when we were asked to specifically do some work with some of the local Whitehorse women in business for the most recent issue of Yukon North of Ordinary Magazine, we were stoked!

Whether you're looking for new, eco-friendly clothes, want to get lost in a sea of unique home decor and gift ideas, want to finally learn to love yoga (Jess, I am forever grateful for you teaching me how awesome it can be) or you want to sample some delicious food and drinks in style, you'll never be bored if you visit these yukon businesses.

SO, if you haven't already, check them out!

Jess Read-Breath of Life

Christine and Katja-The Cork N' Bull

Ciara and Lorraine Stick-Climate Clothing

Jen Williams-The Collective good

Baby Bennett

September 24, 2014

Every now and then we get requests to do some very special shoots, and this was one of our most important to date.

Whitney contacted us to see if we were available to do a maternity shoot with her and her daughter in the last few weeks of her pregnancy. They had recently lost her husband, Tanner, in a tragic event, and she really wanted to be sure to capture some memorable images before the baby arrived as a Tribute to Tanner, of not only her belly, but of them interacting with some of his most prized items.

We were so honoured to have been asked to do this shoot, and were so ecstatic to receive an email yesterday from Whitney introducing us to her beautiful new baby Bennett, named after Bennett Lake, the closest to where Tanner got his first and last Dall Ram.

Whitney, we wish you and your two beautiful girls all the best, and we are truly honoured to have been asked to do this shoot for you.

The 'Always a good choice' Cake Smash

September 07, 2014

So...there's this trend in family photography over the past few years called the cake smash...

What you do, is you take a one-year old, or really, whatever age child you've got, and you put a beautiful, colourful cake in front of them. And then you wait...

You see, most kids at this age, probably haven't exactly delved into the world of delicious, icing covered deserts yet. So when they finally get the courage to stick their tiny little finger into the sweet, sweet, icing, and taste a bite, you can literally see in their eyes, a flash of pure joy. For this is the moment, my friends, when they realize they've tasted the best.thing.ever. AND their parents are letting them do it!!!

Now, you simply sit back, and capture the next 5-10 minutes of cake smooshing, icing devouring good times, and get some pretty sweet memories to embarrass them with at their high school graduation ceremony.

So, really it's a win win...And now I want some cake...

If an artist goes into the forest...

August 06, 2014

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

Dawson City - Lightroom Magic

July 21, 2014 in How To, Tips

Hello friends! Gary here,

Well the morning started out a bit rainy, so we thought it'd be a perfect day to talk about some indoor stuff.... like photo processing!

Ok, so if you have taken our Lightroom work shop you will know that we do about 90% of all our image processing in Adobe Lightroom 5. We do all of our ingesting, keywording, tagging, colour tweaks, spot removal, and even use it to build photobooks for our clients.

In other words, Light room is the sh*t!

SO, I wanted to show you a bit of before and after action of this image from Dawson City, Yukon we took in the beginning of the summer for our stock library.

Out of camera image, no lightroom adjustments..... blah, flat, laaame!

Well how did we do that? Below are the the adjustments we did!

Increase Temp - I like my images to be a bit on the warm side
Decreased Exposure - image was too bright
Increased Contrast - to make highlights brighter, and shadows darker
Increased White - One of my fav tricks to brighten the brighter parts of the image
Increase Clarity - Love clarity, it adds sweet mid-tone contrast/sharpening
Decrease Vibrance - I like to drop the vibrance of the colour in all of my images

Green Hue - I upped this a bit to warm up just the green tones in the image
Green Luminance - I increased this a bit to make the green tones a bit brighter, to help them radiate a bit
Blue Luminance - I think I just forgot to make it zero.... oops.

I just added a bit of sharpening and a bit of noise reduction to smooth things out a bit.

Graduated Filter - These brush tools are the most powerful of the magic of Lightroom:

Ok its hard to see but I made a selection of just the sky area:

Increased Temp - to warm up sky even more
Increased Contrast
Decreased Highlights - to try to bring back some of my over exposed sky :(
Increased Clarity - Love Clarity!
Increased Saturation - Add a bit more colour to the sky area.

And finally I did another Graduated Filter selection of the lower part of the image:

Increased Clarity - Love Clarity :)

And there you have it! Let me know if you have any questions in the space below and we'll happily reply!

Firefighters,Puppies and kittens...need we say more?

July 17, 2014

Alright, so it's official! We have teamed up with the Whitehorse Firefighters Association and Mae Bachur Animal Shelter to create a 2015 Calendar and the official shoot is happening today!!

Now, the good news is that there is still time for you to be a part of this sweet project!

We still need corporate sponsorship in order to ensure all production costs of the calendar are covered, so that way, 100% of the proceeds from calendar sales can go directly to helping keeping animals safe and healthy through the Mae Bachur Animal Shelter.

We've even got this handy dandy little info-graphic to help explain how it is all going down:

Now, we've only got a few sponsorship spots left, so if you, or someone you know has a business that fits the following criteria, you should give us a call:

1) You love puppies and/or kittens and want to help keep them safe and healthy

2) You love firefighters

3) You love helping out your community

4) You are like Scrooge McDuck and are swimming in a pile of gold coins that you just need to get rid of

And just a little sneak peak at the types of photos we're creating today: